ROMANS 12:1-2 MAY 20, 2018 TEACHING PLAN

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1 TEACHING PLAN MAY 20, 2018

2 GOD SAYS I AM A LIVING SACRIFICE! ROMANS 12:1-2 MAY 20, 2018 TEACHING PLAN PREPARATION > Spend the week reading through and studying Romans 12:1-2. Consult the commentary provided and any additional study tools (such as a concordance or Bible dictionary) to enhance your preparation. > Determine which discussion points and questions will work best with your group. > Pray for the upcoming group meeting, your teaching, your group members, and their receptivity to the study. HIGHLIGHTS TAKEAWAY: It is only in offering our lives back to God for His service that we are able to experience His good, pleasing, and perfect will. WHY IT S IMPORTANT: The image of the church has continued to deteriorate in the eyes of the world because we simply don t look or act differently sometimes we are even worse than those who do not believe in Jesus! GOSPEL CONNECTION: Jesus amazed people (John 5:19-20). How can the church amaze our world? 2 Finding Your Place Calvary Tuscaloosa

3 TEACHING PLAN MAY 20, 2018 INTRODUCTION As your group time begins, use this section to help get the conversation going. 1 Today we will learn about how God desires that we sacrifice ourselves, including our priorities, in order to fully commit to following Him. When is a time you have had to sacrifice something for the benefit of someone else? Was the sacrifice worth it? Explain. 2 What have you had to sacrifice in order to follow God more fully? Love always requires a sacrifice. Whether love requires a sacrifice of time, priorities, or our own prerogatives, love means that we set aside the things we value to give of ourselves to others. Nowhere is this reality more clear than on the cross, where Jesus gave His own life to bring us peace with God, where God gave His precious and unique Son for our benefit. The cross is the greatest picture of sacrifice the world has ever seen, and it is also the greatest example of love the world has ever known. Living in light of Christ s sacrifice causes us to lay aside our priorities and goals to pursue the upward call of Christ. The gospel motivates us to give our whole lives as a sacrifice to God. 3 Finding Your Place Calvary Tuscaloosa

4 TEACHING PLAN MAY 20, 2018 UNDERSTANDING Unpack the biblical text to discover what Scripture says or means about a particular topic. > Have a volunteer read Romans 12:1. 1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God this is your spiritual act of worship. The word therefore in Scripture signals the reader to look back to the previous context. What was Paul asking his readers (and us) to do in this verse? Look back at Romans 3:23-24, Romans 6:23, and Romans 8:1-2. How do the previous chapters of Romans inform Paul s words in chapter 12? The therefore in Romans 12:1 refers back to all that Paul had unpacked in Romans up to this point. Romans is a missionary support letter from Paul to the church at Rome to ask for their prayers and support in his mission to the nations. In the letter, Paul revealed that the glory of God is most clearly seen in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are all desperately sinful beyond anything that we can imagine, but through the mercy of God and the sacrifice of Jesus we can be made right and restored to a relationship with our Creator God. Such mercy demands a response from our lives, which is what Paul moved on to in Romans 12. Based on all that God has done for us, what should be our response? 4 Finding Your Place Calvary Tuscaloosa

5 TEACHING PLAN MAY 20, 2018 How do you understand the phrase living sacrifice? How is presenting yourself as a living sacrifice an act of worship? We may think of worship as the musical portion of our Sunday service. But worship is far more than that. The word worship in verse 1 may also be translated as service (as in Rom. 9:4) or ministry (as in Heb. 9:1). In fact, the terms worship and service are nearly interchangeable in relation to the Lord. We worship God with lives and actions devoted to Him. Worship is the response to being justified before a holy God. Our lives are to be living sacrifices. Living implies a daily, continual, and active giving of ourselves and our desires to the will of God in order to know Him more deeply and make Him known to others. What does it look like practically to offer ourselves to God as living sacrifices? How do we incorporate this practice into daily life? If you gave yourself to God as a living sacrifice, how would this change your relationship with Him? How would it affect your family? Your work? Our church? The word translated spiritual in verse 1 can also be understood as meaning logical or reasonable. The Greek word translated worship often was used to refer to carrying out religious duties or services. Paul taught that in light of God s gracious redemption (by the mercies of God), living as a sacrifice was the logical and pleasing way for Christians to serve God. Giving ourselves to God continually communicates to God and to the world around us that we are His. 5 Finding Your Place Calvary Tuscaloosa

