Luke: 00:04

Now we've been in the book of Romans for, for a while. We've kind of been going through this series slowly walking through that book. Today, we're gonna be in Romans chapter 11 and chapter 12. So go ahead and turn there if you wanna join me in that passage. So we're kind of at least 4 I I'm not gonna say that we're completely done with Romans, because we're certainly not at the end of the book, but this will kind of be it for maybe the time being.

Luke: 00:38

And this is a pretty good place to maybe pause and put her finger in the series, because it kind of comes to at a place where Paul makes this significant kind of turning point and conclusion point in his argument. So before we take take a look at Romans chapter 11 and chapter 12, I kind of want to just sit with this question for a moment. Just what exactly is a Christian? Like, what exactly makes a Christian? Is it or, like, what does a Christian look like?

Luke: 01:15

Is, is a Christian or, like, an evangelical, is that just like a demographic group? Is it like a political leaning? Is it someone who just checks a box on a survey result? Right? You know, we get those those surveys go out all the time.

Luke: 01:33

How many people are Christians? How many people are atheists? Atheists? How pe how many people are this weird category of none. They're nothing.

Luke: 01:42

And, you know, what makes exactly a Christian? And like, is it just someone who comes to church on the regular basis? Like, is that is that exactly what a Christian is? And so we've got that, like, question. Right?

Luke: 02:02

It's just like, how exactly and what exactly does a Christian look like someone who follows Jesus? Well, the same question was, kind of, being asked by the church in Rome. Right? So we've been been paying attention to the sermons and as we're covering the book of Romans. You might notice that Paul kinda has this, like, back and forth kind of talking in his talk.

Luke: 02:28

He's like, alright. You, Gentiles, over here. And he's like, okay. You stay there. Now, you, Jews.

Luke: 02:33

Like, he kinda goes back and forth between talking to Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. And there's a really important reason for that. So Rome, right, ancient Rome, You know, anytime they had a new Caesar, a new ruler, you know, new rules, new regulations, new things would happen. So one of the Caesars, he didn't like the Jews very much, which is like seems to be a historical reoccurring thing. And they he decided to kick them all out of Rome.

Luke: 03:07

He's like, you guys all need to leave Rome. And so, all the Jewish Christians, because they didn't make a distinction between, oh, you're a Christian not a Jew. They were like, no no. You're a Jew. And so they were all made to leave Rome.

Luke: 03:20

And, well, so what was it left in Rome was just gentile believers. People who had never grown up or been part of a Jewish faith or the Jewish culture were not ethnically Jewish. They were Gentiles, like most of us in this room. And they had come to know Jesus and they were beginning to follow him. And Christianity, like, was, you know, birthed out of and part of the Jewish religion.

Luke: 03:46

And so you've got all these Gentiles who are just like, alright. We're gonna do church the way we do church. And you're just kind of doing church or kind of following Jesus and all of those things. And then the I can't remember the Caesar's name, but he died, or something. And then the new Caesar came in.

Luke: 04:05

Right? And the new Caesar didn't care. Like, all the Jews started coming back into Rome. And so now all of a sudden, you've got these 2 different groups of Christians. Two different groups of believers.

Luke: 04:16

You've got these Gentile believers who'd kind of started to do church and follow Jesus their own way a little bit. And then you've got these Jewish believers who are following Jesus the Messiah and they're coming in and they're like, woah woah woah. You can't do it that way. Like you can't worship Jesus that way. It's gotta be this way.

Luke: 04:37

And they're getting into conflict because they've had this time of being apart and they've started to, kind of, do things differently. So one of the reasons that Paul is writing this whole letter is to talk about he's like, look, you guys are worshiping the same Jesus. You guys need to figure out how to get along. And so he's done this whole argument where he's trying to essentially establish this, like, universal understanding of the gospel. Saying that, no no no, like the Gentiles don't have to become Jewish in order to follow Jesus.

Luke: 05:12

And so that's this constant back and forth that Paul is making in his argument. And so you're trying to kind of almost merge kind of the old family of God with the new family of God. Right? Because if we talk about like the story of this entire bible. Right?

Luke: 05:35

Don't worry. I won't talk that long today. But you know, we have God who kind of decides to set aside this special family for himself. A nation, a people that he's gonna call his own. That's where the story of Abraham starts.

Luke: 05:50

He calls Abraham out of the land. He says, I'm gonna make you into a nation, into a family, that I'm going to be with in a very special way. I'm gonna have a special relationship with. And then that Messiah comes through that family, a descendant of Abraham and of David, and comes Jesus. And then Jesus is like, I'm not just here to save the Jews, I'm here to save everyone.

Luke: 06:18

And so now there's this kind of like the old family of God, the Jews, those who have been, you know, following and had this special relationship with God are kind of now trying to integrate. Or better yet, maybe the Gentiles, those who are being invited into this relationship are coming into this new family and they're trying to figure out how do we do this together. And so they're they're ask asking the same questions that I kind of started us with, that I kind of posed. What exactly is a Christian? What does a Christian look like?

Luke: 06:50

What does a Christian do? Right? How do we kind of parse that out? What exactly are we supposed to be all about? And so, we're gonna kind of see the answer to that question in our text.

Luke: 07:05

So Paul's kind of made this argument. He made the universal argument that, you know, it's through faith not through the law and Gentiles are welcome in. But then this leads to a problem. The problem then being, well, what about all of the gent the Jews who don't believe Jesus is their Messiah? Who aren't accepting and becoming Christians?

