Be's in Romans 12

Now, read with me in the New Testament, Romans chapter 12, please. Paul's letter to the Roman believers, chapter 12. Just to commence, I'll read the first two verses and pick up a few a little later.

Verse 1, Romans chapter 12, 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. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. What a valuable book the epistle to the Romans is.

All scripture is good and profitable, we know that. But when you think of the epistle written to these believers, in Paul's time of writing, the apostle had not yet been in the city. And he went there by a different way and means, no doubt, than what he anticipated.

Went as a prisoner. But the Lord directed him in writing, and as we think of the epistle, most would understand that the first eight chapters are doctrinally. When you think of the very earlier chapters, the depravity of the human race, and as we've been reminded of a wondrous, glorious day for this earth that's coming, the Lord will have, by that moment, He'll set things right.

We live in a world so filled with the effects of the fall of Adam in the Garden of Eden. God's earth that He created in pure perfectness, and a wonderful garden He placed man in, the Garden of Eden. And it wasn't very long until Satan found Eve away from Adam and approached her and deceived her.

The result of her deception and Adam taking of the fruit from her hand, and disobedience to God, it's brought all the sin and corruption and violence that we see in this very present moment in our age. We're glad we're on the winning side, and so when we think of the epistle, not only the depravity of the Jew and the Gentile, and the world entirely, but in introducing to us the beautiful and wonderful truth of justification, forgiveness of sins, peace, and all these blessings that the gospel, through the work of the Lord Jesus on Calvary, and the glad tidings of God's salvation, what it has brought. We, as those believers on the Lord Jesus Christ, have come into all these blessings, and the best is yet to come.

And this epistle goes through. You come to chapter 7, and man, as he looks upon him, and he thinks of himself for me, as he says, in myself there dwelleth no good thing. I think the pronoun I is about 30 times, is it, in the seventh chapter, occupied with the failures of flesh, and so on.

But chapter 8 begins with these wonderful words, there is therefore no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. What a secure, safe position we enjoy, as a result of being brought into the good, personally, individually, of the sacrifice and the work of the cross. In the end of the fourth chapter, the Apostle says, he the Lord Jesus delivered for our offenses, raised again for our justification, the evidence of a satisfied throne above, God being satisfied with payment for our sin, the penalty paid.

In chapter 6, he chooses to give us to understand deliverance from the power of sin, that's available. We'll not have perfection till we're home in the glory, we know that. But as believers, in this evil world, young or old, we need that in our lives.

Sin shall not have dominion over you. Chapter 8, as we are coming now to, and our thoughts, no condemnation in Christ. And the end of the chapter is, no separation.

And you look at those closing verses, and the list of things that are given, natural forces that separate, and the unseen, and all of it. And yet here you and I are, saved by the grace of God and with every believer elsewhere in the face of the earth, and those that went on to the glory in the saints of the old economy. What a secure position.

I sympathize and feel sorry for people, if they're truly saved, that don't seem to grasp eternal security. You know, it's a pitiful thing. How secure we are! I met a chap in the army, and it was actually a Jewish boy that drew my attention to him, and I was a little surprised.

I says to him, what, how come you're asking me a question about, well, he says, if we swear, or make a bad, say something wrong, or sad, or evil, he brings out a little, he called it a Bible, anyway, it was a New Testament, and he begins to read, and so on, and he says, I know you've got a Bible. He says, I was just curious about it. Well, I, I, he pointed me out who he, what he was looked at, anyway.

I talked to him a little bit, and he says, the moment I'd been contaminated with a wrong word setter, I'm separated from God, I've lost my salvation, and I'm confessing, and confessing. Well, you know, after a few minutes, I says to him, you know, I feel sorry for you, but I'm so thankful for what I enjoy, security in Christ. I know there's weakness and failure.

Now, I want to come to my chapter. After all the doctrinal truths of the first eight, and we're reminded of the fact that God has something yet for his earthly people this morning, those three chapters, 9, 10, and 11. He's not forgotten Israel.

All Israel, as far as will be presented, the revenant will accept and recognize their true Messiah, and the wonders of what's going to take place then. But the practical section of the book begins here, where I began reading, and interesting the way Paul, in writing in that first verse we read, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, how endearing is language, an appeal, likely in the thought of what he has given to us in the earlier preceding chapters, and all of the mercies of God, and the wonders of what grace will bring in its full day, when it's fully seen in the eternal ages. You and I have every reason to realize that in these earthly houses that you and I are living in, earthly bodies, that we can use them for the honor of the Lord Jesus.

