Sermon Tone Analysis

! Romans 12

!! Romans 12

*Tape #8131*

*Pastor Chuck Smith*

 

Open your Bibles to Romans, chapter twelve.

Paul has just exuded his marvel at the wisdom of God and the knowledge of God.

His judgments.

His ways.

The mind of the Lord.

The plan of God of bringing salvation to all men.

Then he declares, /I beseech you therefore, brethren, /The word, “therefore” always refers back to what he has been referring to and talking about, in the past few sentences or you can go way back here, in the Book of Romans, the justification by faith and all that God has wrought.

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.

/After all that God has done.

The mercies that God has manifested.

Bringing us redemption from sin.  Deliverance from the power of the enemy.

This beautiful new life in Christ Jesus.

Therefore present your bodies to God, as a living sacrifice.

Paul in his letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor.

6:19), teaches that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit.

That we are not our own.

We have been bought with a price.

Therefore we are to glorify God in our bodies and in our spirits, which are His.

Present your body to God as a living sacrifice.

Lord, here is my life.

Here is my body.

It’s sort of expressed in that hymn, “Take my life and let it be, consecrated Lord, to Thee.

Take my hands, let them move at the impulse of Thy love.

Take my feet, let them be swift and beautiful for Thee.”

Lord, take my body and use my body as you see fit.

Paul tells us to yield the members of our body, that is, as instruments unto righteousness (Romans 6:13).

Let the Holy Spirit, dwelling in us, use our bodies for God's purposes in the accomplishing of things for the kingdom of God and the things that are eternal.

Paul said this is your reasonable service.

In other words, this makes sense!

It doesn’t make sense for people to use their bodies as they often do as instruments of unrighteousness, following after the lust of our flesh.

Or seeking really to bring glory, honor to ourselves.

I think of, for the sake of glory, how many times people abuse their bodies.

I’m reminded of it every time I walk down the steps of the platform here and head for the back door.

I feel the pain in my right knee.

Pain that goes back to my college days and playing football.

And ever since college days, I’ve had that pain in my right knee.

For what?

For the glory of the cheers of the crowd when you’ve done some special exploit on the football field.

A moment of glory.

Close to fifty years of pain.

The glory has past, long, long, ago.

The pain remains.

And so often that is so.

The abuse of our bodies for a moment of glory but bringing oftentimes a lifetime of pain.

The abuse of our bodies for a moment of pleasure often bringing a lifetime of regret.

There was a man who was brought by his friends to Jesus, one day.

The Scriptures said he was suffering from palsy.

The Greek word indicates a disease similar to our syphilis in its advanced stages.

A disease that was transmitted by sexual union.

This man had become an invalid as the disease progressed in his body.

He had to be carried now by his friends.

A moment of pleasure and now suffering the consequences.

And don’t you know in his mind he was being tormented and plagued, having to be served by others?

In this advanced stage of this disease.

All because of his folly.

All because of his sin.

All for a moment’s pleasure.

When his friends came to the house, they found they couldn’t get in because of the crowd that had surrounded the house, wanting to hear the words of Jesus.

So you remember the story.

They climbed on the roof.

They removed some tiles and let him down in front of Jesus.

And as the dust and the dirt from the tiles being removed probably was sifting down into the room, and as Jesus looked up to see what the commotion and the noise was, I picture Him smiling at the ingenuity of these fellows and of their determination to get their friend to Jesus.

And as he was let down in front of Jesus.

As Jesus looked at him, He said, “Your sins are forgiven.”

Don’t you know that those were the sweetest words that man had heard.

For months no doubt, he had been mentally tormented because of his sins and the consequences of that sin.

A reminder of it, daily every time he woke up and became conscious he was reminded of his sin as he was suffering the consequence of it.

I imagine that his mind was plagued.

He was tormented.

The old,  why?

Why, did I do it?

Why was I so foolish?

Why did I sin like that?

And to hear the words of Jesus, your sins are forgiven.

His heart must have leaped for joy.

I’m certain that his friends on the roof were disappointed.

I can hear one of them say, Hey, that’s not why we went to all of the trouble to get him to You.

We want him healed!

That’s why we brought him.

So You could heal him.

But Jesus took care of first things first.

The first issue was unresolved sin.

Of course the Pharisees sitting there, they were upset.

They said, that’s blasphemous.

No one can forgive sins but God!

They were right!

And so Jesus said, “What’s easier to say?

Your sins are forgiven or rise, fold up your mat and go home?

But that you might know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins.”

In other words that you might know that I am God.

He said to the man, take your mat.

Roll it up and go home.

The man stood up, took his mat and went on out.

The Bible encourages us not to use our bodies for sinful purposes.

Paul said your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

And if you go out to a prostitute, because you are joined with Christ and your body is the temple of God, you are actually joining God with that prostitute.