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Tag Archives: Romans 12:1

Romans 12:1, First Sermon, Introduction

06 Thursday Jan 2022

Posted by memoirandremains in Romans, Sermons

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Obedience, Romans 12, Romans 12:1, Sermon, Sermon Introduction

I previously posted some essays for a study on Romans 12 (currently, I am part way through “body”, but have stalled a bit to read a couple of books on the Incarnation since it is relevant to “body”). In addition to the explanatory essays I also intend to prepare sermons. I think of the essays as prose and the sermons as poetry; one as explanation, one as persuasion (although both contain both elements, the emphasis is different.)

Below is the introduction to the sermon. The most common introduction in the circles with which I am familiar involves some sort of story which introduces the main point. So if I wish to emphasis self-sacrifice for a greater good, I may tell a story about soldier who risks much for his companions. This can be quite effective, because it can make an abstract idea concrete for those who are listening. Also a story, well told, gets the attention of the listener. It also provides a porch for the listener to enter the house. Since the sermon will always be coming after something else, getting attention and preparing the listener are valuable aims.

But that is not the only way to introduce a sermon. Below, rather than introduce a story, I seek to introduce a question. In this case, why did Paul chose a particular word? The sermon then acts to answer the question.

Romans 12:1–2 (ESV) 

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. 2 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. 

Paul is writing a letter to people, many of whom he had never met; a letter to a church he had never attended. Throughout this letter, he has been very bold telling them what they must know; explaining to them how they are to think about the work of God in Jesus Christ. Paul is writing with the confidence and authority of an apostle of Jesus Christ. 

The first 11 chapters have been development of doctrine. It is the most detailed, sustained explanation of the Christian life from a state of nature to glorification which appears in the Bible. He explains sanctification and answers questions about the deep things of election. 

The final section of the letter, beginning here, sets forth practical instruction on how to live a Christian in the world, and with other Christians—which is often a far more difficult matter. He will give very precise and direct commands. The commands are often profoundly difficult, such as bless those who persecute you. 

But here, when opens up this second he makes an interesting word choice. There is no word in English which has the same connotations as Paul’s word. When the word is used as a noun, it is used to the Holy Spirit, who is a Comforter in John 14. In 1 John 2, Jesus is said to be an Advocate; same word. There is also a verb with the same general meaning, and it can be translated exhort, or encourage, or beseech, or entreat.

It is not quite a command, but it is more than a suggestion. Paul is not offering opinions; he is an apostle and is giving direction. But he opens this series of direction with this interesting word. If you’re curious, it sounds something like this, parakalo. 

Peter does the same thing in his first epistle. In chapter 2 and verse 11, we read

Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. 

1 Peter 2:11 (ESV) Peter is using the same word as Paul uses here. There are a few other uses of this word in Paul which we will have a chance to consider. Why would an apostle, such as Peter or Paul—the “greatest”, if we can use such a word in this case—of apostles; why would they begin their most urgent instructions as an appeal and not as direct requirement?

They will both follow up this introduction with direct requirements: You must do this, you must not do that. They know how to issue direct commands. Nor are they timid men. They both showed themselves to have uncommon courage. They were both willing to face the threat of certain death with great poise. 

Nor were they unintelligent men who used words without thought. These were men who turned the world upside down by merely speaking. They brought no armies; they used no force. They had no political power. They did not command tremendous wealth. They were both Jews, who—to the Romans who knew about Jews—were strange people who would not eat pigs and who would not work on Saturday and who were circumcised.  Their strangeness would certainly not increase their persuasive appeal.  And yet, by merely speaking they transformed the world. 

Their words are such that people in China and Chile, India and Indiana, Laos and Lagos, adhere to what they said and wrote. That is astounding. So, we cannot simply ignore their decision when they make a choice of words which may surprise us. 