6 TEACHING PLAN MAY 20, 2018 > Have a volunteer read Romans 12:2. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God s will is his good, pleasing and perfect will. What are some signs we re conforming to this evil age? Who are we pleasing when we adopt this world s values, speech, and behavior? How are we to avoid conformity to the world? We face continual pressure to adopt the customs and mindset of the world in which we live. Although that influence must be rejected, this alone will never create the kind of change God has in mind for His followers. Real and lasting change comes from within our hearts. We must let ourselves be transformed by the Spirit and the Word. According to verse 2, how can we know the will of God? What attitudes and actions will help us cooperate in this renewal of our minds? What words did Paul use to describe God s will for us? Have you experienced a season when God s will did not seem good, pleasing, and perfect, yet it turned out to be so? 6 Finding Your Place Calvary Tuscaloosa

7 TEACHING PLAN MAY 20, 2018 Now that we are dead to sin and alive to God, we should respond by living for God. He calls us to consecrate our lives to God as we refuse to be conformed to the world and its values. One cannot be a sacrifice to God and still be conformed to the world. Paul instead wanted the Roman believers to be transformed by God. His will is that we would become new people who daily sacrifice our lives to follow His will. God s will is good, pleasing, and perfect. Many times it does not feel that way, but in the end, God wants what is best for us even if we don t see it at the time. Living transformed comes from God s changing our hearts from the old to the new. APPLICATION Help your group identify how the truths from the Scripture passage apply directly to their lives. 1 How can you give yourself to God daily as a living sacrifice this week? How will you corporately and privately worship Jesus? 2 How do we cooperate with Christ and the Holy Spirit to be transformed by the gospel? 3 How is your mind being renewed currently? What are you doing to fill your heart and mind with God s truth? 7 Finding Your Place Calvary Tuscaloosa

8 TEACHING PLAN MAY 20, 2018 P R A Y Thank God for His rich and undeserved mercy. Praise Him for the grace He bestows upon us every day. Ask for the help and the conviction to live every day as a response to the grace you have been shown in the gospel of Jesus Christ. FOLLOW UP Midway through this week, send a follow-up to your group with some or all of the following information: > Questions to consider as they continue to reflect on what they learned this week: In view of all that God has done for you, what are you willing to do for Him? Are you ready to live a life of sacrifice? Where will you start? How do we avoid the pitfall of our Christian life becoming nothing more than behavior modification? How can we ensure heart transformation is taking place? > A note of encouragement, following up on any specific prayer requests mentioned during your group gathering. > The challenge to memorize Romans 12: Finding Your Place Calvary Tuscaloosa

9 COMMENTARY MAY 20, 2018 ROMANS 12:1-2 12:1. This verse is one of the most important in all the Bible, and contains more key theological terms and truths for its size than perhaps any other verse of Scripture. Having completed his explanation of sin, salvation, sanctification, and sovereignty, Paul now does to the Roman believers, in a manner of speaking, what the Holy Spirit does in our lives he urges the Rome believers to act on the truth they have received. I urge you is the translation of parakaleo (to urge, call, exhort, encourage), from which is derived the noun parakletos, or paraclete. This is the term Jesus used to refer to the promised Holy Spirit who would come to the disciples after his ascension into heaven (John 14:16,26; 15:26; 16:7). Paraclete is translated by Helper in the NASB and NKJV, Comforter in the KJV, and Counselor in the NIV As is widely understood, the paraclete s ministry is pictured from the formation of the word para (along, beside, together) and kaleo (to call). Therefore, the paraclete is one called alongside to do that which the verb, parakaleo, suggests exhort, urge, comfort, counsel. It is striking how closely Paul fulfills the ministry of the Holy Spirit predicted by Jesus: But the Holy Spirit... will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you (John 14:26). Paul has certainly taught the Roman Christians all things, and is now about to remind them of the consequences and application of what he has taught them. Paul is going to urge them to act on the truth they have received, letting that truth be the foundation of their Christian practice. The key action verb in Paul s urging is to offer. But before getting to that key action step, Paul justifies his exhortation. He does not simply command them to offer themselves; he appeals to 9 Finding Your Place Calvary Tuscaloosa

10 COMMENTARY MAY 20, 2018 their reason ( logikos). In view of God s mercy, Paul says, it is only reasonable that you offer yourselves to God. Prior to this verse in Romans, Paul has mentioned the mercy of God ten times (Rom. 9:15 [twice], 16,18 [twice], 23; 11:30,31 [twice], 32), and mentions it two more times following this verse (12:8 [the mercy of God manifested by human instruments]; 15:9). His conclusion to chapter 11 summarizes all that he has taught on the sovereignty of God in salvation by saying that God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all (Rom. 11:32). The only thing that saves a human race lost in sin is the mercy of God. Mercy is oiktirmos (compassion, pity; besides this verse, cf. 2 Cor. 1:3; Phil. 2:1; Col. 3:12; Heb. 10:28), that compassionbased response of God to the plight of humans that causes him to forego what they deserve, punishment for sin, and give them what they do not deserve, forgiveness. In view of God s mercy, Paul urges his readers (and us) to offer [their] bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. What would be a reasonable ( logikos) response to the cancellation of judgment? Offering oneself in gratitude for the grace that has been shown would not be unreasonable. The reason that offering oneself to God is both reasonable and spiritual is based partly on the meaning of logikos and partly on Paul s context. Logikos derives from logos, the Greek term for word or reason. But Paul is also drawing a contrast here between the physical sacrifices of the Old Testament and the spiritual sacrifice of the New Testament. The spiritual act of worship which Paul is encouraging is one that springs from the inner man, the realm of the mind (see v. 2). It is therefore a reasonable as well as spiritual form of worship. In the Old Testament, there were sacrifices for sin as well as sacrifices of gratitude and praise. 10 Finding Your Place Calvary Tuscaloosa

