Hear now the word of our God from Romans chapter 12, the first two verses. I urge you therefore brethren by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God which is your spiritual service of worship and do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what the will of God is that which is good and acceptable and perfect. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God abides forever. You may be seated. You know, this whole thing started for me in a conversation I was having by these folks who disagree with me. And, uh, in this election year, I wanted to kind of dig a little deeper to dialogue, um, upon the word of God with my anarchistic libertarian on one side and my novice socialist on the other. And yet, it has proven to be a much more rich study to me than just the role of the civil government and authority. You know, in order to do that, I said, well, I've got to understand Romans 13, and then I figured, well, really, you can't understand 13 unless you understand the content of Romans 12. And you can't understand the content of Roman 12 unless you see the scope of the entire book of Romans. And the, because of the Jewishness of Paul, this, um, rabbi, you can't understand his message unless you understand his. roots in the prophetic utterance of the Old Testament. So that's why we studied Jeremiah 17 to kind of get a little snapshot of the victorious hope that they proclaimed even in the midst of captivity. And so now we come to this book of Romans as we narrow in on chapter 13. You know, Romans is an amazing thing. The first eight chapters give us probably the finest theological summary of what justification by faith alone is in Christ alone. And then this gospel that he is presenting of which he is not ashamed because he has this bold confidence that God is going to accomplish his redemptive purposes. He's going to do what he prophesied in the old Testament. He's going to do what the apostles are now are prophesying in your near future. He is going to accomplish his redemption of creation. And I am confident in that. And so he gives this after this theological explanation of, of the Messiah's role in justification, he boils it down and gives us three more chapters. And this is how the Jews are going to fit into this to these Roman Christians. Here's, here's what's going to happen to my people, Israel. And then the balance of it from 12 on, he gives the practical particulars of the believer's public social behavior. How we're supposed to act from motive to actual what to do in the balance of this book as God in this interim until God has finally accomplished all his redemptive purposes. And so this familiar passage that we just read about living sacrifices really gives us kind of the foundations, the motivations for our social behavior. And I say all this because it begins with God. Our social behavior is heavenly, not earthly. And I'm going to use some language in this sermon that's bizarre, not what you are customarily accustomed to hearing. And I'm doing that on purpose so that you will think. You know, if we hear things over and over and over the way the way we've always heard it, we just kind of go to sleep and we don't listen. So I'm hoping I challenge you to really kind of think through this. It won't be that hard. I'm sure most of this is easy. You know, you must never separate the Apostle Paul from his Jewishness. And though he was schooled in Western thought, his first impulse as he writes his books in the New Testament is thoroughly grounded in an Eastern Old Testament way of thinking. He is a rabbi. He is a prophet, a herald of the expanding kingdom of Christ, the Jewish Messiah. our Messiah. And with James, he will speak of things like the world, the flesh and the devil. And he will contrast them as that which is natural opposed to those things that are spiritual, those things that are earthly as opposed to those things that are heavenly. He will talk about the flesh as opposed to the spirit. And when he does these things, I don't want you to think of these as either or dualisms of Greek or Western thought that we're accustomed to thinking of them as. When he talks about these contrasting things, he's looking at this as a both and interplay of the created and the uncreated. Maybe I got that reversed. The uncreated God, With his creation and we particularly as his creatures, the heavenly with the earthly, or what I'm going to call the vertical with the horizontal. Now don't get lost in all this. We are talking about our social behavior. Amongst each other, this horizontal relationships that we have. that is, I believe now after the study, absolutely critical to the advancement of the redemptive purposes of God. This is how he is going to accomplish his will on the earth. This is how his kingdom comes. It comes in our social relationships, which I trust I'll unpack. Now, you know, this is nothing new to us. You know, we talk about the Ten Commandments. Our catechism tells us that our 10 commandments are given to us in two tables, right? No, give feedback here, folks. I'm like, okay, two tables. Okay, two tables. There is a vertical side to this about our relationship with God. What is our duty to God in the first four commandment? And what is our duty to our neighbor? The horizontal relationships that we have. You don't make me so nervous. Well, one of the things I want you to notice first about this vertical and horizontal is that the vertical relationship, the first four