Why then does Paul, and Peter, use this word when it comes to a critical juncture. I believe there are two answers. The first answer: They are explaining to us, the nature of the obedience which a Christian should render to the command of God. The second answer: They are modeling for us, the type of leadership which should mark a Christian leader. Each of these ideas will need space to move and so there will be two sermons, one for each.

As to the nature of Christian obedience, there are three parts. The obedience of a Christian should flow from faith, hope, and love. Paul uses the word entreat, urge, beseech, because he was us to hear and see that our obedience flows from faith, hope, and love. He does not need to demand such obedience but merely stir-up our hearts and obedience will follow as a delight.

And so to the first point, The obedience of a Christian must flow from faith.

Romans 12, How to Live Together, 5.5

19 Sunday Dec 2021

Posted by memoirandremains in Church Conflict, Incarnation, Romans

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Church Conflict, Church Life, incarnation, Romans, Romans 12, Romans 12:1

The Incarnation

5 Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, 

                        “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, 

but a body have you prepared for me; 

            6           in burnt offerings and sin offerings 

you have taken no pleasure. 

            7           Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, 

as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’ ” 

Hebrews 10:5–7.

There is a tendency among human beings to either deny there is a soul, or to deny the body matters and the spirit is all. But the Scripture will have none of that.

The importance of the human being is seen when consider the most spiritual topics, God. While God does not have a body like a man; the Son of God became incarnate as a man (while in manner being degraded in any manner as God). The Incarnation is a mystery beyond all mysteries. But is also the basis of how we must understand all other things:

The incarnation of God, therefore, is the supreme mystery at the center of our Christian confession, and no less at the center of all reality. Consequently, all conceptions of reality that fail to see and savor that all things hold together in Christ, and that he is preeminent in all things, can never be anything but abstract conceptions of virtual realities—that is, invariably hollow and ultimately vacuous concepts pulled away from reality.

John C. Clark and Marcus Peter Johnson, The Incarnation of God: The Mystery of the Gospel as the Foundation of Evangelical Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015), 12.

There are many things which could be said of the Incarnation, but one thing which must be understood is the profound importance of the human body. To battle on our behalf, it was first necessary for the Son of God to have the body of a human being, and that the human body was the location of that conflict. Consider this verse:

14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, [he shares our nature]

that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, [he destroys death from the position of a human body]

Hebrews 2:14. Think of how the Scripture speaks of our Savior. His announcement into this world is an announcement of being born a human being:

30 And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” 

Luke 1:30–33.  Jesus is born. He is wrapped in cloth. He is laid in a manager – and at the end of his life he will again be wrapped in cloth and this time laid in a tomb. 

The crucifixion is the killing of his body. And the resurrection is the resurrection of his body.  And he is Ascended, reigning forever in a body.

The proof of the Resurrection is that his body is no longer in the tomb:

5 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.” 

Matthew 28:5–7. When he proves to the Disciples he has risen, it is the proof of his body:

24 Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” 

26 Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” 28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” 

John 20:24–29. That body is the residence of all our blessing:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,

Ephesians 1:3. Indeed our salvation is bound upon with the identification of our body with his:

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 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. 

5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrectionlike his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Romans 6:1–11. Our life is a participation in the life of Christ, in his death, in his burial, in his resurrection.  

The presentation of our bodies in a living sacrifice is premised upon this union with Christ. We can offer no sacrifice apart from him:

24 For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, 26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. 

Hebrews 9:24–28. The sacrifice of his body is the only sacrifice for sin; a sacrifice never to be repeated. It is a sacrifice rendered “once.” 

We can only understand the sacrifice of our body in light of the sacrifice of his body and our union to that sacrifice. 

Indeed, it is in our union to Christ, a union which is not merely some intellectual proposition, but a sort of union which involves the body of our Ascended Incarnate Lord and our body is the premise of our sacrifice:

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” 

John 14:6 We cannot offer something to the Father but in the life of the Son. We know the Father in knowing the Son. “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” John 14:9. Now these are deep waters in which it is very easy to get lost and drown. For our purposes we need merely assert that our approach to God is only in Jesus Christ, not around him. 