Luke: 07:30

And that's what chapters 9 and 10 were largely talking about. It's like, like Pastor Cameron talked about last week. What do we do when people don't accept Christ? Why is it that sometimes Christ becomes the thing that we stumble over? Why is it that we struggle to accept that grace and submit to God?

Luke: 07:52

So 9 and 10 are, kind of, talking about that. And then, chapter 11 kind of is asking this question of, well, is God still faithful to the Jews? To Israel? Because he made a promise to Abraham and if he's gonna bring in all these Gentiles and some of the Jews are not going to recognize that Jesus is the Messiah, is he being faithful to them? Or is he kind of like, you know, kind of he as he abandoned his promise to them?

Luke: 08:24

Is kind of that question. And so, that's where chapter 11 starts out. So let's just read that. Verse 1 of chapter 11. Paul says, I asked then, did God reject his people?

Luke: 08:40

Talking about the Jews, the Israelites. By no means. I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham. Remember? Family of God from the tribe of Benjamin.

Luke: 08:53

God did not reject his people whom he foreknew. Don't you know what scripture says in the passage about Elijah? How he appealed to God against Israel. He said, lord they have killed your prophets and they've torn down your altars. I am the only one left and they're trying to kill me.

Luke: 09:14

What has God to answer him? He says, I have reserved for myself 7,000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal. So too, at the present time, there's a remnant chosen by grace. And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works. If it were, grace would no longer be grace.

Luke: 09:35

There has always been a remnant of the faithful in every age. So what Paul is saying is he's hearkening back to the time of Elijah. Elijah was a prophet when Israel, the people of God, were wayward. They weren't following God. They had evil king and queen who were leading the people away from serving God.

Luke: 09:59

And they had actually torn down the altars. They had stopped worshiping God. And and Elijah is like, I'm the only faithful one here. And God says, no no. There's still 7,000 people, at least, who have not bowed down to Baal, who are still with you, who are still faithful, this remnant.

Luke: 10:23

And so, there've always always been a remnant of the faithful in every single age. And so Paul saying, he's like, look. Just because there is Israel, the family of God, those who are ethnically Jewish, He's like, just because they're part of that family, doesn't mean that they are necessarily in good relationship with God. Means they've been invited into a special and good relationship with God, but they haven't necessarily taken that next step. They haven't, like, they're not following God.

Luke: 11:01

And so there is this kind of this idea of inside of the chosen people of Israel, there is a smaller chosen people of Israel who still follow God, even when the rest kind of are wayward. Kind of creates this picture. And this isn't this isn't just for the old testament. This is for us. Jesus kind of teaches this.

Luke: 11:25

Let's turn back in the gospels to Matthew chapter 13 for a moment. Matthew chapter 13. I wanna look at verses 24 through 30. This is one of Jesus' parables, which is where he kind of tells a story that's this analogy and he's trying to teach a greater truth out of this picture, out of this word picture. So Matthew 13, we'll start in verse 24.

Luke: 12:01

Jesus told them another parable. He said, the kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed a good seed in his field. But while everyone is sleeping, his enemy came out and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. When the wheat sprouted and forms heads the then the weeds also appeared. The owner servant came to him and said, sir don't didn't you sow good seed in your field?

Luke: 12:28

Where did all of these weeds come from? An enemy did this, he replied. And the servant asked him, do you want us to go and pull up all the weeds? No, he answered. Because while you were pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them.

Luke: 12:43

Let both grow until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters first collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned and then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn. Now that's Jesus' parable And what I really like about this parable is that I don't have to explain it because Jesus does in the next couple of verses. So, makes my job easier. So if we go down just a couple verses to verse 36, the disciples come to Jesus and they're like, can you explain this?

Luke: 13:15

What did you mean about all the wheat and weeds? And so Jesus here gives an explanation. Verse 36, he says, then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field. And he answered, the one who sowed the good seeds is the son of man, Jesus.

Luke: 13:36

The first field is the world and the good seed stands for the people in the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age and the harvesters are angels. Notice again that word age. It's gonna be an important word as we continue.

Luke: 14:01

As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The son of man will send out his angels and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father. Whoever has ears, let them hear.

Luke: 14:33

So Jesus himself is teaching this idea of, there's the people who belong to the kingdom of God, but in mixed into that are these weeds, people who aren't. Just like there was Israel. Right? And there was the, those who were faithful were not everybody who was part of the nation of Israel. Not everyone who comes to the church, Jesus says this elsewhere, not everyone who calls me lord, lord will enter my kingdom.

Luke: 15:08

I was kind of thinking about this and very aptly today is, today is Saint Patrick's Day. How many people out wearing green today or celebrating Saint Patrick's Day are actually Irish? Okay. Okay. I know you're there.

Luke: 15:26

I know. I know. But like, so there's some of you, and then there's some of us who, you know, ah, I'm probably Irish. Right? You know, so like we got that whole dynamic there.

Luke: 15:39

Or I was thinking about this. I happen to, I happen to be studying at Moody Bible Institute and, in Chicago, which was a fun time. But I happened to be there. One of the most exciting things that happened while I was there was the Cubs won the World Series. Right?

Luke: 15:56

They, like, broke this curse. It was a big thing. I never watch baseball. Never. I just like, I don't like, I mean, like, someone gives me tickets or something, I'll go watch baseball.

