The Gospel Centered Life Pt. 1

[0:00] I'd like you to open up your Bibles to the book of Romans, to Romans chapter 12 this morning.

[0:20] We've been away from the book of Romans for quite a while. In fact, we've taken 16 Sundays off of our study through Romans. We spent the whole summer, we spent all of June and July at least, looking at the spiritual disciplines.

[0:36] Prior to that, we had a few weeks where we were looking in the Psalms and some other places. But now we are back in Romans. We've been through 11 chapters and this morning we're going to turn a major corner in this book and begin our march through these final few chapters of Romans here in chapter 12, verse 1.

[0:55] If you're using one of our pew Bibles, you can simply turn to page 947, one of those pew Bibles, and you'll find Romans chapter 12. If you still can't find it in your own Bible, just turn to the New Testament.

[1:07] We've got Old Testament and New Testament. Two-thirds of it is old, so turn two-thirds of the way through your Bible until you get to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and keep going through the book of Acts until you land at the first epistle in the New Testament, the book of Romans.

[1:21] And here we're going to camp out this morning on one verse, Romans chapter 12, verse 1. And I want to invite you guys to stand with me as we read it together. Apostle Paul writes, We give you thanks, Father, for this great letter that the Apostle Paul wrote.

[1:53] We thank you that we know that every word in it is inspired by your Holy Spirit. And that same Spirit this morning can and will speak through this word to help us to understand and help us to respond rightly to it.

[2:10] So we give you thanks and we ask for your help. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. You guys take a seat. As I said a moment ago, when we open up to Romans chapter 12, the Apostle Paul turns a corner in this letter.

[2:30] Thus far, for the first 11 chapters of the book of Romans, Paul has been defining and defending the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That's what the first 11 chapters of the book of Romans are all about.

[2:43] He is writing to the church in Rome, a church that if you'll recall from some time back, a church that he himself had not yet personally visited. He knew some of the believers there, but he didn't know the church as a whole, yet he planned to visit them.

[2:57] He planned to use the city of Rome as sort of a staging point so that he could launch out into further parts of the empire so that he could begin to establish churches in places beyond the city of Rome.

[3:08] Paul was an ambitious man. He was called to start new churches in new places. He said that he wanted to go and preach the Gospel where the Gospel had not yet been preached. That was his calling.

[3:19] That's what he wanted to do. And so he planned to use the city of Rome as sort of a launching point, a staging point for further missions in unreached areas of the world.

[3:30] But that meant that he needed to become much more well acquainted with the people in the church at Rome. He needed to have their full support. He would be so far removed from the place that had been his staging point and his launching point for missions throughout the Roman Empire, the city of Antioch.

[3:46] He would be so far removed from them as he continued further west that he would need the church of Rome to support him, to pray for him, to encourage him, to possibly support him financially, to help him while he was in Rome because he would probably make frequent trips back to replenish and to sort of replenish himself and his own soul.

[4:07] So he really needed to forge, before he arrived there, he needed to forge a vital connection with the people in the church at Rome. And that's why he wrote this letter.

[4:17] And that's why he spends so much time throughout this letter, the first 11 chapters, defining and defending the Gospel that he has been preaching all over the Roman world.

[4:29] He wants the Roman Christians to be certain and confident that what he preaches is indeed the true Gospel. And so he labors to define and defend the Gospel in these first 11 chapters.

[4:43] But now in chapter 12, he is sort of turning that corner to no longer is he defining the Gospel, no longer is he defending the Gospel, now he's going to paint a portrait for us in chapters 12, 13, 14, in the first half of chapter 15.

[4:57] He's going to paint a portrait for us, not of what the Gospel itself is, but of the kind of life that is centered upon and shaped by the Gospel. He has hinted at this already.

[5:08] He has discussed this to some degree, as we'll see later in chapter 6. But now for these next few chapters, he's going to become more detailed. He's going to begin to really discuss how the Gospel, how the truth about Jesus Christ ought to impact their daily interactions with one another and with those outside the church.

[5:28] What kind of life should a person live if they really believe this Gospel that he's been defining and defending? And he's not going to do it in broad terms and broad categories.

[5:39] He's going to be very specific in the chapters that follow. He's going to talk about how we relate to one another within the church. How can we practically really love one another? He's going to talk about how we use our gifts to serve one another in the church.

[5:53] He's going to talk about how we deal with those outside the church and how we ought to relate to them. He's going to talk about how do we relate to the government. How do we deal with the government in a time in which they were suffering at times persecution at the hands of their rulers.