As he says, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, that by the mercies of God, depraved, guilty, lost, condemned sinners, saved, forgiven, justified, sanctified, set apart. In Romans 8, you have that five links of a chain, ends with glorification. It's all awaiting us, but we're reminded it could happen at any moment, the rapture, and then the program of God will go on.

So the opportunity, the privilege to present these bodies as a living sacrifice. You know, we live in an evil world, and all the pressures of the age, and the contamination, and the attitudes of man. And yet he's saying this, here's the privilege and the honor of a Christian to present that to God, our bodies, and to use them.

And he says, it'll be wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And I remember as a young Christian, a brother in the ministry, just wherever it was that, I don't recall, but he said this, God has never asked anything unreasonable of you and I. The honor to present ourselves, it's your reasonable. It's the really, the honor, the privilege that you can seek to please God.

So verse 2 says, and I'm going to think of the little expressions that are linked with this two-letter word be. If you were here last night, Mr. Skates, forgive a senior moment. He took up the word soul last night.

So great salvation, so loved, and so marred, and so far after he removed our transgressions. Well, I'm going to look up, use a little word be here. He says, be not conformed to this world.

What a world, when you think of the world system. We've been reminded of physical earth in the ministry just now. But as you think of the world system controlled by the God of this age, John writes in his first epistle, all that's in the world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life.

The late Chauncey Yost used to say three little piles, but I think he should have said three big piles. You know, that's this whole world. And that which appeals to the flesh and the eye and the pride of the life.

Man chooses to think about his own accomplishments and his own self-esteem and his own wishes. But in this old world, here it is. And the devil is seeking to entice.

And whether we're younger or whether we're older, he wants to, as it were, you and I, to lay down the bars and just allow me to be conformed to this world. He's a God of this age. But Paul is saying this, be not conformed to this world.

Don't allow yourself to be put into its mold. I worked in masonry work a few years. That's way back in the 1950s.

But you know, you build a little form and then you pour concrete in it. That's what we were doing. This and that.

But anyway, don't be conformed. You're conforming that material to those forms. The Apostle is saying, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, which is, he says, that you may prove what is good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

You know, that thought of being transformed is changing the thinking in our lives, our minds. And to recognize the Word of God and the truth of God and the Apostle is very practical in these last four chapters of the Epistle. Little exhortations, whether it's in the personal way or to the world, the political world, to the government and all that's entailed.

Yet he's simply showing this. There's that that with a renewing of the mind that you can be transformed. And this will prove, he says, what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

He's been speaking about the will of God there. Be not conformed. Be ye transformed, renewed.

The renewing of your mind. You know, there's lots of things we we never get through with life as far as learning. You know, there was a letter, there was a brother was one of the Stickfords, that's third generation back from this time.

It was years ago. But he says, life is like a big time of testing. This is we'll never get through with it.

Because when you get to the golden years, it's the other things that are testing, you know, but you can worry about things that we're human. So here we are. And we can see that God has for his in his word, things that you and I can bring into our experience, for our profit, as to these bodies of ours to present them before the Lord.

So be not conformed to the world, but be transformed. You can prove before man, as you seek under the eye of heaven, to seek to go on for him. Now he's writing to a company of saints, or there may have been maybe several assemblies in Rome, possibly indicated there in the last chapter, be as it may.

There's not only the practical responsibility, there's collective as well. We're glad for every assembly represented here even this afternoon. And for the believers in these areas, whether it's La Crosse, or Black River Falls, or down the way Black Earth, or Bee Town, Blue River, a lot of bees over here in Wisconsin we used to think about as the assemblies.

But be as it may, each lampstand seeking to honor the person of Christ. We're gathered in his name unto him. I've remembered the Lord several times over the years with just another brother and a sister.

I left one morning for Cylinder, Iowa, and there was 125 miles away. I'd called the night before I was coming. About 20 miles from Cylinder, it came into freezing rain, and we just moved along the last few miles.

The brother and sister came, and she got out of the car, and she says, we wouldn't have come if you hadn't known you were coming. Well, I said, we're here. What are we going to do? I said, we just well have a little remembrance feast.

