Well, I just want to say thank you so much to Pastor Jeff for that wonderful, warm introduction and good evening to all of you as well. I think every single one of you probably know this, but your pastor is indeed a gem from the Lord. Just the number of times he's ministered to our church over in West County and even ministered to my soul personally. We just all know, as you do as well, what a joy it is to have him as your pastor. And so it really is my privilege to be able to be with you tonight, to be able to look at God's Word in this passage in particular. And just before we do dive into the Book of Romans, I do want to mention, as he was saying, that we are trying to encourage and promote the ministry of biblical counseling. that we believe that God's Word is indeed sufficient for all of the needs of human life, every single spiritual aspect, and it shows us how we should respond as believers. And so even for our church, we're trying to do what we can to promote biblical counseling to every single believer that's willing to take it in. We believe that God has equipped every single Christian to do the work of ministry, even as we see in Ephesians 4, to use scriptures to help one another. And so, if you know anything about ACBC or biblical counseling, which I know Pastor Jeff will probably talk about in a little bit, I just want to also let you know that our church, new community, is going to be starting a phase one training for ACBC certification, If you don't know anything about that, that's fine, but basically it's a process of getting that training and equipping if you really want to learn how to do biblical counseling at a high level. And so we'll be having several sessions of that, probably over three or four weekends in the next year. The first one's going to be on December 6th and 7th. So if any of you are interested in wanting to learn more about biblical counseling, please know that you're more than welcome to join us. It's something that we want to be able to offer to as many like-minded churches and brethren as possible, so that all of the St. Louis area would be empowered with the gospel, with God's word, to be able to reach those around us. And so I would love to see you potentially there, or if not, at a potentially another ministry event. And so if you haven't already, please go ahead and open up your Bibles to Romans chapter 12, as that is where we're gonna be this evening. Romans chapter 12, just looking at two very famous verses, one in verse two. I've entitled this message, if you're taking notes, A Living Sacrifice. But this is such a helpful passage for my soul in particular, as well as for many other believers. And so I hope that it is for us here tonight. Something that I found just as I've grown through these years is that there are many words that we can hear which at one point in our life we have a certain understanding of their meaning and yet the meaning seems to grow more and more as time goes on and as we live more of life. One of those words for me is that we're surgery. I think a lot of us were probably familiar with, there are times when someone does need to have some type of surgical operation done, whether it's with a hand or some type of organ. And when I was younger, never having experienced a surgery before, I would hear people talk about having to get surgery and had a certain idea of what they meant by that. And I would say, well, I wish you well and I'll pray for you. But just last year, a little bit more than a year ago, I actually tore my Achilles tendon. And it was the most humiliating way possible. It was by playing pickleball. So it's a very simple game. We weren't even trying to go very hard, and I completely tore it. And a week or two later, I needed a full reconstructive surgery on the tendon. And that day, when I was going in, getting ready for the anesthetic, I had to actually pray and say, Lord, if something goes wrong, I am going to close my eyes and wake up in your presence. And on the one hand, there's a joyful element of that, but that's also a very scary idea. And after that day, ever since then, a year later, whenever I hear the word surgery, or I hear that someone's going in for surgery, there's a whole different level of compassion and care and thought for them. Another word that's gained so much more meaning for me is the word dad. Even as Jeff was just saying, I became a father, you know, around seven months ago with a beautiful daughter named Aria. And for years, obviously, I had my own father that I looked up to. I knew many friends and peers and people that were fathers and talked a lot about what it means to be a father. I've even preached on the importance of what it means to be a God-honoring biblical father. And yet, when I first held my daughter in my two hands, her little arms barely moving, that word father suddenly gained a whole new level of meaning. Right? And I think in life, we often go through this, where we recognize just how significant certain words or ideas are. Well, I think the same is true with the word worship. You know, oftentimes if you've been in church for a certain amount of time, we have a certain idea in our minds of what worship is and what it looks like. And for many of us, you know, we can often think about worship as what we often do on a Sunday morning. The wonderful singing of hymns and songs and spiritual songs, or maybe even singing in a gathering like tonight on a Wednesday evening. The times you have of listening to the teaching of God's word and praying in response. And we say, that is such a wonderful time of worship. And then we go through