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Nobleton Community Church
29084 Sentinel Street PO Box 224
Nobleton, Florida 34661
Rev. Paul V. Lehmann, Pastor
813-389-8683
Nobletoncommunitychurch.org
info@nobletoncommunitychurch.org
OUR VISION IS:
To experience SPIRIT-FILLED WORSHIP AND PRAYER
To be involved in EVANGELISM, DISCIPLINING AND TRAINING PEOPLE
To use our SPIRITUAL GIFTS
To SERVE AND REACH PEOPLE FOR CHRIST, BOTH
“ACROSS THE STREET AND ACROSS THE WORLD”
Nobleton Community Church
Date October 19, 2025
Text: Romans 12:1-2
Pastor Paul Lehmann
We have been talking a lot about pursuing God and going hard after him. It involves having a clean heart and then taking steps to live for him and serve him, by giving ourselves over to the controlling power of the Holy Spirit. We see later in this chapter 12, other practical spiritual gifts mentioned, besides the ones Paul talks about in I Corinthians 14, which we have talked about before. We have also talked about the fruit of the Spirit, which is how we live, once we are filled with the Holy Spirit.
We come to a place today where we want to advance and not go backward in our understanding of what Paul is trying to tell us in this book of Romans. We must make a decision on the basis of these great truths. This principle is established especially in the first two verses of chapter 12, (Our text).
When we read: by the mercies of God, or in view of the mercies of God, or:
Because of the mercies of, we are urged to present or offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—which is our true and proper worship. (our reasonable sacrifice or service, or worship) all of these are used in various translations.
The first 11 chapters of Romans are all that God has done for us. Therefore, it is only natural that we yield ourselves to God because of what he has done for us. Because Christ died for our sins (and we are all sinners), but his gift to us is eternal life and salvation from sin and death. God doesn’t hold us who have trusted in Jesus Christ responsible for these sins any longer, so it is through the mercies of God (in Christ), and because of his mercy that we are to present or yield our bodies to him.
In chapter 6, verse 13, we read that the word “present.” It is the same as the word yield or offer. We read, “Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness.” The idea is that we are to yield or turn over, or put our bodies at God’s disposal.
Okay, but why the body, you might think? I thought this was all a spiritual thing with Jesus living within us. The reason is that the body is the vehicle through which we operate. At least here on earth. We must not confuse the old nature with the body. The old nature is part of the old, unregenerate life, which seeks to control the body in order to practice sin (or evil). Think rather of the body as being a neutral vehicle in which we are living. By neutral, I mean that it is neither good nor bad in itself. Before we were saved, the flesh nature controlled the body. Now that we have been born again, if we have been born again by the Spirit of God, we are united to Christ so that the new man, the new nature, should be in control of the body. (II Cor. 5:17)
A Greek at the time of Paul, would never say yield your body to God. To the Greeks, what mattered was the spirit; the body was only a shackle and a prison-house; the body was something to be despised and even to be ashamed of. No real Christian ever believed that. The Christian believes that his body belongs to God just as much as his soul does, and that he can serve God just as well with his body as he can with his mind or his spirit. The body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, the place in which the Holy Spirit dwells, the instrument through which the Holy Spirit works. After all the great fact of the incarnation basically means that God Himself took a human body upon him, in Jesus Christ, to live in it and to work through it. The Lord Jesus says, “I need the body, for that is the vehicle through which people see me. I want your life as a living sacrifice.” Now, a living sacrifice is a paradox. Sacrifice is death, yet here he speaks of a living sacrifice. The fact is, he wants both in our body—life and death. How can this be realized?
In the Old Testament, —-animals were brought as offerings for sin. But in their case, it was death that God asked for, so that sacrifice and death go together. But in our case, he asks for a living sacrifice. He wants our bodies while we are alive on this earth, but he wants us to live in the attitude of being dead to sin but alive to God. This is the basis for New Testament Christian living. Consequently, the words “living sacrifice” instead of being a paradox are now seen to be the recipe, if you will, for the whole Christian life. We are to carry an attitude of death toward the old sinful nature and sinful things, and submit ourselves alive to God. For this reason, then, he wants our bodies to be given over entirely to him.
Take the case of a church. It is built by man for the offering of worship of our spirit to God. But it involves the mind of a human to build it, and the hands of people with skills. It is the product of the mind and the body and the spirit of man.
