Turn with me first in the Old Testament to the book of Leviticus, chapter 22, a passage that I made reference to without reading last Lord's Day, but we will read a selection there beginning at verse 17 through verse 25. And as I noted, I do believe that this bears very directly on the passage from Romans 12, Leviticus chapter 22, and we begin reading at verse 17, God's word. And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to Aaron and his sons and to all the children of Israel and say to them, whatever man of the house of Israel or the strangers in Israel who offers his sacrifice for any of his vows or for any of his freewill offerings, which they offer to the Lord as a burnt offering, You shall offer of your own free will a male without blemish from the cattle, from the sheep, or from the goats. Whatever is a defect you shall not offer, for it shall not be acceptable on your behalf. And whoever offers a sacrifice of a peace offering to the Lord to fulfill his vow, or a freewill offering from the cattle or the sheep, it must be perfect to be accepted. There shall be no defect in it. Those that are blind, or broken, or maimed, or have an ulcer, or eczema, or scabs, you shall not offer to the Lord, nor make an offering by fire of them upon the altar to the Lord, either a bull or a lamb that has any limb too long or too short. You may offer as a freewill offering, but for a vow it will not, it shall not be accepted. You shall not offer to the Lord what is bruised, or crushed, or torn, or cut, Nor shall you make any offering of them in your land, nor from a foreigner's hand shall you offer any of these as the bread of your God. Because their corruption is in them, and defects are in them, they shall not be accepted on your behalf. And we end there, verse 25, and now Please turn in the New Testament to Romans chapter 12. We will read simply the first two verses of Romans chapter 12. Again, God's word, 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. We end there, verse two, congregation, God's word. If you've heard then and received it as his very word, then I call upon you to confess that with me by saying, amen. You may be seated. Become our heavenly father and we do so with great joy in the word that is given to us. Joy because we know that it is not only given, but it is preserved by your Holy Spirit and that it is not obscure so that we cannot understand it. Even though the mysteries of salvation, your providence and all things are beyond us, yet we have a knowledge that is sufficient. Sufficient to believe, sufficient to know how to live, sufficient unto salvation and eternal life. I pray that by your Holy Spirit, you would guide us into all truth and ask in the name of our Savior. Amen. Well, if you have familiarity with a very, very old television game show, you know that the answer comes first and then the question. Jeopardy, of course, is what I'm talking about. If you've ever seen that, the contestants are given the answer, and then in order to win the points, or in this case, the money, then you have to provide the question to the answer. And it was quite old, of course. The show has been around a very, very long time. And it was, I can remember, from my childhood. And here, in a sense, we already have the answer. But we'll deal with the questions also as we go through, things like, how are we supposed to live? What are we supposed to do? How am I supposed to behave? All these kinds of things. And in particular here, we're called upon, or we might say, What is the actual question? Well, how am I supposed to live? Well, you're supposed to live by presenting your body a living sacrifice. Now we'll get to that particular phrase, not today as it happens, but we're doing next Lord's day. But I want to put firmly in your mind right now that when it says, present your bodies a living sacrifice, um, It's worded very carefully there, and it's significant. Your body's a living sacrifice, and we'll talk about that next Lord's Day. But for today, what we are going to do is we're going to sort of pause for a moment. We've had a couple of sermons leading up to this passage. the first dealing again with God's covenant relationship with us and the relationship with obedience and disobedience and our relationship by covenant to God. And then we saw Psalm 110, we saw the relationship of sacrifice and particularly as I believe it is speaking there of of a free will offering when it talks about the volunteers that we present ourselves as a free will offering, which that word can mean. We see that here and we're going to linger here because there's good reason to. And the reason that I use the illustration at the very beginning of Jeopardy is because we have here what is not only answers, but significant answers to the question. Now it says, for example, I beseech, we have beseech brethren, we have the mercies of God, and the question, the answer to the question is the verbal inerrancy, verbal plenary inerrancy, verbal plenary inerrancy and authority. The question is, how should we understand the words of the Bible? And that's a question that would be asked at any licensure examination. And the verbal plenary authority