Now it wasn't a meeting that lasted an hour, but we had a little remembrance. You know, the Lord is honored, and I think of the companies around this wide world. We're glad for children of God wherever they are, but those who realize and the truth of the scripture being gathered outside the systems of men alone unto himself, honoring his own word in obedience as a testimony gathered to his name.

Now I'm going to move on. The next B come to verse 9. Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil.

Plead to that which is good. He's touching love here. The writer to the Hebrews relates these words, chapter 13.

Let brotherly love continue, and when you think of the relationship that we've been brought into as a family, you know we're meeting new believers that we've never met just, you know, all the time, as you think of saints, and just this little part of the, as we think of God's earth, yet the whole mass of believers across the land. Of course there's billions of people without Christ, the sadness, but what a blessed thought of love that has linked us together, and it was God's love to us that gave his son. It was Christ's love that bore our sins on his own body in the tree.

We've been brought into the family of God through that spiritual birth that took place in your life, whether it was last night or many years ago. We were speaking about people getting older, and we related Eric McCullough's mother lived to be a hundred and six, but you know she had a sharp mind, and I went to see her one day, and she was a hundred and four at the time, and she took my finger, you haven't been here for a long time. Well I had to confess that, but you know the thing is this, what a family we're brought into, and the day is coming, and you see the things of earth will all be done.

Let love be without dissimulation. We love one another because they're in Christ, and we love those that honor God's truth, and cling to the truths of the scripture, and put them into practice in their life, and we can hope we can be an encouragement to every child of God. If you're here and never have saw your need of being in the assembly and the privilege, I hope you'll search the scriptures and recognize this is God's order in His Word.

Love without dissimulation, no partiality, and so on. Verse 10, be kindly affection one to another with brotherly love. You see it's carrying on the same theme as a mention, and so there is that that draws us to another one another, because as I look at you, and you look at me, we're looking at people who've been redeemed by precious blood, saved by the grace of God, and brought to understand the truth of being gathered to His precious name.

Dropping down to verse 16, we have this little thought here, be of the same mind one to another. Mine not things of high estate, mine not high things, but can condescend to men of low estate. And we have another be there, be not wise in your own conceits.

You know this thought of this being of the same mind. I pondered it at times over the years. It's not talking about secular life.

There's many here that have farming background, and some like the John Deere's, and some like the Case Internationals, and there are lots of tractors when I was a boy that went out of existence. But you know, it's not that. It's bringing our thoughts together, agreeing with God's truth, and to realize as we come to oneness of a mind, as the Holy Scriptures teach us, not only as to life, as to pattern of life, but as the purpose of life, and as to the practice in life, and as to the assembly in these precious truths.

And so while there will be differences of schools of thought, nevertheless the Apostle is showing that when we come to realize it's God's truth that settles a matter, and we seek the wisdom of God in a practical way to put it into practice for his own glory in the honor of the Lord Jesus. He says, be not wise in your own conceits. You know, we all have our own opinions about things, but you need to remember it's just your opinion, because mine either, because sometimes what I thought was really right, I found out sometimes it was wrong, misinformed.

But he's showing this that we can, not, you know, in our own consensus, be not wise in your own consensus as were. And so he shows this, what a privilege to put these practical things, as we're just picking up a few out of the chapter. And then verse 18, if it be possible, what a mercy of God, if it be possible as much as life in you live peaceably with all men.

You know, there always are some that they seem to love being contentious about things, the world out there. And that can creep into our thinking, you know, sad to say. But he's showing us, you know, as best to our ability, seek to get along with one another.

You know, the world watches. I think of a dear man lived in our town of Applington. I didn't really know him very well, but he liked to come up and visit with Paul and Bina Elliott.

But he said to Mrs. Elliott one day, talking about the believers in the assembly out north of town at Heightsville, you people stick together like cockleburs. He seemed to realize there was something that drew them together. I think he made a profession be saved, but he didn't want to pay the price apparently to gather out, to be identified with them.

But you can see, if it be possible, live peaceably with all men. And the chapter ends with another B. Be not overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good. Oh, what a practical little exhortations.

I leave them with you, with what's to follow. Granted, it may be that we'll just seek to put these little exhortations to profit in your life and mine, and the Lord will be honored. Our hearts will be encouraged and cheered as we're here yet waiting and looking forward to the soon return of the Lord Jesus.