I ask you this afternoon to turn back in your copies of God's Word to that portion of Scripture that we were considering earlier, Romans chapter 12. I'll read again the first three verses. I'm going to leave off the other verses that we read earlier because there's part of what I was going to say this afternoon that I'm just going to remove and move to the next Lord's Day, God willing. So, Romans chapter 12. beginning at verse one. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. What we considered from these verses earlier that Paul's aim in this is the glory of God through the worship of the total man. And I said that total man is body because of what he says in verse one, mind and soul because of what we're going to see in verse two. But the glory of God through the worship of the total man, according to the truth. And of course, we considered in answering the question, what is this worship actually look like? From verse one, what Paul says here that it is the abandonment of the self, the giving up of our bodies as the instruments of the entirety of our being unto the service of God. But In order for this abandonment of ourselves up unto God to mark us, and to be what it ought to be, there are two other things. that Paul puts forth here as commands, imperatives, and I would say these are indispensably necessary for us to consider if we would be the kind of people that God is calling us to be and fulfilling the duty to which we have been called by Christ Jesus, which is to be worshipers of God with the entirety of our being. And the first, of these two other imperatives. One is negative, one is positive. But the first that he mentions in verse 2 is the total abandonment of the world. So I said first in verse 1 that the command, the imperative is the total abandonment of the self. up unto God. And now, in verse 2, we see the total abandonment of the world. And so he says, do not be conformed to this world. Do not be conformed to this present evil age. And I think that this is important as we talk about what it means to truly glorify God through the worship of the total man, because we must understand, brethren, that as God calls us to these things, there is no neutral ground in the whole universe. There's no neutral ground. We are either for God or against God, right? The sacrifice that He's calling us to is not a sacrifice, I said this earlier, but it bears repeating, it's not a sacrifice that is in parts. You can have this part of me, and you can have this part of me, but there's this part of my life that I don't want to abandon, that I don't want to give up. The sacrifice is not in parts, the sacrifice is in the whole. And so he says, do not be conformed to this world. Do not be conformed to this present evil age. You've been delivered from it. That's what he tells the Galatians that Christ Jesus has delivered us from this present evil age. Therefore, what Paul is saying here in Romans chapter 12 is Do not then, having been delivered from this present evil age, do not let it squeeze you into its own mold. And I say again that understanding what he's saying here in this call and this duty is indispensably necessary because the world, this present evil age and the mold that it is ever trying to squeeze us in is powerful and it's contagious. And I would add to that, that it is deadening. to worship, it's deadening to the glorification of God. It deadens our impulses and it never stops enforcing it. You never grow to a point where the world is not pressing in on you and threatening to deaden your impulses. It may look different in different stages of your life, But you never grow out of it. When we are young, when we are exuberant, the world calls us to all of the thrills and the excitement. We're distracted by those things. And when you're in middle age, the world calls us to, what I would say, legitimate responsibilities, and yet they can be distractions. And when you grow old, The world will tell you to stop. The world will tell you to give up. The world will tell you to stop giving your body as that living sacrifice. It's an ever-present threat to us. John warns us not to love the world or the things in the world. And he says to us, if anyone loves the world, The love of the Father is not in him. That's why I say there's no neutral ground. Do you hear what John is saying? If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. James says something similar, and yet he says it a little bit more forcefully, if you can believe it or not, than John himself said it. James says in chapter 4, friendship with the world is enmity against God. So not only is it that there is with the love of the world and the friendship of the world, the absence of the love of the Father. But James is saying that anyone who is cozying up to the world and making friends with the world actually finds himself to be fighting against God, and that's what I say, that's why I'm saying that this is indispensably necessary, this negative imperative, do not be conformed to this world. Let me be clear about this. The temptation for some of us is then we must leave this world. That's not what Paul is saying. When He commands us not to be conformed to this world, it does not mean go live on the backside of a mountain, somewhere in a cave, or that you must somehow live in this world in a way that is