or verbal plenary inspiration particularly means that every single word of the scripture is there for a reason. Every single word. And that includes everything from syntax, it includes the tense in which the verb might be, it includes whether something is singular or plural. The Apostle Paul makes a great argument saying, is it seeds or seed? Which is it? And he makes a great argument based on whether or not that word, that noun, is plural or singular. We're going to linger because we're going to look at the words, and we're going to get into some very deep detail here, and I trust it won't be tedious, but rather enlightening to you. For example, so that's why it's going to take us a few Lord's Days to get through these two verses. The admonition of the apostle here. Now, admonition sounds like a pretty strong word, and it is, and it can be, especially in English, but he says, I beseech you. I beseech you. Now, beseech is a word that we don't often use, although I think it is widely understood, especially within the church. But here, the apostle has finished the doctrinal part of this epistle, primarily doctrinal part. And what he's moving on to now is something that we might say, if we could even make these categories, something that is more practical. Not that doctrine is not practical. It is, as I trust I will make clear. But what he's telling us now is all of this stuff that has come before, that now there's something to do with that information. And as we know that there has been some really pretty tough theological material in these previous chapters. It was probably difficult for you to hear. I know it was difficult for me to preach and that's okay. That's okay. We're stretched, we're strengthened by those things. But there really is a very strong distinction between what we find here in the verses previous to this text and the verses which follow. And that is what the apostle is doing is he's making an appeal to you. He is beseeching you. That is, The implications of this word are more than simply just doctrine, which I'll, again, I'll speak to in a moment. But what it does particularly is that it places upon us a duty to respond. In other words, it can be something very simple that I might ask you to do. Now I'm very, very thankful for all the things that are done often very quietly and behind the scenes here and that aren't done with much fanfare. And even now we can smell the things that are heating in the oven for our fellowship meal after. And there were maybe many hours collectively of the labor that was done to prepare the food for our meal and all that is all wonderful. We will all enjoy it and our hearts will be gladdened by it. Yes, all of these things are true. And I might ask you to do something for me. I might, for example, from time to time, very thankful. My point is that I'm very thankful that there's someone that generally will always put water up here underneath for me. Sometimes I need water more than others, and that's something that is done, and it's very thankful. And sometimes it's forgotten, and that's okay too, but I will ask, sometimes plead for some water, and it will be provided to me without a question. And I'm very thankful for that. So there are all kinds of things that we might do that I might ask you to do, or I might even a little bit stronger say, you must do this. You must do this. And those conversations can be uncomfortable sometimes. But when we look at the Christian life and we look at the doctrine that is so important as part of the Christian life, there are duties that are placed upon us, responsibilities that are placed upon us. We encountered some of those things already today. When we read together regularly, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself, There's no other way to understand that other than that duty has been placed upon you. You have been admonished to do this. And so what he's saying here is, I beseech you, I'm asking, I'm admonishing you, based upon those things that I've taught you up to this point, that here is what you ought to do. Now the general thing that he says is to present your bodies a living sacrifice. You notice it doesn't say as a living sacrifice, that's the point I make about the wording, which is very important. But rather, that there's the doctrine that has come before, heavy, intense doctrine, God's sovereignty, election, all these kinds of things. And now, what do we do with it? Well, interestingly here, this word translated beseech for us and commonly translated so is the same word that in its noun form refers to the Holy Spirit, the paraclete. Here it's the verb form. Someone who comes alongside, Now in the place of the Holy Spirit, as the paraclete, as the comforter, counselor, there's all kinds of ways in which that word can be translated. In the part of the Holy Spirit, what does the Holy Spirit do? How does the Holy Spirit, if we might say in a more earthy sense, how does he interact with us? As he entwels us and as the Spirit of Christ strengthens us, for example. Well, yes, he strengthens us. Well, what does the Holy Spirit do when we sin? Well, if we're indwelled by the Holy Spirit, well, then