Jesus has made a way for his by taking our nature, by being found in a body which was offered as a sacrifice – and which was received for the forgiveness of sin. We participate in that life, that sacrifice, that resurrection. To participate in that life entails a life our body.  

What you must understand, the human body is the battlefield upon which God defeated his enemies. We participate in that victory in the identification of our life in this body with the life of the Incarnate Son of God. This identification is so great, that the Church, the sum of the redeemed are referred as the Body of Christ. 

The logic of Paul’s argument of how we are to live—and that manner of life is the nature of the “living sacrifice” commanded—is wholly premised upon our identification in the body of Christ. 

The Incarnation makes the life of the Church possible and is the basis for that life.

Seeing more clearly how the life of our body is joined up with the life of Jesus will be the next point.

Edward Taylor, Was there a palace of pure gold.3

24 Wednesday Jun 2020

Posted by memoirandremains in Edward Taylor, Worship, Worship

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Edward Taylor, Literature, Poems, Poetry, Praies, Praise, Romans 12:1

Having fully set out the problem, Taylor prays for a resolution. If he is not adequate by nature, then he seeks to be made adequate by grace. That is, it is not a work of Taylor’s effort, but a work of God, “this worthy work of thine.”

The prayer is threefold: first that his heart be made a sacred vessel (thy golden box); second, filled with the correction disposition (love divine); third, offered up to God.

Oh! That my heart was made thy golden box

Full of affections and of love divine

Knit all in tassels, and the true-love knots,

To garnish o’re this worthy work of thine.

This box and all therein more rich than gold

In sacred flames I to thee offer would.

The image of gold is used for those things most proper to God.  In the previous stanza the poet notes that he had tied “knots” – had decorated the “earth’s toys” lovingly with flowers; but in this stanza, the God-given new heart would decorate the be a “golden box” impossibly knit together from tassels and flower (knots). 

The box would contain “affections” and “love divine”. 

The golden box so decorated would be more wonderful than a mere gold box. 

And last, the box would then be offered up as a sacrifice to God. He would spend this box “in sacred flames.”

The concept of sacrifice here may sound odd, because a fiery sacrifice would be the destruction of the golden box. While Taylor is perfectly willing to mix metaphors (a golden box made of flowers), the concept here is more likely the concept of a “living sacrifice”:

Romans 12:1 (AV) 

1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. 

If he so reworked and remade, then he will be fit for that heavenly pleasure he desires:

With thy rich tissue my poor soul array:

And lead me to thy Father’s House above.

Thy graces’ storehouse make my soul I pray.

Thy praise shall then wear tassels of my love.

If thou conduct me in thy Father’s Ways,

I’ll the golden trumpet of thy praise. 

The word “tissue” does not here mean an insubstantial paper. The older meaning was a cloth interwoven with gold or silver: the clothing of royalty. And so dress me like a prince and lead to the Father’s House. 

Father’s House comes the Lord’s words in the Upper Room:

John 14:1–2 (AV) 

1 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 

By the way, “mansion” does not mean separate enormous houses: the Greek here speaks of a place to live, a dwelling place. 

The prayer to be led, is a common prayer in the Psalms; which undoubtably was behind Taylor’s prayer in the poem. For instance:

Psalm 43:3 (AV) 

3 O send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me; 

let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles. 

He prays not merely to be led, but rather for the entire renovation of the soul to be a storehouse filled with grace. The idea of grace is free work of God in him: it is the good which God does and gives. 

Then finally being filled with God’s grace and no longer a “leaden mind”, a “blockhead”, he will burst forth in praise. In fact, the praise will be “tassels” a decoration of his love: thus bringing the image of a decorated heart again into view.

This time, if God will bring Taylor to that “Palace of Pure Gold” he will no longer be dumb but will now offer praise. 

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