off-putting, wearing rags, that you can never smile, that you can never rightly enjoy the creature comforts that God graciously bestows upon us. I think that's a misunderstanding of this text. It doesn't mean that we should go and be weirdos, if I might put it that way, just so that we can avoid looking like and talking like the world. If you read that verse, and that's your interpretation of it, that I've got to go live somewhere on the backside of the earth in a cave away from everybody, and any interaction that I have has to be on the plane of just being plain weird. You've misinterpreted it. What does it mean then? Well, it's hard to simplify what Paul and what the Bible means when it talks about the world in this way. There are many illustrations in Scripture of what it's meant, what is meant by it. I think, as I tried to wrestle through this, say it succinctly, I think that Paul sums it up probably the best in Titus chapter 2 verses 10 and 11 when he says, that brings salvation has appeared to all men? And what is the grace of God that brings salvation appearing to all men? What has it done? It teaches us, what does it teach us? It teaches us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age. So grace comes. in the powerful salvation that is ours in Christ. And as that grace comes, and it does come, and if grace is not working in your life, then that salvation is not a true salvation, because that is what salvation is. It's the grace of God poured out in our lives so that we are rescued from the present evil age. And as that grace works in us through Christ, It teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts. And I think that that's as best of a summary of what the world is as we can get, distilling it down. Ungodliness and worldly lusts. What Paul means when he says that to Titus, And what he means when he says it here in Romans chapter 12 verse 2 is that we are not to be conformed to this world's patterns of godlessness. We are not to be conformed to this world's patterns of unrighteousness. We are not to be conformed to this world's patterns of immorality. We are not to be conformed to this world's patterns of overindulgence in carnal appetites. We are not to be conformed to things like it's foolish atheism. Well, that's not a problem. We believe in Christ, right? You better believe it's a problem. Practical atheism and forgetting God is a problem for the Christian. We are not to be conformed to that. We are not to be conformed to the self-trust of the world. We are not to be conformed to the self-serving of the world. We are not to be conformed to the proud self-assertions of the world. We are not to be conformed to its narrow selfishness. That presses in on you, Christian, every day. Every day, in a multitude of ways. And the world preaches a gospel to you. The world preaches a message to you everywhere you go. And it would have us to believe that it is okay to neglect our souls. It would have us to believe that it is okay to neglect God. It would have us to believe that it is okay to neglect the means of grace. To neglect prayer. To neglect the study of God's Word. To neglect the preaching of the Word. To neglect the table. It would have us to believe that it's okay to be slothful. That it's okay for us to overindulge ourselves in anything. And that's the danger. anything, so long as it deadens our impulses for God. And that anything may be work. It may be food. It may be the love of ease and the love of pleasure. It may be, and it is for so many, sex. Or it may be 1,000 legitimate other things. It doesn't matter to the devil, it doesn't matter to the world, as long as it can conform us to itself and make us hate those things involved in the worship of God, and make us hate to leave sin, and make us hate to deny ourselves, and make us hate to delight ourselves in God. How do we measure this? Well, we examine and we search ourselves. Is it our delight to worship? Is it our delight to hear the preaching of the Word? Or is this just an inconvenience? Is it our delight to pray? Is it our delight to take up the Word of God and to read it? Or would I rather be out doing anything else? Scrolling Facebook, cutting my grass, How do we measure? The world is constantly, constantly endeavoring to exert its influence upon us, and the Christian must go to war against wicked philosophies, wicked thought processes, wicked ambitions, wicked motives. Here's how Paul put it. to the Corinthians in 2nd Corinthians chapter 6. Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? What communion has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. Therefore, he says in verse, the latter part of chapter six, therefore, Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you. I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty. Therefore, he says in verse one of chapter seven, therefore, in light of all of that, having these promises, that God has promised to be a father to us, that God has promised that we would be sons and daughters, that God has promised to be our King and our Lord and our Savior and all that He is, therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit, perfecting holiness in Christ. the fear of God. I want to read this to you. I'm not going to read all of it. I had intended to, but I'm not going to read all of it. This is Charles