the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin. When you read the scriptures, and we struggle, perhaps, with a portion of the scriptures, which you may have done in chapter 11 here, the Holy Spirit illuminates our understanding. He helps to guide us. There are all kinds of things that the Holy Spirit does in his ministry to us as the paraclete and the Holy Spirit's ministry is a reflection of this word. He comes alongside, he comforts, he consoles, he admonishes. And so it is with the apostle here when he's coming alongside us and saying, in essence, now remember all that theology? Now let's put it to work. Let's put feet on that theological doctrine here. Let's make it real for us in a very real way. That is the admonition implies conscious action on your part. The one who's being admonished. And when I say admonished, that's the word that I think we ought to understand this. Admonishment can be, Come on, you can do better than this. We can do better than this. We can strive better than this. And those are the kind of admonishments. They're brotherly admonishments, we might say. They're friendly admonishments. There's a sense in which it can be negative, of course, where it can be actually one of the levels of discipline in the RCUS. See, when we say here, pardon me, when we read here, the apostle saying, I beseech you, What he is saying to us here, that doctrine, theology, as good as it may be, if it is abstracted from your life, if it is abstracted, that is separated in some sort of perhaps intellectual way from your actual life, well then, it really does not much good at all. In fact, I would say that it actually causes a lot of harm. See, doctrine always necessitates action. Doctrine always necessitates action, comma, even if it's the wrong action. Bad theology leads to bad behavior. It doesn't mean good theology always leads to good behavior, but bad theology leads to bad behavior. So doctrine always elicits a response, it always necessitates action, even if that action is doing nothing. Even if that action is doing nothing. Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about, a very near example, by the way. I know some of you, not all of you, have some inkling of the history of our own denomination. Let me give you a little quick, little tiny piece, a little vignette of our history. As many of you know, we came out of very difficult times during the mergers and it wasn't only us, it was other communions in these mergers where there was a theological liberalism that was overwhelming the churches and the RCUS was not immune to that. one God's good providence within the realm of the RCUS, which was an enormous denomination with seminaries and orphanages and a hospital and all these kinds of things, a huge domination within the United States. And it got consumed with bad theology. And yet there was this little piece, this little part this little grouping of people that had a different history within the RCUS, and they had a different theological influence, and that theological influence preserved them, primarily in the Dakotas and in Nebraska, preserved them from all the things that were going on within the broader church, and I'm talking about less than 100 years ago, so that through two mergers and all the things that were going on, the old RCUS became what is today the United Church of Christ. Now, if you know anything about the United Church of Christ, it's one of the most hideous anti-Christian denominations in the world. And if you go on their website today, you will find that they claim the history of the RCUS as their own. Now there's a whole other story about court cases and so on that we are actually the continuing RCUS, but that's another story. What is my point? My point is that that theological influence in that small group was very, very solid. It was very, very good, except in one particular, and that was in the doctrine of sanctification. The doctrine of sanctification, under which they were influenced, taught, in essence, we might say, that the doctrine of justification is so important, justification by faith, it is so important that even to try to live a holy life was a denial of the doctrine of justification by faith. Yes, I said that. To strive to live a holy life, a life that is consistent with what the scriptures say was a denial of the Reformation doctrine of justification. Now that particular somewhat unique theological perspective within the RCUS had an effect. It had an effect through the generations and in fact I can remember as I served as an elder there were still those pastors who many of them were retired at that point who still held to some measure of that particular theology and had an effect. It had an effect in the congregations, it had an effect in life, it had an effect, I suppose in some ways, in the walk of Christians who were part of what is an otherwise very solid denomination. So my point is here, I hope reinforced, is saying that that little sliver of bad theology had an effect. It must have an effect. If I were to teach you that, don't even try to live a holy life. You're denying the doctrine of justification by faith. That's going to have an effect upon you. It's