Romans chapter 12, one more time this week, verses 1 and 2, please, as we've been considering the last two weeks. The Apostle wrote, I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual or reasonable, rational 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. Let's pray together. Father, as we come one more time to look at these verses, we thank you for the riches of your Word. Some people choose verses as their life verse, Father. And it really is true that even one verse of Your Word fully understood, fully applied, fully believed and lived can transform dramatically. So, we pray that You'd use Your whole Word in our lives that way. And that today, as we look at what your servant Paul wrote once again, that you would help us to believe, not just to know about, but to truly know as you intend for us to know, as we have been known by you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We've looked at five aspects of what it means to be a normal disciple, a true disciple of the Lord Jesus. And so we come this morning to that part of our consideration of this teaching to the question, can you really do this? And I think probably most of you know the answer to that. One answer is, of course not, if there's anything of confidence in oneself. But I want to take a few minutes to survey that thought this morning because I think there are challenges for us that we need to consider. I want you to think for a few moments about the impossibility of the task that you have to live as a disciple of the Lord Jesus. It really is too big a task for you or me to take on. And that's exactly where you and I sometimes get off track. I think it is very easy for us to fail to take seriously the size of the calling to which God has called us. One of the things that you do sometimes, some of you, is you look around and see how others are living. And you measure your progress in the faith by what you see other professed Christians doing. And if you're doing a little better than they are, that feels good. And if maybe you're not doing quite as well, you think, well, I better try a little harder. Or maybe we simply let sin and temptation hold on to us and have their way. Maybe we know very well that there are things going on in our lives that ought not to be going on, but a certain amount of it we excuse. We don't expect anything different because, after all, There aren't very many people around us, even in our church, that look all that different from me, we think. We make excuses about how it must be uniquely difficult for me to be what God has called me to be. because of some factor in the past, or something about my own particular personality, or something about the circumstances that God has me in that makes it harder for me to do what he says. And so, we excuse a failure to be transformed. What I fear we often do is whittle God's call down something smaller than it is. And then we approach that call as if it's something that we can do ourselves. But in fact, the calling is huge. Present your bodies as a living sacrifice to God. Moved by God's mercy. Every part of you and me is to be offered to God. There is not a part that we reserve for our own private satisfaction and preference. That's a gigantic calling, people of God. It is overwhelmingly big if we really understand what the Word says. It's not just that we conform to the accepted patterns of a handful of Christians around us. It's not just that we say things the right way and have the right system of doctrine to profess before other people. It's that we actually live as Christ in this world, but not of this world. not withdrawn from it in order to hide or protect ourselves, but actually engaged in the life of this world and all of the different kinds of people around us. and with our minds fully engaged, not simply going through motions, not simply fitting in and blending in with the Christian community in which we're in, but with our minds actively engaged in the things of God so that we are learning to think Christianly, pursuing God's will from the heart. working at it in practical situations, learning what it is that God would have us be and do, discerning His purposes for us, pursuing them because they are excellent. Can you do this? No, you cannot. The true size of God's call to you to be disciples of the Lord Jesus should drive you to prayer and deeper trust in the Savior. And I think we know that. And still, we do not do it. Still, we find time for our amusements and hobbies and affections. and little time to pursue the knowledge of the living God. How long will we fool ourselves into thinking that somehow that's actually true Christianity? How long will we deceive ourselves if that's the approach we take into thinking, it's really okay. God can't expect much more of me than what I'm already giving. But you see, we reduce the call of God to a much smaller thing than it actually is according to his word. And then it's much easier to trust oneself to do what you've defined that call to be. It's much easier to depend on your own efforts. So, we need to guard against various forms of self-trust. Maybe that seems like a no-brainer. We don't trust ourselves. In God we trust. But self-trust comes in a variety of subtle forms, brothers and sisters. Not just in the blatant form, I trust my own works to get to