Spurgeon. This is what Spurgeon says. There's a lot more to this, but this is the end of what Spurgeon says here. And talking about this very thing. He says, even small inconsistencies are dangerous. Little thorns make great blisters. Little moths destroy fine garments. You see, the temptation is that just a little bit Right? It's fine. Just a little bit of the world. Little moths destroy fine garments. Little frivolities and little rogueries. That's kind of like the idea with rogueries. It's kind of like on your tomato plants, the little suckers. Will rob religion of a thousand joys. And then he says this. This is Spurgeon. Oh, Professor, too little separated from sinners. You know not what you lose by your conformity to the world. It cuts the tendons of your strength, and it makes you creep where you ought to run. Then, for your own comfort's sake, and for the sake of your growth in grace, if you be a Christian, Be a Christian, and be a mart, and be a distinct one. What is he saying? Wage war, believer. That's what he's saying. Go to war with the world. And do not allow yourself to be conformed to it. That's what he's saying. But in addition to this, Paul adds a third crucial imperative. So remember now, the aim. Again, I want to state it. The aim of Paul in this text is the glory of God through the total worship of the whole man according to the truth. This is why I repeat it. in light of the two imperatives we've seen already, presenting ourselves as living sacrifices, not being conformed to this world. Paul goes on and he says this, be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is the good and the acceptable and the perfect will of God. It won't do. If we give our bodies entirely to Him, to His service, if we get it wrong, and if we give them the wrong way, right? It must be done. What He's commanding, what He's telling us here, must be done from a heart and it must be done from a mind that is saturated and that is dripping with truth. That's what He said. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Why? So that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And what Paul is aiming at in those words is the pressure of truth so steadily and so rhythmically coming to bear upon your life, upon your minds, and upon your hearts. in such a way that the knowledge of the will of God, as revealed in the Word of God, would have in you this growing transformative effect, so that our lives would be increasingly sculpted, not by this world, but that they would be sculpted into the image of Christ from the inside out. You see, a life, this is what I said earlier, a life merely marked by avoidance, not conforming to this world, is not worship. Don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. That's not Paul's aim. And a life merely of external service is not ultimately Paul's aim. Do this, do this, do this. This is important as we talk about this whole idea of duties. We've got to understand there's something else happening here. Both of these things, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this, and do this, do this, do this, they are empty shells of religion. Moralism at best, a cause of pride at worst, but not the God-honoring, God-glorifying worship Paul has in mind. Rather, what he has in mind as he writes this, is the joyful, that's what the latter part of verse two is aiming at, the joyful receiving of God as our whole portion and happiness. Christianity is not do, do, do, don't do, don't do, don't do, at the heart. It works itself out in things. But we have to be careful because it works itself out from this position. Transform life, which looks like a joyful heart, receiving of God, Him as my portion, Him as my happiness, a willing embrace of all that He has given to me, all that He has said is good, all of His promises, all of His warnings, all of His commands, that my heart acquiesces in those things and says, yes, God, yes. I love your ways. They are right. They are perfect. Your will is right. Your will is perfect. Your will is so much greater than the will and the purposes and philosophies and gospels of this world. What he has in mind as he writes this is a willing embrace of all that and a resigning of ourselves to God, a resigning of ourselves to His will. Which means that we no longer look upon the world as our happiness, no longer look to the world and rest in it for our satisfaction as if it were our portion, but taking God and all that he has revealed himself to be in the Lord Jesus Christ and resting in that. as the chief joy, the chief satisfaction of our souls. That's what he means when he says, prove what is good and acceptable and perfect will of God. It's testing it. Like a person tests to see whether gold is actually gold or whether it's fool's gold. And once you've tested it and you see that what I have in my hand is pure gold, then you can rejoice. I've got a treasure. That's what Paul means. You so prove, you so throw yourself upon the will of God that you prove it. And when you prove that He is real, that He is right, that He is grand, that He is glorious, then He becomes the chief joy and satisfaction of your soul. And that inward devotion of our hearts and our minds to His care, then that turns outwardly serving Him in freedom, in love, in faith. If you feel the weight of the duties of God bearing