going to have an effect upon me and upon the church. So, theological precision, theological orthodoxy and all these kinds of things are not, that's what pastors and theologians argue about. No, it's what you should be concerned with as well. And so this, what I'm getting at here, this verse particularly illustrates how you should approach the Bible generally. That is, when you approach the Bible, when you read the Bible, you study the Bible in your personal devotions or however you're interacting with the scriptures here, You should be asking, for example, what does this verse, chapter, and passage have to do with my salvation? What does it have to do with my sanctification? What does it have to do with my worship? What does it have to do, and then you can fill in the blank. And that includes even the more difficult passages of scripture when, as you've probably heard me at some point talk about, for example, the genealogies of the Old Testament. What does that have to do with your salvation? Well, what it has to do with your salvation, for example, is that there was a generation of people that were taken off into bondage in Babylon. And they lived there for a long time and many of them prospered and had businesses and families and intermarriage and all kinds of things. And yet there was a remnant that came back from Babylon and settled in the land and their names are listed in the scriptures. And that means that the Lord Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem when the Lord intended. That's what it has to do with your salvation. That's your family history. That there were a lot of people that were very comfortable in Babylon and yet there were all these families right here that are not listed anywhere else in the scriptures that said, no, I'm going to go back to the land and it's going to be hard and dangerous. We might not survive. And that's your history. That's your family genealogy, spiritually speaking. So when you approach the Bible, don't hold it off at a distance. Don't say, well, this doesn't have anything to do with me. This doctrine doesn't really have anything to do with me. It does. It necessarily does. So be curious. Ask the right questions. Even seek help, if necessary, to get the answers. And so what's the doctrine here? We've only looked at two words so far, a pronoun and a verb. What's the doctrine at stake here? Well, the hint appears later on in the verse. It's going to appear a little bit later on in the sermon. What's the doctrine that he refers to here? What's the underlying doctrine? Well, before we get there, let's look at the next point here, because he says, I beseech you. Another pronoun. In particular, this is a plural pronoun. somewhat obvious by the other plurals here, but I want to emphasize this, that there is, that is the apostle is speaking to the church broadly within the context here of the letter. He's speaking to those saints who were in Rome at the time, but he is speaking more broadly to the church. This is a little bit different than, for example, a letter that written to his protege, that's Paul's protege, Timothy. where it's very personal, it's very intimate between the two of them, we can gain much from that, but here particularly what the apostle is doing is saying, you, church, here, I'm asking you, I'm admonishing you to do something. He's speaking to us here at Providence Reformed Church in Lodi on this day in 2024. He's speaking to you and to me, I beseech you, church, That is, all these parts of the scripture, and this does reinforce what I said earlier, it all applies to us in some way. And the relation to what has been said and taught here is very explicit, isn't it? It is therefore. That is, there is a logical, necessary relationship to chapters one through 11 to chapter 12, verse one. And this is exactly what I'm saying. This is the divine application of all the doctrine that has come before. We don't have to wonder, we don't have to ask, well, does this really have anything to do with the doctrine of election? Does it have anything to do with God's covenant faithfulness? Does it have anything to do with the pervasive wickedness inherent in mankind? Does it have anything to do with that? And the answer is yes, because of that little word, therefore. Yes, it does. It has a relationship to what our relationship is to God. It has a relationship to what it means to be part of the family of God. It has a relationship to having one and the same Father, which we have, all in one church, one Lord, one faith. one baptism, one God and Father of all. Yes, it has to do with who we are and our obligation in regards to his will and his purpose for our life and our relationship to him and honoring him and worshiping him and reverencing him in all parts of our lives, not just on Sunday mornings. And so he speaks to the church and says, therefore, Because of all this doctrine, and then there's the doctrine that follows, in these ways he's speaking to us, telling us that there is in fact a right and proper action that is laid upon us, an obligation that is laid upon us. And he says so coming alongside as a paraclete coming alongside, putting his arm on our shoulder