Luke: 16:08

It's fun. I played it when I was younger. But, like, I don't, like, routinely sit down and watch it in front of the television. But and and and neither does the entire city of Chicago. Right?

Luke: 16:20

Like, let's just, like, let's be honest. Right? I grew up in football country. But it was fun. Right?

Luke: 16:27

The Cubs were were in the world series. They were doing really well. They're down to the last couple of games. Like everybody in the dorms was ignoring all of the homework we had and we were watching the Cubs play. And then when the Cubs finally won, like, you couldn't sleep that night in Chicago because it was so loud with everybody celebrating.

Luke: 16:52

Like, I stuck my head, I'm like like, up on like the 13th floor of this like, of this building. I stick my head out my window, and there is just like the entire city is yelling at once. Not that many people care that much about football. But because like the Cubs represented all of Chicago, we were all celebrating. But like, I guarantee you in the kind of not so great seasons that have followed, they've, like, the the see the fans have kind of dropped off.

Luke: 17:22

Right? And so who's really the true faithful fans of the Cubs? Not me. Because I I don't watch baseball. But I still, you know, I had my my cup gear on and stuff and was excited, you know.

Luke: 17:34

And like, there is the parade the day after or a couple days after. Like, all of that. But who's really the true cub fans in all of that? Right? Who's really Irish?

Luke: 17:45

Who's really actually inside of all of the people belonging to the kingdom of God? That's, kind of, this this imagery that we begin to see that there's the remnants. Those who are inside of this larger group and it's kind of hard to parse it out. And I think one of the important things that I wanna mention here in Jesus's parable is that it's not necessarily my job or your job or anyone's job to figure it out. Right?

Luke: 18:17

I'm not It's not my job to be up here and and say, oh, this is we. This is we. I'm not I'm not trying to do that. I'm not trying to say that. It's not our job to be going around pointing fingers at people.

Luke: 18:27

Because Jesus says don't do that. Just trust. Just let it happen. Be faithful. Right?

Luke: 18:35

And so let us seek to know the lord, each of us, and not be overly concerned with trying to figure out, well just who exactly is in this kind of inner core. That's not the that's not what Jesus is teaching is meant to evoke or make us do in this. So we get into this picture, we're gonna go back to Romans 11, that not everyone who was part of the nation of Israel was always faithful to God. So, Paul's making this argument. It's like, has God abandoned his people?

Luke: 19:12

He's like, well, no. Like, just because there are some Jews who don't follow God, that has always been true throughout history. There have always been Israelites who have not been faithful to God. And he goes on to give several examples and, references to the old testament. And then he goes on to, begin to wrestle.

Luke: 19:34

Okay. So not every Jew is following Jesus. That doesn't mean that God's being unfaithful to them because that's always been true. But then what is the relationship between the Gentiles and the Jews? What's the relationship here?

Luke: 19:51

So we're gonna go forward in the passage to verse 17. Verse 17 through 22. If some of the branches, so he's talking about Israel, Israel is often compared to an olive tree in the old testament. This would been a familiar type of, analogy for them. If some of the branches have been broken off and you, the wild olive shoot So he's talking to the Gentiles.

Luke: 20:22

He's talking to all of us who were not Jews. Saying you are this wild olive shoot have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root. Do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider you do not support the root but the root supports you. You will say then branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.

Luke: 20:50

Granted, but they were broken off because of unbelief and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant but tremble tremble. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either. So, what's he saying here? He's kind of giving this imagery of, of like, grafting in which like, if we're not familiar with like, olive branches and trees and and horticulture and stuff like this might all be kind of weird.

Luke: 21:25

But like, you know, there are, you know, there are vines. Let's talk about like just vines and and wine and grapes. And so, if you've got, you're trying to grow a type of grape. Right? That's like kind of maybe, it's not very good for cold weather, like we get here.

Luke: 21:44

What you might do, is you might have the vine, the grape vine, that's got these grapes that you really want, but then you might go out and look into the woods and find just a natural growing grape vine that grows here. That grape can do really well in the in the winter here. When you take the root of that, just kind of splice it, cut like a v in it. And then, you stick it on literally, next to and onto the branch of the vine that you want it to grow here. Replant it and just kind of tape it all up.

Luke: 22:14

And then, you've got a whole brand new vine with a different root patched into it, that'll survive the winter and you'll be able to grow these grapes that wouldn't normally grow here. That's kind of what this grafting is, taking 2 different types of branches and putting them together, Sometimes kind of tape and twine, in order so that they can become one vibrant living plant. And so Paul here is saying, he's like, the Israel is this plant, is this olive tree, and branches have been taken off of it. Those who have not followed Christ. You, the Gentiles, are this wild root that we've picked up and we've grafted into those spots where the branches fell off of.

Luke: 23:03

And you're now part of this family of God, this olive tree. And he's saying, don't be, he's saying to not be proud. So to kind of summarize what he's saying here, Gentiles are brought in through faith to be part of the family tree of God. It's like you've been brought in to be part of that family. And it's through faith, not through you becoming like a Jew.

Luke: 23:33

It's for you just being who you are and having faith in Jesus Christ. That's been his argument the entire book. Now I wanna pause here a moment, just for a moment, to talk about this passage in kind of a bit of a historical reflection and comment. I think it's important to talk about this because I think as I read this and as I just kind of know enough about history. I think that this passage has not been read very well.