the rest of our week and live it as we want and as we had planned. But I think as we see here in this passage of Romans 12, as we see in many other passages of scripture, even the word worship has so much more of a fuller meaning. Because worship is something that you and I as believers are called to do, not only just on a Sunday morning, not only just when we're singing, but in every single aspect of our lives and our days. Right? Worship, it should be our all-consuming desire and goal is to praise and serve our God. And so what we're going to see in this passage, what you see in many other passages, is that the Bible presents a much fuller picture of what worship actually is. So my hope in our brief time this evening is that as we look at this text, that our hearts would be spurred on to greater, fuller worship of our wonderful God. And so please read with me Romans 12, 1 and 2. Here's what Paul says. 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. This is the word of God. In that first little phrase there, when he says, I appeal to you therefore by the mercies of God, as you know, you have to ask the question, what is the therefore therefore? And unfortunately, we don't have time to unpack all of this, but what he is referring to as being the mercies of God is everything else that he's already written. Everything from Romans chapter 1 to chapter 11, all the way up until this point when he says, therefore by the mercies of God, he's referring to everything that he's talked about in this wonderful epistle. And as if you've read the book of Romans, you know the number of different themes that are captured in this beautiful letter. In chapters 1 through 3, he talks about the realities of our condemnation before a holy God. that every single person is a sinner who's rebelled against our Holy Creator, and therefore we deserve just judgment. All right, from chapters 3 to chapter 5, he unpacks justification. What it means and what it took for us to be reconciled to this God through the blood of Jesus Christ. That there's nothing that we could have done to have earned our salvation or forgiveness, and it is only because of the death and the righteous life of Christ. As you go through Romans 6 through 8, he unpacks the idea of sanctification. That truly, if we've been made new creatures in Christ, what does that mean for how we live? And indeed, if we are in Christ, that changes everything. And then you and I, as Christians, cannot live however we want to live, because if we've been changed internally, well, that means we have to look differently externally. In chapters 9 through 11, he unpacks this idea of restoration, that if it's true that, you know, now people can be saved through Christ, what does that mean for God's original people? And you see how God's mercies and faithfulness and perfect plan even extends to his original people of the Jewish nation. All of these truths that you read through these first 11 chapters, you can call the mercies of God. And I wish I can spend some time explaining more, but that will be 12 hours or more. And so as you come to now chapter 12 through 16, this is what's known as the response. How do we as Christians live in light of these glorious truths that we've heard? How can we, if we really understand the mercies of God, the gift of salvation, and the gift of eternal life, what does this mean for our day to day? And that's what this entire last section of the letter talks about. And these two verses that we're looking at this evening very briefly is sort of an overview of this. That if you have experienced the grace of God, you have to live in response to that grace. That grace to change everything about how you live. And specifically where he's starting off is that as Christians, we must now worship and honor God. And there's two ways that we're gonna see that tonight. How is it that we're called to worship and honor God? Number one in verse one, we're called to worship with our living. This is where he says, therefore by the mercies of God, what? Present your bodies as a living sacrifice. I think Jeff had mentioned that you had all studied the book of Hebrews recently, is that right? Okay, probably, hopefully all of you were there. And if you remember that book, and if you're going through the study, hopefully you have a very clear understanding of the Old Testament sacrifice system, because this is exactly the language that Paul was drawing from. the picture that as the the Israelites would go to make atonement for their sin or to offer worship to God that they would have to bring animals to the priests and then the priest would kill these animals and slaughter them and through a number of different sacrifices here and so every single time that a Jewish individual would bring the animal to the priest it was this idea that he recognizes I am giving a sacrifice to Yahweh And now this animal is being fully surrendered to him. This animal is going to lose its life. This animal now has a very specific purpose that it didn't know about a day before or a week before. It is now being given over to God. Well, Paul is drawing from the imagery to say that if you are a Christian, then you must now present yourself as a sacrifice to God. You are no longer having to give up animal sacrifices and year by year have the priests slaughter them on behalf of your sins, because ultimately, as you know, we have Christ as our perfect atoning sacrifice and our perfect high priest. But there's also the sense in which not to save ourselves, not to attain eternal life, but in that same vein, we have to see ourselves as giving ourselves