and saying, walk with me, come this way, let's do this together. He comes speaking to us what it is that is the Lord's will for us. And again, we don't have to wonder because what we find here is that the scriptures are always speaking to us. The question is whether or not we're listening. The Scriptures are always speaking to us, which means that God is speaking to us. Now, the message is different. Oftentimes, there's a variation of message in the Scriptures. Not all passages are directly applicable to your life in the way others are. That's not unique to me. That's expressed very clearly, particularly in the Westminster Standards. And I agree with it, that there are some verses and passages and chapters we have to really focus on and others are important, but less so. And when I say the not all passages, are directly applicable to your life and circumstances, in your circumstances, what I'm saying is they're not applicable in the way it is often abused also today. Let me give you an example. There's a commercial on the radio I hear often that is from a financial services company. And they make a point in this commercial in talking about that they're Christians. And they quote scripture in part of them trying to get new clients for their financial services company. And they quote passages from the Old Testament, particularly talking about prosperity and the multitude of counselors and all these other kinds of things, and do so in an invalid way. And so they're tearing the scriptures out of its context and its purpose and trying to get customers for a financial services company by quoting Proverbs and talking about how good it is to have a multitude of counselors and how it leads to a good conclusion. Now we can have a very interesting conversation about the promises and proverbs and talking about are they absolute promises or are they general promises and all those kinds of things. Nevertheless, that's not what those passages from the Old Testament are about at all. So this verse, verse one, verse two, are clearly directly applicable to your life, not just today, but every day of your life. See the doctrines here. The doctrines of faith, even though they are spiritual in nature and they are spiritually discerned, often touch the ground, as it were. That is, it is a very rare thing, indeed, for a doctrine to merely float about and never really touch real life, touch you and me, to lay any obligations upon you and me. In fact, I can't think of one. Everything from the mysteries of the Trinitarian nature of God all the way down to the other doctrines that we're going to find here in this passage later on, they all touch the ground, they all touch us, they all come to us and they lay upon us blessed obligations. You might say, well, that sounds like law, Pastor. Well, if you think the scriptures require anything of you, What else would we call it? Not into salvation, it's for thanksgiving, for joy's sake that we seek to do what the Lord has laid upon us. Of course, see here the apostle is appealing to us relationally. He's saying, he's coming alongside us and saying, now let's live together as Christians. As brothers and sisters, we have a particular debt to one another. I have a debt to you and you have a debt to me. And sometimes the sibling dynamic as brothers and sisters in Christ is fraught with drama. Sometimes it's hard. I don't think it's a violation of any trust that my wife and I wondered sometimes if some of our children would ever speak to one another when they grew up. The sibling rivalry could be so fraught with drama. Yes, we have a debt to one another, and that debt is a debt of love, because we're brothers and sisters in Christ, and the Apostle Paul is coming alongside us like a brother and saying, walk with me, come with me, let's do this together, living as Christians together. And even though sometimes it's difficult, and sometimes there's, as it is common to say today, there's drama, the underlying love, mutual care ought to always shine through, and I'm talking about how we deal with one another as Christians. That's always the first step and oftentimes the second and third and so on. So he comes alongside, he says, I'm asking you, I'm admonishing you, I'm reaching out to you because of all this doctrine here, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God. And this goes to his argument. So he's admonishing us and all of us, that's his audience. And now he makes his argument. He begins to unfold his argument and says, by the mercies of God. By the mercies of God. So what is the doctrine that the apostle is implying here when he says, I beseech you therefore? The title that he gives that is the mercies of God. Now we can look back on chapter 11, chapter 10, chapter 9, and go all the way back to chapter 1 and 2, and we can see that there is some dramatic and terrible judgment that is mentioned there. Go back to Romans 1 if you can remember. What is the judgment? The description there is the downward spiral of unregenerate man leading to hardness and further hardness and the judgment of hardness because of the hardness and more sin because of the sin and it's grim. And you go back and you look