If genuine Christianity is anything, it is imminently practical. And the Apostle Paul argues that it is also logical and reasonable! Listen to this message as Pastor Clark unfolds the practical message of Romans chapter twelve.

<p>If genuine Christianity is anything, it is imminently practical. And the Apostle Paul argues that it is also logical and reasonable! Listen to this message as Pastor Clark unfolds the practical message of Romans chapter twelve.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Dalton SDA Church

The Book of Romans

Chester Clark

Romans 1 – Not Ashamed

Romans 2 – Love that Hates

Bad News, Good News

Righteousness by Faith

Wanted: Dead & Alive

Romans 7 - Freedom from the Law

Romans 8 - Living by the Spirit

Romans 9-The Calling

Unexplainable Ways

Reasonable Service

The Bible and Politics

Father in heaven, today we thank you that you've given us.

You've given us Jesus, and in Jesus you've given us every good gift.

We thank you for the Sabbath, we thank you for your Word, we thank you for fellowship, we thank you for the joy of seeing You working in our own lives, even through some of the challenges and the difficulties we face.

And today, as we think about what it means to render reasonable service, we pray that You would send Your Spirit to be here.

Father, take my lips, take my voice, and may Your words have an impact.

May Your Scriptures have an impact on our hearts today, and we thank You in Jesus' name.

Paul begins chapter 12 of the book of Romans with an entreaty, a plea.

Now this is somewhat unique so far in the book, but it's not unique to how Paul wrote.

In fact, if you look at almost all of the epistles of Paul, Paul began by giving a theological treatise, by giving a presentation of why he believed what he believed, and having given what he was trying to teach, he would then come later in the epistle to this statement where he would then begin to apply what he was teaching to the lives of his listeners, to the lives of his readers.

He's trying to explain to them what their reasonable service would be given the fact that Jesus has brought us salvation, as he has described in the first 11 chapters.

When I think of reasonable service, I think of some of those great stories of heroism, where people were willing to give their lives for the throne, for their king, for their master.

There are different stories we could look at, but 1 of the, perhaps 1 of the most remarkable stories of heroism and loyalty and service is found in the book of 2 Samuel in the 23rd chapter.

You remember it was then that the Philistines had encamped around Bethlehem, and David himself was hiding out in the wilderness.

And David was just sort of musing out there in the desert, out there in the wilderness, without a lot of provisions, no doubt.

David was musing and just reflecting on his childhood and on some of the, maybe some of the more positive memories, you know, reminiscing, and he says, oh man, right now I just wish I had a drink of water from the well of Bethlehem.

He knew the Bethlehem was surrounded, they were at war, the Philistines were there, and there was no way he was going to get a drink of water.

He certainly didn't intend for anyone to take that as a request, but 3 of his most valiant men heard him doing this reminiscing, reflecting, sort of wishful thinking.

And 3 of his most valiant men, they said, we're going to give our king what he wants.

We're going to go to the well of Bethlehem and get water.

Now can you imagine, can you imagine 3 men taking on a whole occupied city or surrounded city with enemy army?

Somehow they either snuck or fought their way through the Philistines all the way to the well of Bethlehem.

They must have taken some time to draw water out of the well.

Have you ever, I don't know how they drew water in those days.

Maybe they had just sort of a rope on a, with a, tied to a, you know, a clay jar or something.

But I'll tell you, I've been in some places in third world countries where they use a bag on the end of a rope because they don't have jars.

It's sort of like a, and it's a little bit tricky to get that bag to start filling.

And once they do, they get it up and here they are surrounded in enemy territory.

They must have had some type of way to carry it back.

I mean, they didn't have our sig bottles that we have today, you know.

They had to have some vessel, some flask of leather or something to carry it back in, and they carry it back through the enemy lines, and they bring it to David.

They were willing, they were willing to put their lives on the line for their King.

And we can talk about the Romans who were sworn allegiance to their generals, who fought for the emperor.

We could talk about the great missionaries who sacrificed much, who were willing to die.

The martyrs who said, Oh, I wish I had a thousand lives to be burned at the stake.

I would like to die a thousand times for my Master." And Paul here, he begins Romans chapter 12 by saying, I beseech you, I plead with you, I entreat you, but therefore...

Now, The word therefore is always very instructive.

The word therefore is filled with meaning.

And sometimes we tend to just sort of speed over it, breeze past it, when we see the word therefore, because it's sort of, you know, we don't think a lot about it, and too Often we read the Bible sort of in just like 1 verse at a time.

But I would propose to you that the word therefore means that based upon what we've already talked about, right?

Based upon some preceding ideas, therefore, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as living sacrifices." Now, therefore, must point back to the first 11 chapters where Paul has been arguing about the gospel.

I shouldn't say arguing, that sounds maybe pejorative and negative.

He has been presenting, he's been eloquently describing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

He's been pointing out some of the pitfalls that the Jewish nation had fallen into, of legalism.

He started in Romans chapter 1 talking about how the world is lost.

And just as his readers were about to become self-confident, well, at least I don't do those terrible things that Paul's describing out in the world.

Because it doesn't matter if you go to church every week.

You go to church twice or 3 times or 5 times a week.

You're lost except for Jesus, a miracle of God's grace.

And so chapter 3, he goes on to begin describing what this righteousness by faith is like.

Number 3, I shouldn't say the church is lost, the Good people are lost without salvation through Jesus Christ.

Romans chapter 4, but there's righteousness by faith that comes from God.

And Abraham is given as an example of that, right?

And Romans 5, therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 6, our old man dies and God uses the metaphor of the resurrection, death and resurrection, that God speaks new life into our hearts.

That's my heart in 2014, your heart in 2014.

A miracle, divine regeneration, just as a great miracle performed by this same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead.

He uses the symbols of marriage and how we can't be married to 2 people legally in God's eyes.

And so, if we're still married to our old life, we can't be united with Jesus in Romans chapter 7.

Romans chapter 8 talks about how we can live by the flesh or we can live by the Spirit, but God wants to give us the power to be the sons of God, to be led by the Spirit of God.

And so, he's gone through all of this description of how we can experience salvation in Jesus.

Romans is a book of the Bible that we can thank God for, because it gives us 1 of the clearest understandings of the gospel.

And Romans 9 and 10 and 11, he talks about particularly the problems that the Jews had fallen into.

This trap of legalism, of thinking because you were doing good, you were good.

Of thinking you were defined by the things you do.

No, We are defined by who we are inside and only Jesus can change who I am.

Only Jesus, a miracle of Jesus, can change who I am.

And so based on all of this, Paul says in Romans chapter 12, I beseech you therefore, therefore, because of all of this that I've presented to you, this is your response, that you present your bodies, present yourselves as living sacrifices, living sacrifices, which is your reasonable service.

Now the word reasonable there, sometimes it's translated spiritual.

I don't know exactly how they come with the spiritual.

Now that pretty much means it's rational, it's reasonable.

This is something that if you knew all of the information, you would do.

You see, the world thinks that Christianity is irrational.

The Bible argues within itself, at least, the Bible argues that no, God says, following me, giving yourself, your bodies as living sacrifice, giving everything you have to me is actually logical, if you know the facts.

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The Book of Romans

Reasonable Service

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