up to God as a sacrifice. that in the same way that the animal was being brought over to Him, its life was now ending, its whole purpose was solely for Yahweh, that as Christians, that's exactly what happens to our lives, too. We are saying, God, I am now wholly and fully for You. The main difference, of course, being that, in some sense, our life has not come to an end. Right? We understand that, yes, spiritually we have indeed died. That's what you see in Romans chapter 6. And yet, when we give ourselves over to the Lord as a sacrifice, that doesn't mean that we're suddenly snapped into heaven. Because, he says, present your bodies as a living sacrifice. That is that, yes, our purpose is now completely different. Our intentions in life, our goals day-to-day, is completely different than where it was before, and yet we continue on living because this life is now being lived for God. It's being living for Christ's honor and glory. And that's why Paul unpacked in Romans 6, 4, he says, 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. In other words, when we're giving ourselves over as a sacrifice to God, it's not a one-time thing. But now, every single day, every single moment, we are living solely for the Lord, saying, I am now holy and fully for you, no longer for me at all. what does that actually look like? Again, you'll have to read the rest of Romans, which we don't have time to do, where Paul breaks down chapter by chapter from 12 to 16, all the many ways of what it looks like to be a sacrifice unto the Lord. But at least right here in this verse, we see at least one very specific example that we can focus on tonight. What does it mean that we're called to be and to give ourselves as a sacrifice to God? Well, he clarifies right after by giving us the manner, he says, to be holy and acceptable to God. In other words, part of the way that we give ourselves in worship to the Lord is to live a life that is fully set apart for him. Right? That's literally what the word holy is, is to be set apart from other things and to be distinguished. In other words, the way that we live, how we conduct ourselves on a day-to-day, both in front of the church as well as at work, when we're in privately in our homes, when no one else sees that in every single moment, we are seeking to be blameless before God and pursue righteousness. And as we know from many other passages, the way that we pursue this holy and blameless life is that we are seeking to become like our Savior, Jesus Christ. The idea is that if we are being faithful believers in how we are conducting ourselves genuinely, that when people see us, when non-believers see us in our lives, they should see a picture of Christ. You know, again, not that we're going to do that perfectly. You know, I fall short of that every single day. But the reality is that if we are Christian in the way that we are pursuing a sacrificial life unto the Lord, people, if they see our lives, should be able to see that looks like Jesus. He looks like Christ. She looks like Christ. Not in the way that we are perfect, but in the way that we are growing and pursuing holiness. And see, drawing from the sacrifice imagery that we're seeing here in Romans 12, it makes sense why it says that we're to be holy and acceptable to God. Because that word acceptable is something that you see so many times around the sacrificial system. You know, maybe this came up in your Hebrew study, but in Leviticus 1 verse 9, it says that the sacrifice or the offering that was given to God or to Yahweh was seen as a pleasing aroma to Yahweh. Right? The way that it was done, the way that it was exactly what he called for, it is what honored and pleased him. And so the imagery here that Paul is drawing to is that in the way that we are living, as we seek and as we grow in holiness, if we are really becoming more like our Savior, our lives being given over to him is like a pleasing aroma to our Savior. That is the goal that we have as Christians. That is the goal that we have as followers of Christ, is that through our lives, as we are pursuing holiness and righteousness, that this life would honor the Lord. And if we do this, if we pursue this, what does Paul say this is? He says, which is your spiritual or true worship? How is it, in part, that you and I today are called to worship our great God? Yes, of course we sing, as we just sang this evening. We sing praises on Sunday mornings, we pray, we do all of those aspects of the praise and prayer, and yet worship is such a bigger idea than just that. Because worship is something that we're called to do in every single aspect of our lives, in the way that we honor Him, in the way that we turn away from sin and fight our flesh, in the way that we pursue Christlikeness personally, in our relationships with other people. All of that is a form of worship. And that requires, again, not just our singing, not just on a Sunday morning or a Wednesday night, but every single aspect of our lives. Every part of us must be given over to the Lord to pursue and to glorify Him. Jesus does not just demand our words. He demands us. What it means to be a sacrifice to serve and fully pursue and worship Him is that we're not just saying the right things, but we are living fully for Him, which is profound, right? Because it means that the way that you do conduct yourself with your boss, or if you are a manager with your employees, can and should be a form of worship unto the Lord. The way that you as parents shepherd and care for your children, teaching them God's word and being gracious and kind and firm, can and should be