just a few chapters before, and you see the history of Israel, which had such great benefits. What benefit is there to being a Jew? Much in every way, and yet, what do we find? That there is but just a remnant. And the Gentiles are brought in. And what does that all represent to us? Well, ultimately, it is talking about the mercies of God, because we so often look at it from the human perspective. Well, look how cruel and awful God is. That's the world's way of looking at it. Is God really a good God? Is he a loving God if he actually casts people into eternal punishment? It's always asking the wrong questions, always getting the wrong answers. The fact of the matter is what we find even in those terrible doctrines is God's mercy in that he chose some to salvation, taking some out of the pit, taking some out of the darkness, out of that downward spiral of sin, and he placed his love on some and pulled them out and not only saved them, but incorporated them into the heavenly family. Is that mercy? If it is not mercy, I don't know what mercy is. And how many are there, mercies, plural, Multiple mercies. Multiple mercies in that He has forgiven us our sins by providing a Savior. Multiple mercies by placing His love upon us who were absolutely unlovable in every possible way. Mercy after mercy after mercy is piled up. And He says, I'm beseeching you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God. That's the doctrine. Oh, the terrible, horrific doctrines of those Calvinists. I hate the term, by the way. It's always counter-true. It's counter to reality. that actually what's shown to us here, it is especially and explicitly mentioned by the Apostle Paul, is that it is mercy that has been demonstrated to us. What if God, in his long-sufferingness, waited for judgment, is what we read not that long ago in Romans. What if he waits? What if judgment doesn't come yet? Does that make God unjust? No, rather it shows that he's merciful and he's bringing in even more. And so for us, rightly with the apostle, we say, come Lord Jesus. And yet a part of us has to say, wait, wait, Lord Jesus. There's still more. May there be more. And so what he's doing is he's calling us, that is the apostle, he's calling us to these duties. not because of threats, not because of the fear of judgment, not because of anything other than God's mercy. Therefore, by that little word talking about through or because of, we might say, the mercies of God do what he's going to say in the next portion. And the mercies are indeed manifold. There are many, many, many, and because they are divine mercies, that means that they're gracious mercies. So what we find here, even before we get to the, perhaps the little phrase that we're eager to get to, speaking of living sacrifice, this is the meat of the apostle's argument here. If all of this, that is all the previous doctrine is so, is what he's saying. If all of this is true, chapter one through 11, if all of this actually is, then these things should be also. That's where he's making the change. That's where he's making the shift. If all of those mercies are actual mercies, if all of this doctrine is actually true doctrine and therefore what follows must also be true. Even the hard doctrines, election, reprobation, the rebellion of Israel, engrafting the Gentiles, all of those things are representations of the mercies of God. Now when we stop and we consider what is behind all this doctrine that has been taught to us by the inspired apostles, when we consider it, the one thing I haven't mentioned is perhaps the most significant thing. How hard is the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement as represented in the elements on the table today? How hard is that doctrine? See, we rejoice in it, rightly. We come to the table and rejoice with a solemn rejoicing in it when we consider what is represented to us. That is a hard doctrine. Your sins were placed upon the sinless Lamb of God. Your rebellion sent Him to the cross. Your forgiveness, the price of that forgiveness, was the blood of the Savior. Your hope Your hope is founded upon that grave, that tomb that is now empty. The Lord Jesus Christ taking upon himself your sins, bearing those sins under the cross, defeating the devil, defeating death, rises again, but the cost remains the same. much more precious than silver and gold, much more precious than anything this world has to offer is the blood of Jesus Christ. Now, if that atonement is imputed to you, if that righteousness is imputed to you, if that Mercy has been extended to you. If you come to the table today and you do so with joy and in good conscience, knowing that, yes, I'm a sinner, and yet the Lord Jesus Christ has done it all, and that's where I place my trust. If that is in fact true of you, then what other possible outcome can be than that you give all in return? All for Him. That's the only answer, and that is what we will see, Lord willing, next Lord's Day. But for now, let us indeed come and rightly rejoice with a solemn rejoicing as we come, eating the bread, broken bread, and drinking the wine poured, pointing us to the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.