Luke: 24:09

So the Jewish people have experienced significant persecution for centuries. Antisemitism has a gazillion different faces, but it continues to always be pervasive. Now one of the really sad things about history is that if you do a lot of research and if you do a lot of reading, even of, Christians, and Christian writers through history, you'll find Christian writers, you'll be like reading something, you're like, oh, this is really great theology, and all of a sudden they'll say something really really racist about Jews. Christian Theology has not always honored this passage well. Because out of that theology, out of this, kind of, like, oh we're Christians and the Jews are the people who killed Jesus and there's like, woah.

Luke: 25:07

Like, what does Paul say here? Right? He says, do not consider yourself superior to other branches. If you do, consider this, you do not support the root but the root supports you. You will say then branches were broken off so I could be grafted in.

Luke: 25:25

Granted, but they were broken off because of unbelief and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant but tremble. So, I just mentioned this because I think if you were to read a lot of your history you would find that the church historically has not read that passage very well and not obeyed that command very well. I think that's important for us to recognize that the Bible, significant portions of the Bible have to deal with different groups of people, different ethnicities, different backgrounds, different families not getting along. And that Paul extensively is dealing with like, no no no.

Luke: 26:08

We gotta figure this out. You guys are now 1 in Christ. You shouldn't be treating each other different. That's such a big deal that it's like one of the very first problems that the early church deals with in the book of acts. Right?

Luke: 26:21

They, are feeding people. They're feeding the widows and they find that while some of the widows, the widows who are Hellenistic of a kind of a different ethnicity, are not being fed or they're being fed last or they're being skipped. And the church is like, well we can't have that and they gotta fix it. They gotta fight to be 1 unified whole body in Christ. So Paul here again is saying, like, you are now part of this family of God, part of the Jewish family of God in this way.

Luke: 26:56

You've been grafted in and that ought to elicit some sort of humility in us because we were not at one point part of the family of God. Now, what does Paul say? He's like, okay, what's this rest of the story though? Is that it for those branches that were cut off? Let's read on verse 23.

Luke: 27:25

Verse 23 says, and if they do not persist in their unbelief. Talking about the Jews who do not believe, he says they will be grafted in. For God is able to graft them in again. After all, if you were cut out of the olive tree that is, that is wild by nature and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree? Paul is going on to say that he has that god is not done with the people of Israel.

Luke: 28:03

That he's got some sort of salvific plan for them. And what exactly that is is debated by a bunch of people. And and ultimately, I don't think that we need to know the specifics of exactly what God's plan is for his people. It's not for us to figure out because what does Paul go on to say at the end of this verse 33? He says, oh, the depths and the riches and the wisdom of the knowledge of God.

Luke: 28:30

How unsearchable his judgments and his paths are beyond tracing. Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God that he should repay them? For from him and through him and for him are all things to him be the glory forever and ever.

Luke: 28:49

Amen. And so Paul saying, he's like, look, God's not done with his people, but it's not necessarily for you to figure that out. We don't know the mind of God more than he has revealed to himself or revealed himself to us. So Okay. So we covered all of that, kind of, theology and, kind of, like, what is, like, the church and how did the Jews and the Gentiles, the Jewish faith, relate to the Christian faith.

Luke: 29:20

And we get this picture of a picture of a family and an olive tree and being grafted in in humility, but this picture of oneness and newness. But the question then is, who who then and what exactly does this new olive tree look like? We're still left with the question, aren't we, of, like, what do Christians look like? Who are they? What are they to be about?

Luke: 29:43

What are they to be doing? Let's cover a little bit of just Paul's argument a little bit. I'm gonna look at 3 verses that sort of highlight some of the key points here. Let's go all the way back to Romans 1 16. This We've talked about this verse probably more than any other verse that we've read in the book of Romans because it's Paul's thesis.

Luke: 30:11

It's his main point he's here. He says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes. Notice what he says here. First to the Jews and then to the Gentiles. Right?

Luke: 30:30

I'm not ashamed of the gospel because it's the power of salvation for everyone. If we go forward to chapter 3, flip a page or 2. Go to chapter 3 verse 23. This might sound familiar. This is a massively important bible verse often memorized for good reason.

Luke: 30:56

Verse 23 of chapter 3 says, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ. Everybody, every single person who's ever walked the earth has fallen short of the glory of God, has sinned, has gone their own way, has walked away from God. And then you find that we are justified not by becoming Jewish, we're we're adjusted by what? Faith through grace in Jesus Christ, who is the sacrifice for all people. And then if we go forward to chapter 7.

Luke: 31:48

Chapter 7 verses 4 through 6, Paul kind of has this whole argument about what then do we do with all of the Jewish law. The 10 commandments and all of those like like there was all of these rules about what, those who were following God in Israel were supposed to do. And what does he say? He says this in verse 4. He says, so brothers and sisters, you died to the law through the body of Christ that you might belong to one another, to him who was raised from the dead in order that we might bear fruit for God.

Luke: 32:27

So when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us So that we bore the fruit of for death. But now by dying what to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve the new way of the spirit and not the old way of the written code. So the code, the written code, the law, all of those things that governed the nation of Israel and Jewish life no longer bound to. Can you see how that kind of leaves the church with this question of like, well then, what do we do? Right?

Luke: 33:04

If we're not, like, we don't have to be Jewish necessarily and Gentiles aren't supposed to be just being Gentiles, like, what are we? What does it mean when we say that we become a Christian in this age? How are we to be living our life? Well, Paul answers it in verse or chap in verses 1, through 3 and chapter 12. He says this, he says, therefore, he's like, alright.