On the other hand, our bodies are created by God alone. It is true that we worship in a building made by man, but we need to understand that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, not a building built by man. I know this will shock some of you, but this building isn’t holy just because we call it a church. It becomes holy when we, as God’s people who are to be holy, come here to worship. Your house can be a place of worship. The early Christians met in homes. There was no church or cathedral built until Constantine decided that Christians should have big edifices to worship in, just like the Jews and just like the pagans. Unfortunately, at this time, about 300 AD, when Christians were no longer persecuted and killed for their faith, and the “State” religion became Christianity, thousands of pagans came into the church, who were not born again by the Spirit of God, and so many of those who worshiped in these buildings were not holy.
So Paul is saying, take your body; take the tasks that you have to do every day; take the ordinary work around your home, around the places you go, like restaurants, stores, and offices, and offer all that as an act of worship to God. The KJV has it—your reasonable service, but the word here means worship, as most translations have it. It is a word with an interesting history. I’m not a Greek scholar, but the Greek word is lateria, and it is the noun of the verb latreuein. Originally, the word meant to work for hire or pay. It was the word that was used of the laboring man who gave his strength to a master and an employer in return for the pay the employer would give him. It denotes, not slavery, but the voluntary undertaking of work. It then came to mean quite generally to serve, but it also came to mean that to which a man gives his whole life. For instance, a man could be said to give his life to the service of beauty. In that sense, it comes very nearly to mean to dedicate one’s life to something or someone. Then, finally, this word came to be the word which was characteristically and distinctively used of the service of the gods. In the Bible, it never means human service; it is always used of service to and worship of God
Now, here we have a most significant thing. The true worship, the really spiritual worship, is the offering of one’s body, and all that one does every day with it, –to God;
It is not the offering to God of a liturgy, however noble, or a ritual, however magnificent. Real worship is the offering of everyday life to God. Therefore, think about the things we do with our bodies. That is why to abuse our body with alcohol so that we get drunk, is characterized in the Bible, –as SIN —drunkenness both in the Old and New Testaments IS SIN, Any other abuse of our bodies is also sin, and therefore when we do anything that does not glorify Christ, is sin, and is not worship, and we are told that everything we do should be done to worship and glorify God. Real worship is not just something which is done in a church; Real worship is something which takes place everywhere we go. and every common thing we do should be an act of worship. This should make us think about some of the things we do, what we say, how we act, what we communicate to other people—are those things glorifying to God, or are they bringing shame to Him?
We should be able to say; “I am going to church to worship God.” But we should also be able to say, I am going to the store, or to the doctor’s office, or work in the yard, to worship God, therefore my actions and my speech should only bring glory to him.
Every part of our body, Our eyes, which were once used to look at things that our bodies craved, are now to be given over to Him as separated holy members, to see the things he wants us to see. That, in effect, is already a sacrifice, a living and a holy sacrifice. Our ears and tongues, which were once given to spreading that gossip, telling lies about people, and murdering character, are now to be given over to him to hear the cry of the spiritually poor and needy, and to tell them of life in Christ. Nothing short of that is acceptable to God.
The presenting and yielding, or offering our bodies to God is so that our “sacrifice” of ourselves will be acceptable to him. Too many times we consider only what is acceptable to people. Our first consideration is often, “What will people think of what I am doing?” Rather than “what does God think of it? Then others don’t even care what people think, let alone what God thinks. When we are singing, our first consideration may be the acceptability of our talent before people. We wonder if we will receive congratulations or thanks for what we have done. But it is far more important that we ask, “Is this acceptable to God?” (Whatever we are doing.) We are reminded again of Israel’s experience as related in the Book of Malachi 1:6-8, where God accused the priests of disrespecting him and showing contempt for him. Then they had the audacity to say, “How have we shown contempt for your name? By offering defiled food on my altar and saying that the table of the Lord is contemptible.” Malachi goes on to declare what “God is saying.” When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Then he gives them a real slap in the face—-“Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you and your offering? Says the Lord Almighty.
The Lord demanded that only the best were to be brought for sacrifice, but the Israelites brought the sick and the lame, animals for which there was little use to them. These, they would not miss very much. But God reminded them that if they brought such gifts to their earthly rulers, they would not get away with it. (In fact, they wouldn’t dream of even trying it, but their attitude is: with God, it doesn’t matter).