commandments are not in isolation of the horizontal. How is it that we worship God on the Sabbath day? We worship God in communion of an assembly of others, okay? So you kind of see shades of a horizontal relationship right in the midst of our vertical relationship with God. How is Jesus heard in the midst of his congregation? Oh, I just gave away. He is heard in the midst of his congregation. Okay. Now in our horizontal relationships, that is not an isolation either, but you see that it is always, that when you honor your mother and father horizontally, You have this vertical blessing from the Heavenly Father for long days and peace. And so Paul addresses social behavior. He presupposes this vertical and horizontal reality. Okay, you want an outline? Here it is. Point one, the vertical fuels, another obtuse word, the vertical fuels the horizontal. The vertical, second point, the vertical transforms the horizontal. And thirdly, the vertical limits and defines the horizontal. Okay, by vertical, I mean our relationship with God, our union with Christ, our regeneration and sanctification and fullness of the Holy Spirit. It is our relationship with the triune God of the Bible. God's redemptive purposes then are at the heart of the social behavior of the believer that we have with one another within the church, that we have in the greater society of humanity outside the church. And so our first point is the vertical fuels the horizontal. Now in this passage that we read here, the Apostle Paul begins with a very incongruous metaphor. He talks and commands us to become living sacrifices. Well, sacrifices are anything but living in his Jewish mind, right? They are consumed in their offering. Living sacrifices are only going to make sense in the reality of the risen Messiah. that he has just explained in the preceding eight chapters. Restating the Messiah, he says, unless the grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. and presupposing the Messiah that he is the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even if he dies and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. You see our lives bear kingdom fruit. You know, John 15 says, if you don't bear fruit, you're not alive. The kingdom is not within you. You need to be whacked off and burned in the fire. Our lives bear kingdom fruit, and this is our first priority. It is our priority above all our other priorities. It is our, be they family, be they calling, be they work and leisure, be they worship and fellowship. It is his kingdom that is our first priority. We learned in Sunday school that kingdom is the wisdom of our discernment. As we, as we live the Christian life, his kingdom is what we seek first. And we do it in accordance with his righteousness and God will take care of all the rest. present your bodies a living sacrifice, a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. The vertical fuels the horizontal. Our society with God. Okay, there's another Victorian statement. You know, we have society with one another, right? We have what we would say today, we have a relationship, okay? And our relationship with God fuels our society with others, be it our spouse, our children, our church, our church in the larger scheme of things, our church, beyond our denomination all the way out to the world. It is our society with God, our relationship with God that fuels that kind of redemptive fruit bearing in our personal relationships. You see, God created us social beings because guess who else is a social being? God himself is a social being within himself before he made anything. Can you imagine the son of God not being aware of his father at any point? This just would be absurd to consider that or the father to be cognizant and aware of his son or the spirit. Man being made in the image of God, he never intended man to be the solitary, sovereign individual of Western idealism. No bourgeois hyper-individualism in God's intentions for man. He created us to be in society with humanity and with him, just as he is in society with himself. But of course, we lost that society, didn't we? We lost it in the fall, but it is recovered in Christ. So for you as a believer, you are never alone. You know, when I first thought of this, it was a little bit freaky, but it's true. You know, you think of yourself as an individual. But even alone, you are not as a believer in Christ. Jesus, our high priest, prays for us and fuels his kingdom purposes in our horizontal social relationships. And it begins with our relationship with him individually. Catch the relationship in Jesus's high priestly prayer. He's praying to the father for you. As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world for their sake. I sanctify myself that they make themselves may also be sanctified in truth. I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those who also believe in me through their word that they may all be one. even as you father are in me and I in you that they also may be in us so that the world may believe that you sent me the glory which you have given me I have given them that they may be one just as we are one I in them and you in me that they may be perfected in unity so that the world may know that you sent me and love them even as you have loved me." Now we can't unpack all of the meaning in that text. I don't even think we could if we could, had the time to do that. But I want you to understand that even for Jesus, the vertical relationship that he