[6:08] How do you deal with that? So he's going to begin to get very practical and very hands-on, but he never leaves the Gospel behind because what we're seeing in these chapters is a portrait painted by the Apostle Paul of what the life of a person who has been shaped by the Gospel should look like.

[6:26] He's going to show us how now to live Gospel-centered lives. So he's not leaving the Gospel behind by any means, but he's going to draw out many of the implications of the Gospel for the Christian life.

[6:40] And you can see that just in verse 1, the way that he introduces the chapters that are going to follow. You can see it just in his use of one single word, therefore, in light of everything else that he's already said, therefore, he's going to give us a command.

[6:58] He's going to say, I urge you or I appeal to you, therefore, brothers. Now don't mistake this word, appeal, for Paul merely asking them.

[7:09] Sometimes we use the word appeal that way. And in fact, this word that's translated this way in the original Greek can be used in that way of merely to request something, to ask something, listen, I would like you to do this.

[7:20] But here in this context, it comes not with the force of a question, would you please live this way and do this? But it comes with the force of an authoritative command.

[7:31] There are a lot of times when I'll say something to my kids like, hey boys, could you guys straighten up the game room because it's getting kind of messy up here. It's a playroom where a lot of their toys are.

[7:41] Could you guys straighten this area up for me? And then in a few minutes, I'll come back and help you guys finish up. And sometimes when I come back a few minutes later, I'm not there to help them finish up.

[7:53] I'm apparently there to do the entire job. And so I will look at them and say, I realize that I phrased that in the form of a question. I realize that I said, would you please clean up?

[8:03] But understand, my question was a command. I meant for you to do it. And that's how Paul was using this word here. He's saying, I appeal to you or I urge you, but we might better translate it to get the force of it.

[8:15] I exhort you. I'm telling you to do this. But he's telling them to do it, therefore, in light of everything else that he has just said.

[8:27] But we have more than just the word therefore to signal to us that the command that Paul gives is a command for a life that ought to flow out of the gospel that he has been preaching.

[8:40] Notice what he says. Take a look closely at verse 1. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God. You might want to underline that phrase.

[8:51] You might want to highlight that phrase in your Bible because that is a clear, clear signal that Paul is saying it's in view of the great mercies of God that I have been expounding now for several pages that I tell you to do this.

[9:05] It's because of all the things that I have been preaching about the good news of Jesus Christ that I now tell you to live like this. Live in a way that reflects your belief in the gospel that I've been preaching by the mercies of God.

[9:21] And don't mistake the plural to simply mean all the individual isolated things that God has done for us. All the small ways in which he has shown us mercy. This plural form of the word mercies is something that we find frequently in the Old Testament and it usually refers to all of God's saving activity.

[9:39] All the great ways in which he has acted to deliver us and rescue us from our sins. This is God in his fullness working to save and rescue his people.

[9:52] And so now Paul says, in view of that, in light of that, because of God's great saving work among you, I want you to live in this kind of a way.

[10:03] But if you're just jumping in here, at chapter 12, it may not be entirely clear to you what Paul means by the mercies of God.

[10:14] What exactly does Paul conceive of here? What does he mean? What saving work of God? What is God in fact doing? Because you need to know the first 11 chapters in order to feel the full weight of this short little phrase here in chapter 12, verse 1.

[10:33] In fact, the word mercy itself already implies to us that we are in need of something. That we stand as those who need God to rescue and deliver us from something that we ourselves rightly deserve.

[10:48] We stand, Paul tells us near the beginning of this letter, we stand as fallen sinful people who need God, we need God to forgive us of our sins.

[10:59] We need the burden of our own sins to be removed from us. In fact, I want you to hold your place there in chapter 12 and turn all the way back to chapter 1.

[11:11] And I want us to sort of survey Paul's account of the mercies of God in these first 11 chapters as quickly as we can without losing you, hopefully.

[11:22] Paul begins, of course, as I said, with this word mercy that tells us that we are in need of something. That we actually stand before God as those who deserve His condemnation.

[11:34] And that's starting in the middle of chapter 1 through the middle of chapter 3. That's what Paul is going to show us in detail. He's going to show us and prove to us that all people, without exception, Jew and Gentile alike, all of us rightly stand under the condemnation of God and we deserve His wrath.

[11:52] That's the bad news that leads into the good news of the Gospel. So in verse 18, you'll notice that he says that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth by their unrighteousness.

[12:08] That's what he tells us. The wrath of God is revealed against all of our unrighteousness. To which you might say, whew, it's a good thing that I don't belong in that category.

[12:19] But as you work your way through chapter 1 into chapter 2 and finally down to chapter 3, you will find that we all belong in that category of the unrighteous people who deserve God's wrath to be poured out upon us.