Luke: 33:33

I've told you what you're not. I've told you that you're one people. Now let's figure out how you be one people together. How do you live to be the church? He says, therefore, I urge you brothers and sisters in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.

Luke: 33:53

This is your true and proper worship. Do not conform 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 and pleasing and perfect will. That is a jam packed 3 verses.

Luke: 34:15

But to summarize it, or to attempt to summarize it, is to say, Christians Christians worship God intentionally with their whole lives separating themselves from the evil of every age. I'll say that again. Christians worship God intentionally with their whole lives, separating themselves from the evil of every age. I want to show you where I kind of get that summary. Says, therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, you, us in this room, in view of God's mercy, off your bodies as a living sacrifice.

Luke: 35:02

So the law of the old testament had all of these rules about different sacrifices that were meant to be offered. Paul is saying, well, you don't gotta offer those anymore. You gotta go You don't need to make a sin offering or a sin sacrifice because Christ was the perfect final sin sacrifice. It's no longer needs to be atoned for. You are forgiven.

Luke: 35:27

You're adopted as sons and daughters in the body of Christ. You've been forgiven while you were enemies. You've now been made sons and daughters. He says, don't do that. He says, rather than offer a sacrifice of an animal, offer the sacrifice of your life.

Luke: 35:47

Truly, the one thing that you and I have in this world that is guaranteed is ourselves. Is the very life and breath that we've been given by God and we've got one life to do something with. And Paul is saying, Christians, you ought to be worshiping the god who gave you that very bi life by offering it back to him. So Christians worship God intentionally with their whole lives. It's I wanna just take a moment to pause and say that, oftentimes I know and it's I'm not trying to make a, like, a a diss on how we talk about worship, but so often when we say worship, we think of music.

Luke: 36:33

But worship in the bible is this expansive thing. It's not just the songs we sing. It certainly includes that but it includes how we live our lives. Worship is a way of being. Am I living my life?

Luke: 36:50

Am I doing my job to the glory of God? Am I parenting my children to the glory of God? Am I conducting myself in a way that is building God's kingdom? Or am I conducting it myself in a way that tries to build my own small little sand castle of a kingdom. We ought to be living our lives as an entire act of worship and offering to God.

Luke: 37:18

There's this phrase in your bible and depending on what translation you're reading along in, it might say different things. It says, after offering your bodies a living sacrifice, it says, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship. You might have a bible that says, this is your spiritual act of worship. Or you might have another bible translation that says, this is your act of worship.

Luke: 37:48

This phrase is really hard to translate and what it's kind of getting at and it's Paul is trying to kind of critique, is he's saying, like, there were these people who kind of was like, okay, well, I'm a Jew, I'm following God, I'm supposed to just go sat make a sacrifice every so often. I go and make a sacrifice, that's it. But has no intention of being in relationship with god. And so what Paul's advocating for here is saying, he's like no no no don't just go through the motions. This is a a intentional thing that you're doing.

Luke: 38:28

You're to be thinking and to be aware of what you're doing. You're not just supposed to go to temple and make a sacrifice because that's what your parents told you to do. Right? We can put this in our modern context. You're not supposed to just go to church, put something in the offering bucket, sing a couple songs and then go home, or come to church just on Easter and Christmas because that's what your parents told you to do.

Luke: 38:52

Paul saying no no no. Like there's supposed to be an intentionality to it. You're supposed to be actively participating in what is spiritual, in what is true, in what is active worship in offering your life to God as a fragrant offering. And so Paul is calling for Christians to be this intentional offering of our entire lives saying, God, my whole being, my whole way of serving and living, ought to be informed by who Jesus is, who he has called me to be, and the kingdom that he's asking me to help build alongside him. And then finally, he talks about this idea.

Luke: 39:43

Says, do not conform to the pattern of this world. Your bible might even say the word age, which is like the more literal translation of that word. Remember that parable we talked about by Jesus back in Matthew 13? Where he says, he sowed the seed and then there were the wheats, there was a wheat and then there were the weeds. And then he talks about, at the end of the age, he's gonna gather those up.

Luke: 40:12

Talking about the, the the age of back in Elijah when there were the, there was all of Israel and there were there was mass idolatry but there was a remnant few inside of Israel who were still faithful to God. Who refused to bend their knee to the idol of Baal. Here, Paul is saying, he's like, do not be conformed to the pattern of this age, to the pattern of our current time, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good and pleasing and perfect will. And so that's what I mean when I say, separating ourselves from the evil in every age.

Luke: 41:07

Christians are to be worshiping God intentionally with their whole lives separating themselves from the evil of every age. Because evil really evil's old. It it's really old. You you read enough history and you find there's nothing new underneath the sun, it just is a little bit different. And the challenge here that Paul is giving is saying don't be conformed by the current age, by the current way the world wants you to act and be and be formed.

Luke: 41:44

Because this this is a really important thing is that we are all every single day being formed by something. Right? We're all being influenced, impacted, informed by something. Everything from the family you grew up in, to the neighborhood and culture that you grew up in, to the people we spend our time around, to the media that we intake, and things that we think. All of those things are having an effect on us or saying, think this way, buy this thing.

Luke: 42:18

This is the most important thing that you could think about. They all have an impact on us in some way. They form us. There is just so many different ways that this is happening. And so we are in this place of, like, how are we being impacted?