11 COMMENTARY MAY 20, 2018 Christ has obviously fulfilled the sacrifice for sin once for all (Heb. 9:26; 10:10,12,14), and there is nothing that the believer can add to that sacrifice. But living sacrifices of gratitude and praise are the appropriate (reasonable, spiritual) sacrifices to be made by those who live only by the mercy of God. These sacrifices are as much the act of worship of the believer today as the sacrifices of dead animals were the act of worship of Old Testament Israelites. Latreia is the word Paul used for the worship practices of Israel in Romans 9:4, so he obviously has the same concept in mind for New Testament believers. The root of worship is latreuo, to serve. God was served in the Old Testament by sacrifices of property owned by the believer, but he is served in the New Testament by the sacrifice of the believer himself or herself. Paul does not tell believers to make a sacrifice, but to be a sacrifice. The sacrifice we are to offer is our bodies, which recalls Paul s earlier words in Romans 6:13: Do not offer the parts of your body to sin... but rather offer yourselves to God... as instruments of righteousness. God s mercy resulted in our being bought out of the slave market of sin and adopted into the household of righteousness. Therefore, our bodies are to become living sacrifices as we worship the one who redeemed us by his mercy. It takes many times of hearing this truth for the contemporary believer to get it right. God is not asking the believer to dedicate his gifts, abilities, money, time, ideas, creativity, or any such thing. He is asking the believer to sacrifice himself or herself. God, through the apostle Paul, is calling for the body of every believer to be offered daily as a sacrifice in worship) and if necessary, in death. 11 Finding Your Place Calvary Tuscaloosa

12 COMMENTARY MAY 20, :2a. The person who has truly sacrificed himself or herself to God will be distinguished by one overriding characteristic that informs the rest of life. That characteristic is the unwillingness to be conformed to the pattern of this world. Or, as J. B. Phillips put it in his widely-known translation of this verse, Don t let the world... squeeze you into its mold. Paul gives the offensive key to this defensive posture but first a closer look at that which the believer is committed to avoiding. The NIV rendering of aion by world is not quite as telling as its primary translation, age. The NIV s pattern is not in the Greek text. It is an expansion of the verb suschematizo, to conform to. Literally, the verse says: Do not be conformed to this age. Age carries with it a sense of the beliefs, the philosophies, the methodologies, and the strategies of the fallen world in which we live. It is not just the world and its people in their fallen state. It is the worldviews and practices that derive from the fallen state that define the age in which humans live at any time in history. Paul elsewhere calls this age evil (Gal. 1:4), and says that the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers to the gospel (2 Cor. 4:4). This age has wise men, scholars, and philosophers who believe that their answers to life are to be preferred over God s (1 Cor. 1:20), but whose wisdom will lead them to nothing (1 Cor. 2:6). Paul warns believers against being deceived into measuring true wisdom by the standards of this age, and suggests instead that believers become fools with regard to this age so that they might become truly wise (1 Cor. 3:18). This age (world) is a dangerous place: We know... that the whole world is under the control of the evil one (1 John 5:19). If we do not allow ourselves to be conformed (present passive imperative of suschematizo), then we will not be one with ( sun) the schemes 12 Finding Your Place Calvary Tuscaloosa

13 COMMENTARY MAY 20, 2018 (schema) of the age in which we live. While the same word for schemes is not used in the Greek text ( schema), the same sense is implied by Paul s words in 2 Corinthians 2:11 and Ephesians 6:11 where he makes reference to Satan s schemes and strategies against believers. If Satan is the god of this world (and he is), and if the whole world lies in his power (and it does), then the believer must resist the pressure to conform morally, intellectually, and emotionally and ultimately behaviorally to Satan s schemes for life. We are not to act like the wise of this age those who follow their own satanically-inspired will and practices rather than God s. And what offensive measure keeps the believer from being conformed to this present evil age? The consistent and deliberate renewing of the mind. To make new (Paul here uses the noun, renewal, anakainosis, instead of the verb anakainoo, to make new) is a combination of new (kainos) and again ( ana). Paul uses the verb form in 2 Corinthians 4:16 where he says we are being renewed day by day, and in Colossians 3:10 where he says that the new self is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Both of these uses of the verb shed light on his use of the noun here, especially the Colossians reference where he highlights a renewal of knowledge in ( kata, according to) the image of God. In other words, believers are coming out of Satan s domain where lies and depravity are the language and currency, and depraved minds (Rom. 1:28) are the norm. Therefore, our minds must be renewed in knowledge according to the image of God, not the age in which Satan rules. 13 Finding Your Place Calvary Tuscaloosa