down upon you and they seem so heavy, I would say it's because you're missing this. You're not being transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you might test and approve. This is good. This is wonderful. And as he grips my heart with all that he is, then I serve him. It's not a burden to serve him. It's not, right? I serve him out of love. I serve him out of faith. I serve him in freedom. One writer has said it this way, the Christian alternative to immoral behaviors is not a new list of moral behaviors. It is the triumphant power, the Christian life is the triumphant power and transformation of the Holy Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ, our Savior, our Lord, and our treasure. And the essential means How do I get there? The essential means of transformation is wrapped up in the renewal of our mind, according to Paul. So if you would break loose from conformity to this world, if you would be transformed and new from the inside out, if you would be free from a duty-driven Christianity, and if you would long to joyfully offer up your body as a living sacrifice, so that your whole life becomes a spiritual act of worship and displays the glory and the worth of God above the worth of the world, then give yourself with all your might to pursuing this. Renew your mind by the word. That's to be our chief duty. as individual Christians and as members of this church. that we should be so constantly coming into that rhythm of the Word of God touching our soul again and again and again and washing over us and removing filth from us, renewing us in the way that we think, renewing us in the way that we view the world around us, renewing us in our passions, in our desires, in our longings. so that then I might offer myself to God in worship with my body? That's the chief duty for you as an individual and for this church. And I say it that way for this church because what is our duty as Christians surely cannot be disconnected from our duty as members. And if we take seriously this main overarching duty, then it will and it must come to bear upon all other duties as members. And we're going to come back to that. Renewing of the mind is so vital. We're going to come back to that with regard to some other duties as members. But I want to say this. This is vital. We can't leave this off, especially with the table before us. All that I've said earlier, now, all that Paul is saying in these two verses would be incomplete without recognizing, I would say two, we're going to leave one off, but recognizing two very important details about our text. They're namely this, I'll name them and I'm only going to talk about one. Two important details that we have to recognize about this text or it'll misfire. And it's this, that the Christian life, with its high calling to glorify God through the total worship of the whole man according to the truth, is rooted in two very important realities that are to ever shape and ever influence us in regard to what Paul is saying. What is to ultimately shape our thinking and our doing regarding this great duty that's set before us? Firstly, it is Christ-centered. We must be shaped by that. And then secondly, it is church-oriented. I said I would leave that church-oriented part off for now. What I'm saying and why this is important, those two things, is because they are to be the guides for us in this. What do I mean by that? Notice again what Paul says in the first verse. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, I'm begging you, I'm urging you, I'm calling you to this great God-honoring life of worship, giving yourself in the entirety of your being to God, and I'm doing it by this, by the mercies of God. That's the driving force. That's the factor. That's the motivation. That's the thing that is going to cause me to have a desire to do this. To offer myself up. To not be conformed to the world. To renew my mind. To come into contact with the Word of God. The mercies of God. That's what Paul sets before them as the primary cause and motivation. The mercies of God. Now, I said Christ-centered. The mercies of God are demonstrated where? For Paul. In everything that he's just been saying in all the 11 chapters. You wanna know what the mercies of God are? Go back and read the first 11 chapters. What are they? They're all the various facets of the gospel that He has set forth in those 11 chapters. And what is at the very center? What's at the very center of the gospel? But our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Your life, dear Christian, the Christian life, exists only because of Him. The Christian life orbits around Him. The Christian life grows out of Him. And the Christian life is ultimately conformed to Him. Right? Paul, in everything that he says in these 11 chapters, if you go back and you read it, he tethers all of it over and over and over again to Christ, Christ, Christ. And you can't scarcely read a chapter, maybe chapter two, maybe chapter two, without him repeating time and again such phrases as, in him, through him, by him, to him, Christ, And now when he comes to this applicatory section, chapter 12, and he calls them to this radical life of worship through yielding themselves up unto God entirely, he begins it by employing all of those mercies. Like the great opening up of a dam, flooding