heaven. We know that's wrong. But there are far subtler forms. Reformed people. In my experience of myself, I would confess first, but also in my experience of others. Reformed people often have trouble at this point. Doctrinally, we know we must only trust God and not self. Practically, we often trust our intellect or our learning. We feel superior to others over what we know of God's Word in many cases. We trust our system of doctrine or our heritage. Many of us can quote things we memorize, some of us in our youth. We know the catechism or the confession. We've read these things and have a sense that there's a big system there that really encompasses a great deal of what the Bible teaches. But there creeps in a measure of pride over the possessing of such a system. We're pleased with ourselves that our doctrine is better than so many other churches. We are tempted to trust our ability to express things clearly or to see the flaws in the ways others do things. We're even pleased with our ability to organize things and to keep everything in good order, if not in our kitchen cabinet drawers, at least in our mental accounting of truth. To the degree that we trust any of these things, It is a form of self-trust. For when we trust the gifts that God has given, we are not actually trusting God. That may seem like a curious distinction, but I believe it is a true one. If you trust the good gifts God has given, You are not actually trusting God. This matter of trusting God is a deeply personal thing. I don't mean that in the sense that I grew up with in a different branch of Christianity. I don't mean it in the sense of it's so personal that we don't talk about it, that it's just between us and God and very private. I mean it's a deeply personal thing in the sense that we actually need to connect with the person of the living God. If we begin to put our trust in the fact that we hold to the Westminster Confession of Faith and catechisms, or some other summary of wonderful doctrine of scriptures, if we've been raised in those things, or know them well, or even if we just know parts of them, but we recognize the superiority of that system to many other systems, and we agree, which I would hope many of you would agree, That it really is a system that sets out the truth of God's Word. Please don't misunderstand anything I'm saying this morning, folks. It's not that I think we ought not to have a system of doctrine or a confession of faith. It's that I want to be sure that we're not trusting those things. And I'm saying this to you because it's my experience in my own life and in observing many other people over decades that there is a tendency among our kind of Christian to put trust in those things. And then to develop a sort of pride over how good our system is and how much we understand and how learned we are. There is an absurdity to trusting self that I think we often miss. There is an absurdity to trusting our intellects. Do you have any sense of how puny our minds are compared to God's? Do you have a sense of how small your grasp is of truth? compared to all the riches of the Word of God, we ought to have that sense. In fact, if we've understood the Reformed faith at all, we really ought to be the most humble of all people on the face of the earth. For it is a humbling set of doctrines to be told that there's nothing that you do to bring you to God. That He opens your heart and mind and gives light where there was darkness and life where there was death. That He alone, supernaturally, works changes in human beings so that they come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is deeply humbling. And for any of us To grow proud over that. Why, that's evidence of a very restricted understanding, if any understanding at all, of that Good News. God's had mercy on you, dear people. He's taught you wonderful things from His Word. How humbled we should be by that. And yet, we are so prone to put our trust in our own knowledge, our own superiority to others and their systems. We're so prone to think that we understand things so well. And I fear we do not understand things so well. Unless we come to the place of saying, I have not known as I've been known. I do not know now as God knows me. I don't even know myself the way I ought to know myself. You're the only person in the world, the Scriptures say, 1 Corinthians 2, we may get to that later on. You're the only person in the world that knows your own mind. And quite honestly, I am regularly startled in pastoral ministry, but also in reflecting on myself. I am regularly startled by how little we understand our own selves. We don't grasp what's going on even in our own hearts. We find ourselves in turmoil so often in the course of life. Why is that? Well, I think it's largely because we don't even understand me. And yet, we could begin to be puffed up with pride. We must watch out for self-trust, dear people. We are prone to it. We are prone to it naturally. But self will never be able to live up to God's standards for the normal disciple. So, beware of the root sin of pride. In one way or another, it is pride that leads to self-trust. We either lower God's standards, what audacity, or we think we can attain them as they are. What arrogance. Interestingly, glance at the text for a moment. If you're looking at the