14 COMMENTARY MAY 20, 2018 The ongoing, repetitive nature of the renewal is drawn from the present passive imperative of metamorphoo, to change form. It is from this Greek word that our metamorphosis derives a transformation; a marked change in appearance, character, condition, or function (American Heritage Dictionary). The English definition describes perfectly the metamorphosis which took place before the disciples eyes as Jesus was transfigured ( metamorphoo) before them: His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light (Matt. 17:2), whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them (Mark 9:3). These dramatic images are a picture of how different the believer is to become as, day after day, he or she is being transformed by the renewing of the mind. Instead of being conformed to the present evil age, believers are to be transformed into the image of God insofar as knowledge and behavior are concerned. Paul has already stated that it is God s ultimate goal for believers to be conformed to the likeness of [God s] Son (Rom. 8:29). But in this verse, the conformation is of a different sort than the conformation to the world that we are warned against in our present verse. We are warned against being shaped into ( suschematizo) the patterns and schemes of the world system in which we live. On the other hand, Paul says that we are being made like Christ. Here the word conformed is summorphos, made up of sum (with) and morphe (shape or form). The former word for conformed has to do with exterior structures and designs, things which are changeable, not permanent. The latter word, suggesting how we are being conformed to Christ, has to do with being made like something else in essence or in form, something that is durable and not just an exterior structure. 14 Finding Your Place Calvary Tuscaloosa

15 COMMENTARY MAY 20, :2b. But how exactly is the renewing to take place? What is to fuel the metamorphosis that takes place in the believer s life? Transformation ( conformation to the image of Christ) happens when the renewed mind begins to test and approve what God s will is his good, pleasing and perfect will. It is the will of God his standards, his desires, his motives, his values, his practices which gradually pull the monarch butterfly of the believer out of the world s cocoon into which he or she has been squeezed. It is a knowledge and practice of the will of God that leads to spiritual growth and maturity in the Christian s life. Test and approve in the NIV is actually one word, dokimazo, which means to test and (by implication or extension) to approve. Both words can be subsumed under the idea of prove, as rendered by the NASB that you may prove what the will of God is. The idea here is that the renewed mind can discover and put into action thereby proving or demonstrating the will of God. His will is good, pleasing and perfect, and in doing his will, the believer demonstrates sacrificial living. That is, when a person chooses to sacrifice the preferences of the flesh (the normal human disposition), and chooses to do the will of God instead, the life of sacrifice is seen. This concludes Paul s introductory exhortation following eleven chapters of doctrinal foundation. It would not be off the mark to say that all of Romans 1-11 could be summarized under the rubric of the mercy of God. Starting with the initial chapters when the utter sinfulness of humans is revealed, it quickly becomes obvious that mercy is all that can save the human race. By the time we get to the end of chapter 11, Paul declares that God s grand purpose is to have mercy on all (the 15 Finding Your Place Calvary Tuscaloosa

16 COMMENTARY MAY 20, 2018 elect) without exception. Therefore, when Paul says in Romans 12:1, in view of God s mercy, he is saying, in view of Romans 1-11 ; in view of your sin, God s salvation, your sanctification, and God s sovereignty, it really is a spiritually reasonable thing for you to sacrifice yourself for him. That is Paul s conclusion to Romans 1-11 and his introduction to Romans If the first eleven chapters of Romans demonstrate God s mercy, the next four chapters are how believers respond to God s mercy by demonstrating sacrificial living. In the rest of chapter 12, sacrifice is expressed and evidenced in the body of Christ and in personal relationships. In chapter 13, sacrifice is seen as believers submit to civil authorities and to the dual commands to love God and neighbor. And finally, in chapters 14 and 15, sacrifice is seen as believers give up their personal preferences in the church so as not to cause a weaker Christian to stumble and sin. To return to the point made in the introduction to this chapter, the contents of the next four chapters contain much practical advice for Christian living. But to disconnect these chapters from Romans 1-11 is to disconnect them from their power source, for the motivation to sacrifice in the Christian life is the mercy of God. 16 Finding Your Place Calvary Tuscaloosa