had with his heavenly father fueled his relationships on the earth. In Jesus's prayer for us, we see that union with God through the son by his glorious spirit accomplishes a social redemptive purpose in informing creation of his truth and grace. The fruit of our union with him is what? What did it say? That the world may believe. That the world may know. Flowing out of our vertical society with God, His church reaches out horizontally to the rest of creation with gospel truth. Well, how does this happen? Second point, it happens because the vertical transforms the horizontal. The Holy Spirit's vertical work in our hearts transforms our perceptions and understanding of our horizontal relationships. You can't understand your spouse. You can't understand your children. You can't understand each other's within your local church. You can't understand the presbytery. You can't understand the church at large. You can't understand the world in which we have been sent out by Christ. The Holy Spirit job is to transform your heart and your perceptions. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the removing of your mind, that you may be able to approve what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. Now, as I was growing up as a young Christian back in the 70s, the modern translation of the day translated this verse, don't let the world press you into its mold. And true as that is, the word world there is not cosmos, creation, but the word eon, more accurately translated, don't let this age that we live in, There is an explicit eschatological meaning to this word, as is seen in all of the parallel passages that are in the New Testament. There is clearly two ages. this present age, the one that we are not to be conformed to, that is passing away, and the age which is to come, that is eternal, see vertical there, however you may understand that eternal truth, the age to come has truly come, but not completely come. The eternal is present with us today and yet distinct from this present age, though not yet consummated to its fullness. The transformation of our thinking from this present age to the renewed thinking of the age to come is the essence of thy kingdom come. This present evil age is spoken of in Ephesians and in First Corinthians. Ephesians says, and you were dead in your trespasses and sin in which you formerly walked according to the course, that's the word eon, the age of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them you two all formerly lived in the lust of our flesh Indulging in the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature children of wrath even as the rest You see we were all conformed to this present world But hallelujah, you see here the transforming power of the vertical over the horizontal. We formerly were dead walking in the course of this age with its lust, but now have been made alive in Christ. Born from above, as John 3 would call it. You see here all the elements of wisdom of the world that James calls earthly, natural, and demonic. Paul uses other words. He talks of lust, and flesh, and the prince of the power of the air. Same content looking for the wisdom of this world that we are not to be conformed to. Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature. Wisdom, however, not of this age, here's the word, nor the rulers of this age who are passing away, but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory, the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood, for if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Do you hear the eschatological tenor of this verse? You see the redemptive purposes of God being laid before. Had they understood the wisdom of God, they would not have in time and space put Jesus to death. That was the wisdom of this world in force, not the wisdom of God. The language drips of eschatological content. This age passing away, the new age of wisdom predestined to be revealed to us. Even Jesus reveals the key element of his redemptive plan by stating, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Your vertical relationship with Jesus will sustain your horizontal kingdom relationship until the consummation of the age. Now there is a reason that we should not be conformed to this age. It does have, this present evil age does have a consummation of its own, and it is not pleasant. Jesus interprets in his kingdom parable of the soils, he says, the one who sows the good seed is the son of man, and the field is the world, and as for the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom, and the tares are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil, You kind of hear shades of Prince of the Power of the Air, demonic that you hear when talking about, okay. And the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall the end of the age. So you see, those who follow the wisdom of this present evil age don't come to a good end in the end. Even closer to home, even those so-called Christians who have not fully embraced the age to come in their thinking are given terrible warnings. In Hebrews, I think that, yeah, Hebrews 6, for in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come and have fallen away. It is impossible to renew them again to repentance since they crucified to themselves the Son of God and put him to open shame. You want a specific? Demas, the fellow laborer of Paul, who was captured by this present evil age, for Demas having loved this present age, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Paul, the Jewish herald, of the Old Testament narrative gives us ample warning that these warnings are not for them, they are for us, right here at Chalcedon. Paul says in 1 Corinthians, nor let us try the Lord as some of them, that is those Old Testament people of God, and were destroyed by the serpents, nor grumble as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now these things happen to them as an example and they are written for our instructions upon whom the ends of the age have come. It is Christ's redemptive purpose to deliver us from this present evil age to participate in his redemptive plans through our horizontal relationships. Jesus gave himself for our sin so that he might rescue us from this present evil age according to the will of our God and father to whom be glory forever. Amen. In Ephesians 1 he goes on to say that heavenly spiritual transformation in accordance with the working of the strength of his might which he brought about in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in heavenly places far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named not only in this age that we presently live in, but that one which is to come that we presently live in as well. Paul gives us a second witness to Titus and a parallel summary of what is exhorting in Romans 12. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires, and to live sensibly. You'll see this picked up in the latter part of Romans 12. We won't get to today, next Sunday. To live sensibly, righteously, and godly in this present age. looking, eschatologically, for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus. You see, that is our hope that we are not ashamed of. That is the good news, the gospel. And it affects the way we interact with each other. The vertical transforms our horizontal, saving us, sanctifying us now, and securing the site of faith of our hope, which is the appearance of Jesus Christ. So thirdly, the vertical now limits, regulates the horizontal. Paul the rabbi reminds us here that the sacrifices of the older covenant were holy and acceptable to God. The lamb was set apart from the herd for three days and daily examined for imperfections, deformities in its outward appearance and inner health and any deformity would disqualify it from being acceptable to God. Well presenting ourselves as living sacrifices should also be accompanied by an examination of our heart with all its deformities and idolatries. Therefore the offering of our bodies is not in ourselves but in Christ who knew no sin on our behalf that we might be the righteousness of God in him. Only Jesus will make our offering holy and acceptable to God. The will of God, his law and providence, limit and regulate the horizontal social behavior of the believer. He says here, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good, acceptable, and perfect, or as the ESV translates this, that by testing, you may discern what the will of God is, what is good and acceptable and perfect, You know, I've got to give a plug now for the Sunday school class, because we talked about this discerningness of the will of God as the wisdom of God. And so if you're not in Michael's Sunday school class, and could be, you ought to be, it's rich. And he did not pay me anything to say that. To prove, in this instance, is not to test in order to find out whether the will of God is good or bad. It is not to examine, but to approve. By it is this meaning of approval with a distinct shade of thought, namely to discover. to find out, to learn by experience what the will of God is and therefore to learn just how approved and good and acceptable and perfect that will is. You follow that? Okay. His will will never fail. It will never be found wanting. God's will has then two dimensions that we must always keep in mind as we're reading the scriptures. His will is prescriptive and his will is decretive. Think there, the decrees of God, his sovereign foreordaining all of his purposes. The prescriptive commands summarized in the Ten Commandments and examples by the case laws of the Old and the New Testament are exceedingly broad with just enough general and just enough specificity to be all that we need to cover every area of our life. As Van Til said, the Bible is authoritative in every area in which it speaks, and it speaks to every area. There is not a moment of life that the will of God does not command. No circumstances that it does not fill with meaning if we are responsive to the fullness of his revelation, which counsels us, which gives us wisdom. You may trust God's law to be for you at all times just and good. And it is because the law of God is a transcript of his perfections, the perfect reflection of his holiness, of his justice, of his goodness. In keeping them, there is great reward. In keeping them, the believer is complete, even as he is complete. But God's will is also decretive. His will of determinate purpose, which includes, as we learned in Sunday school, both good and evil. This will is not the norm we are to pattern our lives after, but it is the will that we are to discern and appreciate and approve as good and perfect and righteous altogether. The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and our sons forever. that we may observe all the words of this law. God has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass. It is his will and he has ordained the fall of Lucifer. the garden deception, the