a form of worship. That even for the kids, the way that you listen to and honor and respect your parents, can and should be form of worship if you're indeed saved. The way that you relate to your family members, even when they're the most irritating people you know, can and should be a form of worship. The way that you evangelize your family and friends and your neighbors and all the people around you. Every single interaction with them can and should be a form of worship if we are intentional to use it to pursue God's glory. That is what we as Christians are called to do. And so I just want to ask you briefly this evening, where is your heart right now in this subject? How often are you living your life today with this mindset that every single day, every single moment, my life is not my own? Because if you're anything like me, that's a very easy lesson to forget. You know, you hear a message like this, you read a passage of scripture, you're reminded and encouraged, yes, this is a wonderful, great truth, and then you get on the freeway. Even as I was getting over here, seeing the massive amount of traffic on the side, praying, Lord, I hope I get there on time. I hope there's no accident, at least on my side of the road. And just like that, if I'm not careful, my mind goes off into thinking about something else. And so every single one of us deals with various distractions, which take us away from the focus of where our life should be. Do you, this evening, have this mentality in your heart? God, I live for your glory alone. Every single moment, every single day, in the way that I interact, I am giving myself over as a sacrifice for your kingdom and your glory. In the way, again, that I fight sin and pursue holiness, in the way that I interact with every single people, is that your daily desire. Because again, it's easy to lose track, to get distracted, to have so many other priorities and so many other focuses and forget what is our greatest goal and our desire, which should be to honor the Lord. But one of the great encouragements of this passage as well is that as a Christian, if you truly do love the Lord and you have a desire to please Him and to worship and glorify Him, guess what? That means you actually can do what you love every single day and every single moment. You know, the number of false religions out there, where, you know, there are very specific things that they must do in order to, quote unquote, serve their God, is so false and broken and sad. Right? The number of times I've even seen people here in America and other countries doing things to serve and praise their God, which they're hoping will maybe work and will maybe please whatever God they serve, is tragic. Right? Because they don't know the true God of the Bible. But because you and I do know Yahweh, because we do have His Word, and because we do love Him, that means every single moment we are able to please and serve our Savior, which again should be a great source of delight, should it not? That this next morning, even if I'm groggy and tired, I feel like I have a cold, whatever may be going on, we can say, even in this trial right now, it's possible to glorify and worship my God. And so may that be your call every single morning. May that be your desire every single day, because this is what we're called to do, to live a life that truly does serve our God. So how do we actually do this well? I think many of us are probably very familiar with the danger of spiritual externalism. What can sometimes be called legalism or Phariseeism, where we're doing all the right things because we're told to do it and yet are lacking a true internal change. And maybe we've seen this too, where a person is looking outwardly so good and so righteous, and yet over time, life and time shows that that was never actually the case internally. Hearing this first part of this passage, verse 1, should be something that a Christian hears, but if we're not careful, we can hear and respond to it in a way that doesn't actually lead to true lasting change. And as Christians, we always have to make sure that when we are seeking to honor and serve the Lord, it is done with the right heart. It's done from the right spiritual internal condition. And that's what we see in part here in verse 2 of Romans 12. And so verse 1 was saying that we have to worship our God with our living. Verse 2 tells us that we have to worship with our thinking. Here's what verse 2 says. It says this, And here in the first part of this verse, you see both a negative, something to avoid, and a positive or something to pursue. The negative is when he says this, do not be conformed to this world. And that phrase right there is really the opposite or the parallel to verse one. Because in verse 1, Paul is trying to say, you need to offer yourself as a living sacrifice to God. And what's the opposite of that? Don't conform yourself to the world. Right? If you're trying to pursue holiness, well, that means you have to be forsaking worldliness. And if you've ever studied this passage before, you know that the idea of the world or this age is really anything under the sun, anything in this life that is against God and his truth and his ideas. And so it's everything from the worldly ideals and philosophies and worldviews and ideologies and things that we hear every single day. Anything that is turning us away from God is worldliness. And I love David Wells' definition. He says this, worldliness is whatever makes sin look normal and righteousness look strange. I'll say that again because this is a very clarifying definition for us to think