Luke: 42:37

How is that forming me? And is it forming me into the thing that I'm supposed to be? I know, I get up here sometimes and I kind of make jokes about like my social media habits, how much time I spend on Instagram. But like, really I've had to actually think about it because Instagram in particular is a, you know, social media but it's all about the image. It's all about how things kind of look and I was like, you know, I want When I get on Instagram, I'm not looking at cat videos that much.

Luke: 43:08

I'm looking at, like, these, like, productivity hacks and, like, you know, Christian lifestyle stuff and, like, and, like, but the thing is is that, yeah, that might be what I'm reading. They were kind of motivational wisdom and things like that and like 5 ways to be more productive before 5 or something like that. And I'm like that's all good but what is how is that forming me? How is that impacting my soul? Is it teaching me Sabbath?

Luke: 43:37

Or is it teaching me to kind of grind? Is it teaching me that like, living with simplicity and contentment? Or is it teaching me that I need to live inside of a certain way and life should look all filtered and put together and edited? How is it impacting the way I see myself, The way I see other people? The way I see the world?

Luke: 44:02

How is it forming me? Is it forming me into something more like Christ? Or is it forming me into whatever the algorithm thinks I should be formed into? And the same can be said about Facebook and TikTok and any number of those social medias. And I'm not just picking on them because I think that they're I don't Not saying that you have to throw your phone out the window today.

Luke: 44:27

But let us be intentional about that. Let us be wise about that. How are we being formed? Because you are being formed by something. And to ignore that is to allow yourself to be continued to be formed, but not paying attention to what you're being made into.

Luke: 44:51

I was, like a good example of this was, I For a summer job I worked at for a general contracting company doing some construction and I was put on this job site and it was kinda like the early phases of this job. The general contractors, we weren't really doing a lot. I was just there with like the job foreman. And it was just me and him and I was kind of his gopher. I was just kinda like the guy who did things for him.

Luke: 45:21

And this guy is probably the closest to John Wayne I've ever met in my life. Like, he was just this tall man and he's just real burly. And he, like, you know, I would get there. He's all he's I could never beat him to the job site. And I would get to the job site and this guy would just pop out and he's like half a pack of cigarettes in.

Luke: 45:42

And, and he's just like and he's got this he what he would do this is awful. He would have, like, this pack of diet he'd have, like, 2 packs of Diet Pepsi. He'd go through about 4 packs of cigarettes a day and 1 pack of Diet Pepsi. Like and he'd use one of the Diet Pepsis as his ash tray. Yes.

Luke: 46:00

He did drink that ash tray once. And this so like the guy is a walking heart attack in case you haven't noticed it. I actually thought he was gonna have a heart attack one day. He was like, no. No.

Luke: 46:12

I'm fine. I'm like, I am driving you to the ER right now. Don't you die. But he was not only was that like just like his like bad habits galore, he was the most stressful individual I've ever met. He was just always just like, like he, like, oh, the inspectors are coming, and, oh, this job like, he was just all over the place.

Luke: 46:35

And he was constantly cursing at me. Like he would just get mad at me because I wasn't doing it fast enough. Oh, come here. And I can't curse because we're at church. But, like, you get the sense.

Luke: 46:48

Right? Like, it's Elmer Fudd cursing. And he's just kind of like just this angry, anxious guy. And I'm working with him 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week for like 3 months. And I get home at the end of my day and I'm just like, oh, get out of my I'm like, I'm starting to get angry.

Luke: 47:10

I'm like certain what kick kick cats out of my way. Because I'm just like, I'm just like, why am I so angry all the time? And I thought about it. And I was like, oh yeah. Because I'm sitting next to the angriest person I've ever met in my life 8 hours a day.

Luke: 47:26

And that's all he does is just yell and complain and curse, and he's just angry as all get out. And after spending a couple weeks, a couple months with him, I was just like, I am so stressed. I'm on summer vacation working a summer job that I'm gonna quit in a month. Why am I so stressed? I have no idea.

Luke: 47:48

Except for the fact that this guy is so stressed. It was impacting me, it was shaping me, it was forming me. I was carrying the stress and the unhealthiness that he had in his heart and soul. And I was picking it up and I was putting it on my shoulders. I was walking away with it at the end of the day.

Luke: 48:06

It was shaping me. And I was like I gotta figure out a way to not be impacted by that. I gotta figure out, be a way, find a way to not be conformed to that. And so you and I, every single moment and day of our lives are sitting next to our own version of that angry grumpy old man. We are.

Luke: 48:30

Right? Like, and whether that's our social media or our our family of origin or our jobs or or just the things that we're kind of surrounded about. Even just like the city of Jamestown. Right? In this general area, like this idea of just like, oh, everything kind of sucks around here.

Luke: 48:51

Right? That tell me that is not what people think around here sometimes. It was the first thing I know I've told this story before, but merits repeating. My first night when I moved here into Jamestown, I had, like, forgotten to bring a shower curtain. Things you forget when you move.

Luke: 49:08

I forgot to bring a shower curtain. I was like, I need a shower curtain because I'm, you know, I need a shower. So I go to Walmart, get a shower curtain. I'm checking out and getting all these kind of random things. I was like, I'm like, just moved into my apartment here.

Luke: 49:19

You know? I'm like, oh, happy go lucky because I've got a job here at Conduit. You know? And I'm like, you know, like, need a couple things I forgot. And they're like, oh, you just moved here?