bulletin cover, it only has two verses, and it's verse 3 that I want to call your attention to. After these powerful opening verses, not only of chapter 12, but of the second major division of the epistle, which runs through to the end of Paul's letter to the Roman church. After the opening appeal of verses 1 and 2, notice what proceeds. Well, Paul begins to discuss the use of gifts within the body. And that is introduced by another exhortation. For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. It's risky business to be so convinced that you're right and everyone else is wrong. And it may even be riskier business to be so convinced that you're right and then go find the one person you're sure agrees with you and then think the two of you should stand against the whole world. I don't think there have been too many people in the entire history of the New Testament era who knew something so well, so much better than everyone else around them, that they should stand when everyone else disagreed. We sang a Martin Luther hymn this morning. We've been using his smaller catechism for a few weeks now, trying to understand the Lord's Prayer better. Even Luther didn't stand alone. There were many who saw doctrine as he saw it, though not those who were in power for the most part. Well, look. Can you really do this thing of living the normal disciple's life? No. Not if your confidence is actually in yourself. But by grace, you truly can live as disciples. The mercies of God really are great. And I want in our remaining time this morning to speak with you about two key thoughts from this letter to the Romans. We need to go back to chapter 5, as I suggested to those of you who were here last week. Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8 lay a background, a foundation for living such a life of true discipleship. Now, chapter five has that passage that many of us, I think, would almost like to skip over when we're reading through Romans. That portion about Adam and being in Adam and the effects of being in Adam and some of the language there seems quite perplexing. And death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come." And once we've read a sentence or two like that, our heads are starting to spin and we're wondering what in the world the apostle was talking about. Well, let me give you the big picture. Paul has been talking about the work of Christ that brings us justification, not through our works, but through his. So that we have peace with God because we have been justified by faith alone. And that peace is through our Lord Jesus Christ. And so because we have peace, we have hope, Paul wrote of in the beginning of Romans chapter 5. Let me make clear to you what we're doing here for these next 15 minutes. We're going to survey Romans 5, 6, and the first half of 8. We don't have time for much in chapter 7 or the rest of chapter 8, but we're going to survey those two and a half chapters rather quickly in order to see two great doctrinal themes of the Apostle Paul's teaching. Those two themes have to do with the riches of God's mercy to us as redeemed people. They are that we are in union with Christ and that we are indwelt by his spirit. On the basis of those two key instructions of the Apostle Paul, I can say to you confidently, God has provided for us what we need in order to live the life of true disciples that we've been looking at for the last 90 minutes worth of sermons over two and a half weeks in Romans 12, 1 and 2. If we actually grasp these doctrines, not just intellectually comprehend but actually lay hold of them and put them into practice by faith day to day, we will grow to be more like Christ. For God has not left us in a state of helplessness and hopelessness with regard to the struggle with sin. He has not abandoned us to discouragement and vain struggle And those who believe that are believing a lie. It is not what the Word of God says. In fact, God has provided for us richly so that laying hold of the things that He has given us freely in Christ, we can actually be more and more transformed by the renewing of our minds. The exhortation of Romans 12, 1 and 2 is not empty language, dear people. It's the very truth of God. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds. Romans chapter 5, having spoken then of that hope, Paul began to write of the contrast between being in Christ and in Adam. And the truth is that by nature, all of us are in Adam. The whole world is in Adam. And the funny thing to me, ironic really, not funny, is that when people deny the existence of Adam and of original sin and think, oh, that's just foolishness, they are actually expressing the reality that they're in Adam. For they are rebelling against the very God who made them and who declares that they are in Adam, fallen in him, stained with sin, and naturally in rebellion against God. So the very profession of freedom from Adam and this doctrine of original sin is itself an expression of that doctrine. That's ironic, isn't it? But what Paul is talking about is that this great hope that we have for life and eternity comes because God broke through that in Adam condition and united us to Christ. So that we're no longer in Adam, dead in sin, but we're in Christ, died to sin. and alive to God. He develops that thought further as you come to Romans 6. A reminder, people of God, don't let chapter divisions destroy the continuity of what the writers say in Scripture. The chapter divisions were not there in the original. They are helpful for finding our way around, but they sometimes are detrimental to seeing the flow of the writer's thinking. Chapter 6 flows out of Chapter 5. The Apostle continues to speak about the matter of being united to Christ by faith. And so let's look at some of that. The doctrine of union with one who acts as your representative head is the theme of the last half of Chapter 5. That leads into the discussion of being dead to sin and alive to God in Christ in chapter 6. I'm going to read the first 11 verses of Romans 6. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it? Now Paul anticipates that there will be a bit of a question. What do you mean died to sin? I don't feel dead to sin. I still have a battle with sin. And so he goes on. Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried, therefore, with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His." Now, again, what's he talking about? Why, he's saying that when we come to Christ, the effect of that for day-to-day living is that the death that Jesus died not only counts in our place as taking our punishment, But it counts as our death to sin. Not just counts as it, but it actually is our death to the ruling, controlling power of sin. Do we still sin? Yes. Is there still sin in our members? Yes. Are we under the domination of that sin? Well, only if we refuse to believe what God says plainly in His Word. For what He says is, when you are in Christ, you have been united to Him in His death. Now listen to what Paul says as a result of that union. Verse 6, We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we also will live with Him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life he lives, he lives to God. Now catch the conclusion. It's not the last word he says, but he draws a conclusion from that whole series of statements. Verse 11, so you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. And that phrase, in Christ Jesus, harks back To the very words with which the chapter began, verse 3, do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Which harks back in turn to the last half of chapter 5. You're not in Adam if you've trusted Jesus. You're in him. You've been united to him. He is your representative head. He has gone the way before you, but He's leading you along the path that He traveled. You're no longer on the path of sin and death leading down to hell. You are on the path of life. And Christ is your head. He's won the victory. He's gone before. And in Him, you died to sin. And in Him, that is in union with Him, you've been raised to life. The language of verse 4 is just stupendous. We were buried with Him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, We, too, might walk in newness of life. Now, you see, Paul uses a phrase there. The details are beautiful, and sometimes I get into the details and maybe I've lost some of you. There's a way of putting a statement together. We do it in English as well. Just as such and such, even so, such and such. Just as the parents have brown eyes, even so the children are going to have brown eyes. You know that one follows from the other. Of course, it doesn't necessarily in that case because there could be light eyes in the genealogical background. those genes could come together, but if the whole family has had brown eyes, brown eyes are dominant over light eyes, and for sure those children are going to have brown eyes, because there's no gene in their background to produce light eyes. Okay? Just as even so. Paul uses that construction here. Just as you were baptized, And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so, but then he doesn't say, we too were raised from the dead. You'd expect the exact same expression. I'm not doing very well with this. I wish I could explain it better. It took me about a 10-page paper to do it in seminary. Romans 6-4 was the first text I wrote a paper in in a New Testament course. And I considered 50 other examples of the use of this Greek construction in the New Testament. And every time, just as such and such, even so, and the words were virtually identical in the second half of the statement, except here in Romans 6. But the fact is that the way the construction works, it means that the second half is identical to the first half. just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. Paul could have written, even so you too were raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. But that's not what he writes. What he writes is something intensely practical for every one of his readers. Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we too might walk in newness of life. You see, union with Christ is not only the key to our justification, to our being declared righteous in God's sight because of the righteousness of Christ reckoned to us. An alien righteousness, the older writers used to call it. A righteousness from outside ourselves. But union with Christ is not only the key to justification, it's the key to sanctification. so that having been joined to Christ by faith, you died to the reigning power of sin in your life. Sin is still there. Yes. There are still struggles. Yes. Temptation can press you hard. Yes. And as a matter of fact, many of us, all of us, have patterns of behavior which make it seem as if we really are in bondage to sin and cannot possibly break free. But that's the ruse. That's the lie. That's the deception, my friends. God doesn't say, you're really bound in sin, but I call you to be righteous anyway, and you just live with the frustration. God says, I've united you with my Son. You are in union with Him. He is your head. And because of that relationship, you actually are, not just theoretically, but really, you are dead to the ruling, dominating power of sin. And you are alive to God in Christ Jesus. You've been united to Him in His death and in His resurrection. And that's why He can talk about walking in newness of life. That's why He can talk about doing things that are utterly contrary to your personality and the pattern of your life and the sin that's dominated you for decades. That's why you really can break free of things that seem to absolutely control you. The simple reason is that you can live by faith. When you're confronted with your own sinfulness, you don't say, I've got to try harder. I better read my Bible more. Although reading might be a very good thing for you. But what you say is, my Lord Jesus, You died in my place and your word says that means I died with you. Your death is my death. And as surely as you died to this realm of sin and to its power over you, not making him a sinner, but its power over him, that brought him under condemnation as he stood in our place, as surely, Lord Jesus, as you died to this realm of sin and rose victorious over sin and death, just as surely I have died with you. And I am no longer under the power of sin. in the sense that I'd like to believe it, because if that were true, then I'd have an excuse for continuing the way I am. Then there'd be a reason why I don't make any progress in dealing with this sin struggle. If I'm really bound, and there is no death to sin and rising to life, then I'll just continue as I am. and make my apologies periodically for the way I behave, but really deep down believe I can't do any better. You see, it's an issue of unbelief to live that way. The Scriptures tell us plainly, we died with Christ, we were raised with him, that just as Christ was raised, even so, we might walk in newness of life. And from day to day, we simply choose not to believe it. We believe what seems more real to us based on our own experiences in life and what actually leaves us thinking We're better off because then I can't be held accountable for such radical transformation. But what, in fact, leaves us far more miserable than we've ever begun to understand. For if this life is only an enduring of impossible demands, If this life is only the struggle, this Sisyphusian struggle, you remember that myth? The guy that had to push the rock up the hill and he'd almost get it to the top and then boom, the rock would roll back down and he'd be back down the bottom of the hill. Pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing, but never getting there. Those of you who are given the philosophy, that's where the existentialists see us. That's what life amounts to. This horrible struggle that you can't possibly overcome. That's not Christianity. And it's a shame that many professing Christians live more like existentialists than like Christians. For they believe the utter hopelessness of our calling to be like God. That's simply not Christian, brothers and sisters. That's not a Christian way to think. The Bible says something very different to us. It says we've been united with Christ. United in His death. United in His resurrection. Actually believing what God says about union in death and resurrection is crucial to living as a true disciple. And that brings us to the second key teaching of this letter. In this regard, I'm going to continue, even though it's 12 minutes to 11, because I just can't bear the thought that one sermon could actually take me four weeks to preach. No, because I think we need to hear it. Fast forward to Romans chapter 8. Now the first verse is familiar to many of you. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Marvelous verse. Memorize it. Remember it. Use it. But please try not to take it out of context. Because it is not an isolated statement about our absence of condemnation. It's part of the flow of Paul's argument. And that's an argument that has to do with the daily life benefit of being in union with Christ. You see, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. It's still the theme of union with Christ. that's on the Apostle's mind when he comes to chapter 8. The benefit then of being in union, aside from the negative, there is now no condemnation, here's the positive. For the law, that is the ruling principle of the spirit of life, has set you free in Christ Jesus from the ruling principle of sin and death. Now catch where Paul goes with that. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. You see, it's not response to law that makes you different. It's the operation of grace that makes you different. That doesn't make the law of God irrelevant or meaningless. Listen to what the fourth verse says. Continuing with verse three. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh – catch this – in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. The result of having the Spirit of Christ be the ruling principle in your life is that the righteous requirements of the law are being fulfilled in you. Notice, that's a very important distinction of words. Paul is not talking here about obedience to the law on Christ's part. being for you. That's true, too. Jesus obeyed the law in our place perfectly so that his righteousness stands before God to justify us before the throne. But Paul's not writing here about the righteousness of Christ reckoned as ours for justification. He's writing about the just requirements, the righteous requirements of the law being fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. He's talking about that transformation of the heart that the old prophets had written about. Jeremiah 31, Ezekiel 36. The promise of the New Covenant was that God would make new hearts on which He would write His law. You see, what Paul's writing about is the fulfillment of those promises. The fulfillment comes when the Holy Spirit works in our hearts, makes us new, and then transforms them by the writing of the law, not on tablets of stone external to us, but on hearts of flesh. Now, you see, These two great doctrines of this epistle, union with Christ in his death and resurrection, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which comes about as a result of our being united to Christ by faith. These two great doctrines are the basis, not only for the hope of eternal life with God in heaven, they are the basis of hope for progress in this life. Progress in holiness. And the great problem that I've found in my own life and in the lives of others to whom I've ministered is this. We don't make use of these marvelous truths of the Scriptures. We do not, when confronted with temptation, or when we recognize the sin of pride and arrogance, or judgmentalism, or harshness, or the spirit of superiority, or the lusting that's down inside us, or the coveting of other things, or the delight in material possessions, as if they're our God and can satisfy our wants and needs. We do not, when we find these things in us, look to our union with Christ, to his great work on our behalf, nor do we look to the Holy Spirit to conform us to the righteous requirements of the law. Too often, we just try harder. We shoot a little prayer off, Oh, Lord, help me. Well, that's good. It's better to pray than to not pray. But we do not exercise faith with regard to what is really core, fundamental teaching of the New Testament. The call to holiness always follows the declaration of the richness of what God has done for us. And I'm telling you what God has done for us. He's united us to Christ so that we're dead to sin and alive to Him. He's poured out His Holy Spirit in our hearts so that we might walk in the power of the Holy Spirit, doing things that we'd have never thought possible. And by that, of course, I am not talking about miracles. I'm not saying any of us are going to have the gift to lay hands on somebody and heal them or speak in other languages. Though on my way to Mexico, I might wish that gift were given. But what I'm saying is this marvelous gift has been given of living united to Christ day by day. It's an intensely practical thing, and just so you don't get discouraged, let me tell you honestly, I blew it yesterday. I didn't look to Christ for grace. To deal with a difficult situation. And I think I could probably go back through every day of this past week and find the same thing happened. But what a marvelous gift God has given to us in His Son. And we can hear the words. But unless we believe them, we will likely not make much progress. in this Christian life. But if we believe them in that practical day-to-day sense, then imagine the powerful things God could do through us. The breaking of life-dominating sins that have held you maybe for decades at this point in your life. The casting aside of bondage that doesn't need to be. Because Christ has loved you so that He gave Himself for you in order to make you like Himself forever. The joy of knowing that the Spirit of Jesus lives in you and is making you a new man or woman or boy or girl. the power to walk in the midst of an ungodly world and not have to run away from it in order to avoid being conformed to it, but to be able to walk in the midst of it and live as a light for Christ. Followers of Christ are called to live a life that is as different from the world around them as day is from night. True discipleship is possible for those who live in union with Christ and who walk in the power of His indwelling Spirit. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank You that we can Hear Your Word and consider it. We pray that You would take us much further than our own mental abilities would carry us. That in fact, You would take us to deeper love for Your Son. Appreciation of His work. Obedience to His Word. joy and delight in the things of God, help us to give our lives as worship to You, because You have set us free in Christ. And if, Father, there are some here today who are really struggling with that, who haven't seen that kind of work of God in their hearts, how I pray, Father, that You would open their eyes that they might see Christ and lean on Him entirely. In Jesus' name we pray.