the soul. so that these saints that he's writing to might be by the powerful flood of the mercies of God and that gate being opened up before them, that they might be adequately moved to render unto him that which is due his name. Why does God deserve honor and glory and praise from me? Because he made me, but more than that, because he saved me. One mercy that Paul mentions in this letter would have sufficed. One mercy, Romans chapter 3, that we are justified by faith in Him because He's become the propitiation for our sins, satisfying the wrath of God. That's enough for me to say, my body's yours, my life is yours. But all of them, together, as Paul writes them and unfolds them, they are powerful to the moving of the whole man. All of the Christian life is built upon the solid rock of Jesus Christ, which is sure and steadfast. The mercies of God that are demonstrated to us in Him are sure and steadfast. He does, He will, He can forgive, He does save, He does plug, He does unite, He does give you an inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, that does not fade away. And all of the Christian life is built upon that rock. And all of the Christian life never outgrows it. Never outgrows its need for Christ. Let me just read you some text. Paul says, Romans chapter 1, verse 16, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. This is Paul. He had trafficked and frequented in the gospel of Christ for years. He writes what he writes as a mature believer who understands much more than you and I could understand. And yet he says at the very outset, I'm not ashamed of the gospel still, years later. For it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. And he's writing to believers. This is the gospel and it's the power of God still for you and me. unto salvation. Or Colossians chapter 2 verses 6 and 7, As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith. You don't outgrow Christ. We never, it's not, you start with Christ, you walk an aisle in so many churches, you pray a prayer, you say the sinner's prayer, you raise your hand and you say, yes, I'll accept Christ, and then done with him. As you received him, Think back upon that. Think back upon that day when the conviction of your sin fell upon you, when the conviction of the wrath of God fell upon you, when the conviction of your separation from God fell upon you, when you saw yourself in all of your rags, in all of your blood, in all of your darkness. Think back to that day, dear Christian. Oh, have we outgrown that? Have we forgotten about that? that He found us wallowing in our sin. And oh, He came in His power, and He rescued us, and He ransomed us, and He caused the gospel light to shine in us, and Christ was beautiful. And Paul says, as you received Him, walk in Him now. Come back to the cross. Come back to Christ. and be rooted and be built up in Him and be established in the faith. Hebrews 12, one and two, therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. How do I do that? Looking unto Jesus. the author and the finisher of our faith. 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verses 14 and 15, for the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus, that if one died for all, then all died, and he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him. who died for them and rose again. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God, and it is built on Christ. That's what's to shape you. That's what's to constrain you. That's what's to propel you. And any other view of the Christian life is off-center. Any other view of the Christian life that departs from that as its orbit, as its center, is off. Let me put it a different way. Any view not only that has something else as its center, but also any view that claims Christ to be its center, but does not have verses one and verses two being worked out daily in the life is false. It's false. Christ is center. Christ is my savior. Really? Are you being renewed in your mind? Are you being transformed? Are you pursuing? Are you giving yourself up unto Him? What about us, brethren? See, that's what the table really is all about for the Christian. It's a reminder that Christ is at the center of it all. to remember and to proclaim, not just with our lips, not just with our song, but with our life, to proclaim Him. Coming to the table again and again that we might relinquish our rights to ourself, that we might relinquish our grasp upon the world and that we might come into greater conformity through the partaking of this means of grace to all of the will of God, remembering the life, the death, the burial, the resurrection, and the rule of Jesus Christ our Lord. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, give yourself to him. always and ever more and more. Lord, we thank you. We thank you for Christ, because without Christ and without the multitude of mercies that are demonstrated to us in Christ, we would be without hope. Know how I pray that this day that the wonders of Christ Jesus as they are set forth in the gospel would so come to bear upon us in such powerful ways that we would hear the call of Paul to give ourselves, to yield ourselves up. Body, soul, spirit, mind, strength, will, everything. to the one who is worthy of it all. Please, we pray, use this supper to that end. In Jesus' name, amen.