Luke: 49:30

I'm like, yeah. And they're like, did you rent or buy? I'm like, I'm renting. And they're like, good. Then you can leave.

Luke: 49:37

I was like, oh. Like like like she was like, not good because she wanted me to leave, but good so you can leave in a hurry because it sucks here. Like, that was like what I was that was my first conversation with a Jamestown native when I moved here. I was like, great. This is really gonna be a great place to live.

Luke: 49:56

I can feel it. Right? But it is. And we just we just take that kind of general attitude and we just let it form and impact us. And Paul is saying don't be conformed.

Luke: 50:11

Don't just let the influences of your world shape you into whoever. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Be opening the word. Be spending enough time with Jesus Christ, so that you're more like him and less like my angry boss. Right?

Luke: 50:30

Spend enough time with Jesus that you become like him. Because we absolutely cannot bend our knee to the idols of this age. We are meant to be the faithful who follow Christ and we cannot bend our knees just to every single idol that the world puts out in front of us. And you might think, oh, well, I'm not going around bending down to any golden calf or anything like, I'm doing pretty good. But what are the idols of our current age?

Luke: 51:05

I'll tell you what one of the biggest idols is. It's the idol that's as old as time, or I should say as old as, old as a grocery store. Money, right? How often do we contort our lives in order to have more of the thing so that we can stress more about it. Right?

Luke: 51:24

Money is this idol that we we orient our lives and sacrifice our lives for. We often in this because we're in this hyper individualistic age. This point where it's all about my story, my life, my truth like, my being blah blah blah like we're all this self centered. We're all about finding this self aggrandized self significance that kinda comes out of like, me being as important as I can in any room that I walk into. Like, it just absolutely like, if we were to pick someone up from even a 100 years ago, plop them into a room and say, oh, here.

Luke: 52:05

Look at this, like, cell phone and see how many people just turn cameras on and video videotape their entire day. They'd say, why? And you watch this? Right? Like the general fixation that we have on our own self importance.

Luke: 52:24

How much time and energy do we conform and spend towards entertainment. Right. Whether that be entertainment, like physical but like even just digital entertainment. Right? Because we just were like, oh I just wanna have fun.

Luke: 52:39

I just wanna experience good things. I wanna catch the next show, the next 20 Marvel movies. Like like, we're just on this path of, like, we just lose ourselves in all of these things that ultimately don't matter. I love Star Wars and Spectris is the neck as much as the next guy, if not more. But like, you you can't build your entire identity in being around those things.

Luke: 53:07

What about what about sexuality? And I and I and I don't mean that at like any particular group or anything like I mean sexuality as a whole is so often an idol in our in our culture. What about family? It's a really good thing. Right?

Luke: 53:26

All of these things are good things at the end of the day. It's just, when it becomes the thing that we sacrifice our lives to, and we contort our images to. And family is a great thing, don't get me wrong. But is family God? Is not Christ the one who said, you have to hate your mother and father in order to follow me?

Luke: 53:49

And by that, he didn't mean he actually have to hate your mother and father. He meant that you have to follow me so that if your parents were to say, no no no. Don't follow Jesus, follow us. You would say, I have to listen to Christ first. That's what Paul is saying.

Luke: 54:06

And for some of us, that is what Christ is calling us to do. Some of us have grown up in families where the way that family has operated has been unhealthy. It's not been following Christ, it's not been godly, it's not been god honoring. And the easy thing to do would be to just like, well this is the way my family has always been so this is the way I'm gonna No. Jesus is saying, no no no.

Luke: 54:28

You can break that generational pattern and I'm calling you to actually. And the thing is is when you do that, your family might get angry at you. Because families like family members to act the same way they do. And if they're always in this unhealthy way of being and you're like, no, I'm like, I need to, like, pursue wholeness. I need to remove myself from addictions.

Luke: 54:53

I need to build healthy relationships where we work conflict out. I'm gonna live that way now. You might find some distance happening between you and your family if you do that. We cannot bow to the idols of this age no matter what it is. So what then are we to do?

Luke: 55:24

How do we live this out? How do we practically integrate into a place where we begin to live our lives intentionally so that they're all worshiping God, all intentional way we live our lives so that we're not being conformed. We're separating ourselves out from the evil of this age. I have 2, kind of, ways to kind of talk about this. One is to say that we need to do worship of Excuse me.

Luke: 55:52

Worship of addition and worship of subtraction. Or another way to say this is spiritual disciplines of addition and spiritual disciplines by subtraction. When I say a, spiritual discipline or worshiping by subtraction, I mean remove whatever keeps you from living life like Jesus. What is it that you need to remove from your life so that you become more like Jesus? I'll share a practical example that ties back to what I was already talking about earlier in about myself.

Luke: 56:30

I was sharing about how I felt like I was spending too much time on social media. I was spending all this time on Instagram and I was noticing it was making me anxious. It was making me feel like I couldn't ever Sabbath. That I needed to always be working. I always needed to be doing the next thing to be successful, to be important.

Luke: 56:49

Right? That's not what Christ calls me to. Christ calls me to rest, to know my limits, to not push beyond those, to trust him with the things that I cannot do and I can't work all the time. And so what did I do? I've got like a filter on my phone and essentially it limits me to about 1 hour a day of social media.