The message for us is obvious. Our various governments, local and federal, come along and tell us what percentage of our income and property is taxable and how much they want from us, and that is what they get. Yet so often in our finances, we treat God as the Israelites treated him with their offerings. Actually, as I say almost every week when we take up the offering and give of our tithes, all we have belongs to God, and yet he allows us to keep the largest portion of it for our use.
This isn’t a message on giving, but the New Testament standard of giving offerings, which is proportionate giving as outlined in I Corinthians 16. Some feel that the New Testament doesn’t teach anything about tithing but rather just according to how much we can afford to give. Just let me say that Jesus supported the tithe. In Matthew 23:23, he tells the Pharisees that they should not only give a tenth of what comes in, but they shouldn’t neglect Justice, mercy, and faithfulness. Both should be practiced. Therefore, in the New Testament, giving a tenth of what we receive is almost taken for granted, and then Paul talks about extra giving of offerings, so that the gospel message can go forth. This is Missions giving emphasized, over and above the tithe. (Since this is Missions Sunday, the 3rd Sunday, maybe now some of you might want to reconsider what you give to ‘Missions’ — —and for use right now, it is Christian Relief Ministries, who helps the persecuted church around the world. )
So many of us give, not according to what we receive, but what we have left over after we have met all of our other obligations. Some will say, “I have so many debts and I do not think I should rob my creditors in order to pay God.” But when we fail to give God his share, who are we actually robbing? The biblical pattern is to give first, and God will bless the 90% left over. Try this and see if this isn’t true. That’s what God says in Malachi. Jeannene and I have found this to be true, and I know that many of you have too.
The lesson is clear, our offering of what God gives us, and according to our passage this morning, we see we must offer and yield our bodies as well as whatever God gives us, to him. That is acceptable to him. Let’s give him our strength and health, and the best of our time. He deserves the best we have. This he says, is reasonable service, or worship. In light of all God has done for us. He wants us exclusively for himself.
Paul is saying that this demands a radical change. He says we must not be conformed to the world, but we must be transformed from it. To express this idea, he uses two Greek words. The first is schema, and it means “outward form,” which varies from year to year and from day to day. A man’s schema is continuously altering. It is not the same when you are 17 as when you are 70. It is not the same when you are working in the yard in shorts or jeans, as when you go to a formal dinner affair, or a wedding etc. Paul says, “don’t be fashioned after, or conformed to, or pushed into the mold of this world, or society. In other words, don’t try to match your life to what everyone else thinks, or does. Also, don’t be like a chameleon which takes its color from its surroundings! —don’t go with changing society when society’s morals are contrary to Scripture. Don’t let the world decide what you are going to be like. Morals today are certainly different from what they were 50-60 years ago, but God’s word doesn’t change. Society just chooses to ignore the parts they don’t like. They try to make the Bible irrelevant. The word that Paul uses for being transformed from the world means the essential transforming shape or element of anything. Our appearance changes, but inwardly we are the same person—until the Holy Spirit changes us. Paul is saying that to worship and to serve God, we must undergo a change, not of our outward form, but of our inward personality. Of the very essence of our being.
What is that change? To put it the way Paul does,—he says, Being left to ourselves, we live a life dominated by human nature at its lowest. In Christ we live a life dominated by Jesus Christ –the Holy Spirit. An inward change has happened, and the essential person has been changed. Now we live, not as a self-centered person, but a Christ-centered person, and when we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we are also a Spirit-controlled person. This must happen, Paul says, by the renewing of your mind. It isn’t something we can do on our own. Do you remember the transfiguration on the mountain, when Jesus took three of his disciples with him? Jesus was “transfigured” along with Moses and Elijah when they appeared. This was a supernatural change. In that case, they had their glorified bodies, which we won’t have until after our mortal bodies are gone. But still, the transformation that must take place now is a supernatural spiritual change. A transformation.
When we accept Jesus Christ as our personal Savior and claim him as Lord of our lives, something happens within us. We are born-again. We are a new creation. Then, when we turn our whole life, including our body, over to Christ, that inner transformation begins to manifest itself in the outward way of living our life. But the change is first inward before it is outward.
It involves a change of mind. (Sometimes we say a change of our heart, because in North America, the heart is the center or seat of our affections—In Papua New Guinea, the seat of affection is the liver), What we think about is basic to what we do. Because of the new birth, we have the mind of Christ, but we must be submitted to God. To be carnally minded is to have the mind of society in our world (making us worldly). To be spiritually minded is life and peace. To have our minds under the control of the Holy Spirit results in producing the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.