about on a day-to-day basis. Worldliness is whatever makes sin look normal and righteousness look strange. So that is the great battle that you and I fight on a daily basis. that in the way that we live, how we interact with a non-believing society, that we want to forsake whatever it is that is making sin look normal and forsake whatever is making righteousness look strange, and to turn to the Word of God and say, Lord, help me to honor you. Help me to be a living sacrifice for your glory in the way that I live. So that's what we need to forsake and avoid. And then we have to pursue what? Well, if you're looking at verse three, it says, but be transformed. Transformation is what we, as Christians, should desire for. As you know, this is the Greek word that's used for metamorphosis, the idea of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, the word for something going through a fundamental change that changes everything about that person. And we go through various forms of transformation, even on a superficial level. I can speak to when I was younger, as maybe some of you are. I used to love two things. sugar and staying up late. Whenever I had the opportunity and I could have at one point, when I had my braces off, I was given an entire two liter bottle of soda. And I just remember drinking that whenever I wanted, because that was my prize for getting rid of my braces. But I loved whenever I could have any type of sugar that was out there and stay up as late as I possibly could. But something happened as I eventually got older and older. I would have that same type of sugar and I would start to feel really cranky and tired. I would try to go to the gym and work out and felt like my muscles weren't working anymore. You know at first I could stay up till maybe midnight and that was fine and eventually 11 p.m. and 10 p.m. and 9 p.m. and nowadays I love it when I can not have that much sugar because I feel great and then if I can be in bed by 9.30. That just feels right. Some people think I look boring or lame or whatever. That is one of my greatest accomplishments is I've taken care of everything I needed to and I'm in bed by 9.30. And there are people that have seen my lifestyle and say, Alex, you are a very different person than you were 10 or 20 years ago. That's a type of transformation that we can go through. But the transformation that Paul is talking about here is a much deeper transformation, right? It is a transformation of every single part of us. See, that word, again, that we get metamorphosis from was used in Matthew 17 to talk about Jesus's transfiguration. when he, before some of his closest disciples, was revealing aspects of his divine glory, and they saw him as parts for who he was, and everyone was shocked and in awe. That's the level of transformation that Jesus at least went through visibly before his disciples. And in the same way, Paul is trying to say, do not be conformed to the world, but instead be transformed. By what? How is it that we're transformed? And it is this. It's a very profound, helpful phrase that many of us know by the renewal of our minds. How is it that you and I as Christians are able to become more like Christ the way that we're called to do? It is by taking in the Word of God so that our minds are being cleansed and being changed. See, if you know anything about verb tenses, that is a passive idea. It says, be transformed by the renewal of your minds. In other words, what that's saying is, you and I can't just say, I wanna change. I'm gonna grab this and change myself and everything's gonna be good. But instead, the idea of transformation is entirely passive. See, it is that we don't transform ourselves, we are transformed. And we are transformed as our minds are renewed. As we take in Scripture. As we read verse by verse. As we meditate and dwell on passages. And think about the character of God. Think about the plans and the promises of God. Think about what God's Word says about who we are in Him, in our identity. Think about what God's Word says about our situations and our trials and the people that we see. As we take that in, dwell on it, and ask the Holy Spirit to change us, the Word does change us. As we take it in, then we are changed and transformed. And the effect is what he says this, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. In other words, that as we listen and take in scripture, as we hear the truths day by day and moment by moment, the way that we think about life becomes fundamentally different. Who you are, how you view situations, will be unlike anything else that a non-believer would ever be able to do. That we are transformed as we take in the Word. And that's why Psalm 119 verse 11 says, As we take in God's word, as we allow him and his spirit through his word to renew our hearts and our minds, who we are, how we think, how we live, all that completely changes. You know, one of the great joys I have at our church, besides some of the things that Pastor Jeff had mentioned, is I help to coordinate our baptisms at the church. And that is one of the biggest blessings I have serving at NCC. Hearing people time after time talk about the way that they were living before they knew Christ. Some who grew up going to church and thought they were saved, but turns out they never were. And some people who never read a Bible until they were 30 or 40 or 50. but to hear story after story about how people didn't know Christ and were living one way in one direction, and that because of Christ and the Holy Spirit, they are completely different people. And to hear the many ways in which