Luke: 57:11

So I can't spend many more time than that because then it shuts off. And during certain times of the day, it shuts off so that I stopped waking up and being able to open my phone and just scroll in bed as a way of waking up and letting that be the first thing that forms me. It was just a really practical thing I did because I was like, I feel like I need less of this because it's impacting me in a negative way. So worship of subtraction, remove whatever keeps you from living a life like Jesus. This might look like fasting.

Luke: 57:42

Fasting from food, fasting from different things. It might look like setting up boundaries saying, you know what? I'm not gonna go to the bar anymore. I'm not gonna spend time with this one particular friend that I tend to sin with. What are the boundaries in my life?

Luke: 57:59

This might look like Sabbath saying, you know what? I'm I'm just not going to I'm gonna not I'm gonna trust god and say that I I don't have to work 7 days a week. I don't need to be going. I need to set aside time for rest, for family, and for God. I'm gonna Sabbath.

Luke: 58:18

This might look like repenting. Whatever that sin is that maybe is hanging on that you're like, yeah, I know. I probably shouldn't gossip anymore but it's kinda fun. Right? Repenting.

Luke: 58:31

Saying, like, no, Lord, I need to repent and give this up. Maybe silence or solitude. Man, that's hard. We don't live in a very silent world. Worship by subtraction.

Luke: 58:48

Remove whatever keeps you from living a life like Jesus. And in worship of addition, add whatever helps you get closer to Jesus. This might look like, are you spending time in prayer? Are you spending time with Jesus? Are you opening up your Bible and letting this transform the way that you think and feel and operate and go throughout your day?

Luke: 59:14

Are you saying, Lord Jesus, help me be the person who reads this and doesn't walk away and immediately forget what it said? Lord, help me to be a doer of the word. Are we adding our to ourselves community and fellowship? And not just showing up to hang out with people, but are are we showing up and saying like, no, no, you're in the body of Christ with me, so I'm gonna I'm gonna show up here. I'm gonna confess my sin here.

Luke: 59:46

I'm gonna ask for you to pray for me. I'm going to participate in this like we are the church. Are we spending time in service to others? Are we giving of our time? Are we willing to add that to the way that we live life?

Luke: 01:00:05

And are we willing to celebrate? Like, are we celebrating? Are we thankful? Are we rejoicing in the Lord and all of the good things that we have? Do we have time set aside to enjoy and be thankful together as a community or as a family?

Luke: 01:00:23

Like, that is such an important thing because we live in a world that is constantly literally everything is selling you something. And so we live in this world where we're constantly constantly ungrateful. Because my iPhone's out of date. Right? Or this or that or whatever.

Luke: 01:00:42

Or my my car is a year old now. Like, whatever it is, like, we need to cultivate this place of like celebration of enjoyment of what do we have and let us enjoy that together and be grateful and thankful. So summarize all of that, which was a lot for sure, is to say that Christians worship God intentionally with their whole lives, separating themselves from the evil of every age. And you might go about doing that any number of different ways. You might need to remove something.

Luke: 01:01:21

Might need to set up boundaries. Might need to set up Sabbath. And you might need to add some things, whether that's enough community, practice, or word, or prayer. These are things that help us be formed, to be transformed by Jesus to look more like him, and less like whatever the age currently wants us to look like. And that that's what Christians should look like.

Luke: 01:01:51

That's who Christians are. People who look like Christ. People who look like Jesus. If I had the time today, I could go on and read the rest of chapter 12 and I would point out to you that the whole point of Romans chapter 12 is that we love one another. That we be people of love.

Luke: 01:02:11

Amen. Amen. Because the point isn't actually, like, you could you could hear the wrong thing from my message today and I don't want you to. The the point of my message is not, alright, but Pastor Luke says I need to go out and do all these spiritual disciplines. That's not the point.

Luke: 01:02:28

The point is to be more loving, and those spiritual disciplines, worshiping by subtraction and addition, that's meant to help us be more loving. I think I'm more loving when I take Sabbath. I think I'm more loving when I'm regularly in the word. I think I'm more loving when I'm sitting in silence and listening to the Lord. That's what we're called to be.

Luke: 01:02:53

That's who Christians are. Christians are not just a a box we tick on some sort of survey. We're not a political group. We're not a social club. We're not people who just like sitting in hard pews for a long time.

Luke: 01:03:08

We're people who are formed by Jesus Christ to be like him and to be loving in a world that is so dark. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, lord, you are indeed our father. We come to you this morning as your daughters and as your sons. We come here as your people.

Luke: 01:03:39

Not because of the things that we do or the way we behave or the way we dress, but because of your son and His sacrifice for us. Lord, you call us to know you. And that in knowing you, in being with you, we might be transformed into people who look more like your son, Jesus, so that he might be the first fruits among many, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters who display the glory of God in the way that they live their lives. Lord, I that is my prayer for conduit this morning, for this community, for us who are here, for the children who are downstairs worshiping, that we might be displaying the glory of god in the way that we live our lives. Through the words that we say, through the kindness of our actions, might we be a visible image of Jesus to those around us.

Luke: 01:04:39

Might the world see us. Might the world see Jesus in us enough that they either have to accept him or reject us. Lord, I ask that you would do these things in our heart, that you would make us into an intentional community that worships you with our whole lives, that worships you in the way that we speak, the way that we spend our money, the way we spend our time, the way we give of our actions, the way that we spend our thoughts. Lord, might it all speak glory and worship to you. In Jesus' name, we pray.

Luke: 01:05:21

Amen.