tower of Babel, the captivity of Joseph, the conniving of Ahab, the victories of the Assyria and Babylonians over Israel, the betrayal of Judas, the denials of Peter, and the Jerusalem council holding all, or the Jerusalem church holding all things in common. These are all part of God's Decretive, no, decretive will, but not normative or part of his prescriptive will. So care must be taken to distinguish between the decretive and the prescriptive, the narrative and the normative, the what was done and the what should have been done. Nevertheless, God's decretive will does accomplish his purposes in redeeming the lost and displaying his grace. But for us socially, flowing out of our minds transformed, our vertical mindset, our heavenly mindset, our union with Christ mindset, even when terrible things happen, Even when there is evil, we will be able through experience to see and understand the unfolding of his redemptive purposes as that which is good. and acceptable, and perfect. Just as Joseph, in his vertically renewed mind, though experiencing horrific mistreatment, slander, suffering, approved the decretive will of God as that which is good, acceptable, and perfect. You meant it for evil, he says, but God meant it for good. The vertical, prescriptive and de... You know, when I first preached this, I called this the decorative will of God. Decretive, okay. Prescriptive and decretive limit the horizontal and gives us an opportunity to approve what the will of God is. And to approve it is that which is good and acceptable and perfect. Though poorly executed, we did sing about that this morning. We say eternity with all its years stands present in thy view. To thee there's nothing old appears. To thee there's nothing new. Our lives through various scenes are drawn and vexed with trifling cares while thine eternal thought moves on thine undisturbed affairs." That is his redemptive purposes. He is not disturbed by anything. Or the other one that we floundered with a bit. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense according to this present age a judge not the Lord by feeble sense but trusting him for his grace behind a frowning providence he hides a smiling face. Therefore I urge you brethren by the mercies of God Even as Paul, if you are living in this present world, relationally distant from anyone, and living each day focused on yourself or anything other than God in Christ as your greatest good, conforming like everybody else living in this present age, you need to die in order to live. Like an examined sacrifice, made acceptable in Christ for vertical heavenly living and worship. Then you will be able to live horizontally in the comfort and joy of God's commandments and providence, experiencing both of them as good, acceptable and perfect. We've tried to lay today some of the implications for our social behavior. Where does it come from? It comes from God and our relationship with him. And that vertical relationship then we have fuels, it transforms, and it limits and orders our horizontal relationships, which we are going to study next Sunday morning. Let us pray. Our good God, we thank thee for this amazing couple of verses. As you began to tell us how we're supposed to live in this present evil age, fueled by that age, which is to come, fueled by our union with the Lord Jesus Christ, seated in heavenly places with him, far above principalities and powers. fueled and transformed in order to see things, not in terms of our senses, but to see things that are true and wise because we have interpreted them by a transformed heart according to your prescriptive and decretive will. And we know, Father, that that wisdom is good and perfect and acceptable. Oh, Father, transform our hearts, for we ask it in Jesus' name, amen. We call this communion. Reveal the elements here. We call this communion, and it certainly is our communion with Christ, with the Father, through the Spirit. But it's more than that. we are commanded to consider the body. Of course, we are to consider the body of Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, man, God-made flesh, to identify with us, to live a life, to do what the first Adam failed to do in living a perfect life through his passive and active obedience. But also his work, this one, broken and poured out for us, we are to consider his body. But in the context of that passage, we're also to consider this body. And so as we pass this, and that is social behavior regulated by God's revealed prescriptive will. So this is part of what we're talking about. So as you pass this bread from one to another, as you pass this wine from one to another, share, recognize you're part of something bigger than yourself. You are part of the body of Christ and you proclaim him until, eschatological hope, he comes again. To that end, let us pray. Our Father in God, we ask you to sanctify this wine and this bread from its everyday purposes, to make it a sacrament to us. and make it a means of grace that will deliver to the heart of the believer the truth about Jesus, the truth about who we are and our identity in him, and because we are in him together, our identity with each other. May the reality of Jesus's high priestly prayer become a reality that even as you, Son, are in the Father, that we might be in you and in the Godhead as well, and that we might be in each other as one body with many members. Oh, Father, give us your truth and your wisdom, for we ask it in Jesus' name, amen.