they can say, I used to do X, Y, and Z, and I have zero desire for that. I used to be addicted to this sin, and in a moment or in a month, all of that was gone. Right? That's one of the greatest blessings, is to be able to hear God's glory through the way he's working in his people. And yet we know so often, too, that even when we're Christians, though many aspects of our desires are changed, there's many aspects of our desires that are not sanctified right there and then. This is the rest of the Christian life. That now that we have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us as we take in his word, we are conformed more and more into the image of Christ as we behold his glory, which is seen through the pages of scripture. And so what verse 2 was saying is this very simple fact, that a God-honoring life starts with a God-honoring mind. if we truly want to honor the Lord in the way that we live, what we see in verse 1, it really starts with allowing scripture to change how we think and who we are on the inside. And that's exactly the lesson you see in Luke 6, 43 to 45, the parable, right, where basically a person's life, their words and their actions, is always going to be a reflection of what's going on in their heart. Whenever you look at a person's life and how they're responding to situations, they never just do it arbitrarily. It is always going to be a reflection of what's going on in here, what's going on in here in our minds. And so if we want to pursue sanctification, it's not just by doing the right things, but it's by taking in God's word and learning how he wants us to think and to be. so that if we want to live the life that God desires, we have to first think like God desires. And if our thinking is indeed so important, I want to finish with this last application thought. That means we have to be very mindful of what we're taking in. Because we as Christians, and even as non-Christians, we become what we behold. We become what we behold. As we see things, as we take in ideas and thoughts, and we're told what to believe and what to do, whatever you're taking in the most of, you will become like that. You will be affected by that. And we know, right, that every single day our lives and our minds are being bombarded with information. It's just even drying here the number of times I could see signs for advertisements and businesses and you know, I have an Apple watch over here and it gives me news updates every single five minutes. You're always getting in information and you're being taught what to think about life. And so the question is what are we taking in the most? Are you saturating your minds with scripture? Are you allowing God's word to be what's dictating your thinking, what's saturating and changing your thinking, or is it things of the world? What voices are you holding on to? What voices are you embracing? Because Paul is saying here that if we want to live a life that's going to honor the Lord, It starts with allowing his word to renew and change us, to change our thinking, to change our beliefs, and from that to change our loves and our desires so that we can truly seek to honor the Lord. Because this is what we're called to do. We are called to worship God. And it's a worship that's far greater than just what we do on a Wednesday night or a Sunday morning. It is a worship that encapsulates every aspect of our living. And to do that well, it starts with our beliefs and what we are focusing on. And really this passage, and again, we don't have time to unpack a lot of this, is such a beautiful image through the entire book of Romans. Because if you were to read in the first chapter, Romans 1, 28, one of the great tragedies of the fall is that when we as people became sinners, one of the consequences is that our minds were corrupted. Right? It says, God gave them over to debased or corrupt minds and ways of thinking. One of the great falls or curses of sin is that our entire minds are now warped. But what we see here in Romans 12, what we see in several other passages, is a small picture of the reversal of the fall. that what the gospel does by changing our hearts, by allowing us to come to his presence through the blood and the grace of Christ, is that he now changes how we think. And so that one aspect of the destructive nature of sin is now no longer there. And it's slowly being erased until we eventually see God face to face. And that should be an encouragement, is it not? that as Christians, we not only have the responsibility to worship the Lord by living for his glory, but he has now given us the ability to do that, the opportunity to do that. And therefore, we must do this for his glory and his glory alone. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we do come before you this evening looking at a passage like Romans 12, and to recognize that every single one of us here is in a different place spiritually. Maybe some of us that don't know you, some of us that have known you for many years or decades, but I pray for every single person here that you would help us to understand and respond rightly to your word. May we truly seek to live every single moment of our lives for your glory, to worship and serve you in how we conduct ourselves, And will you help us to recognize that we can never change ourselves no matter how hard we try, that we need you to do that work through your word, which you have promised to do. And so this evening, we're grateful, we're thankful, we're worshipful indeed, and ask that you would help us to be faithful to this calling. And we pray this all in the name of Christ. Amen.