[12:35] Glance at chapter 3. Turn the page in your Bible, if you will. And you can see Paul's ultimate conclusion that applies to everybody. It doesn't matter your background. It doesn't matter your ethnicity. It doesn't matter whether you've been raised in a Christian home or a non-Christian home.

[12:49] None of those things count because the ultimate verdict about you is found in chapter 3, verse 10. None is righteous. No, not one.

[13:00] No one understands. No one seeks for God. That's extensive. That's all-inclusive. That's everybody, Paul says. Nobody, apart from the grace of God, seeks after God.

[13:14] Nobody, apart from the grace of God, does anything that is truly righteous or truly good. Notice verse 12. No one does good. Not even one.

[13:25] Not a one of us. Now we might say that in comparison to our neighbors, we're good people because your neighbor might be a really terrible person. and relatively compared to the people around us, we might claim to be good, but compared to God's standards, remove the relativity out of it.

[13:44] Remove the comparison to other sinful fallen people. And we find that all of us, as Paul says in verse 23, have fallen short of the glory of God. Why? Because we've sinned.

[13:55] That's who we are. That is what we have done. That's the bad news that pushes us to want some good news to follow it up. And the good news that follows it up is that God has indeed provided a way for us not to receive the wrath that we ourselves deserve.

[14:12] God has sent His Son into the world to become, Paul tells us in chapter 3, a propitiation. It's one of those big Bible words that we don't use very often in our everyday speech, but it simply means that Jesus has come to take upon Himself the wrath of God that we deserve.

[14:31] He is a sacrifice that absorbs and removes the wrath of God that we ought to receive. That's what Christ has come to do.

[14:42] And the Gospel is a message that proclaims Christ who has come to give His life on behalf of those who deserve condemnation. God set Him forward as a propitiation.

[14:58] But, He follows that up by saying, to be received by faith. The Gospel message could very easily be summarized as Paul proclaims it in Romans as justification, being declared righteous by faith alone.

[15:16] Because we need more as fallen sinful people, you need more and I need more than a clean slate. It's one thing to say Christ has paid the penalty for my sins.

[15:28] It is one thing to say that my sins have been forgiven and erased and removed. That's all fine and well, but at that point I'm merely a blank slate. I don't have unrighteousness clinging to me anymore, but neither do I have the righteousness that is necessary to stand in the presence of God.

[15:47] I don't yet possess that. And so the Gospel tells us that Christ has not only died as a substitute in our place, but He has also lived as a substitute in our place so that His perfect obedience, His righteousness can be counted as ours.

[16:06] Paul says that that happens by faith and by faith alone. Look down at chapter 3 verse 28. For we hold, Paul says, we hold that one is justified.

[16:19] That means declared to be in the right with God. Justified by faith apart from works of the law. We don't become righteous in the sight of God not by the good things we do, not even by obedience to God's law itself, but simply by faith in the one who has already provided perfect righteousness for us and in our place.

[16:46] And the gospel is not good news if you leave out the counting of the righteousness of Jesus to your account. It is not good news because it simply means you're a blank slate, now do the best that you can.

[17:00] No, the gospel comes along and says your sins have been removed and righteousness has been credited to your account so that now you have the confidence of knowing that you can stand before God and you have been counted as righteous not for anything that you have done but simply because you've been denited to the righteous one Jesus by your faith and by nothing else.

[17:21] Justification is by faith alone apart from any works even in obedience to the law of God. That's what the gospel is.

[17:33] Defined for us clearly by the apostle Paul but he does more than define he defends the gospel so that he continues in chapter 4 seeing the note of justification by faith he cites the example of Abraham he goes to David and he says this isn't new I didn't make this stuff up this is the way it's always been justification has always been by faith in the promises of God centered upon the son of God prior to the coming of Christ and his sacrifice on the cross Abraham looked forward to the coming one and by faith in the promises Abraham was declared to be righteous David looked forward and he was called blessed and declared to be righteous on the basis of his faith in the promises of God it has always always been this way and as a consequence of that Paul tells us in chapter 5 we now have peace with God we have peace with God because Christ died for the ungodly for you and me we have peace with God because at the very right time when we were most needy

[18:40] Christ died for sinners that's what he has done that's what he has accomplished on our behalf he has cleansed us from the guilt of our own sin but not not just the individual sins that we ourselves have performed not just the lies that you've told or the times that you have hurt people around you he's not merely cleansed you from the individual sins that you have committed he has also dealt a death blow to your sinful nature he has done more than addressed the issue that you've committed certain sins he's addressed the issue that you are a sinner by birth from the time that you came into this world you were a sinner why?

[19:27] because you're a descendant of Adam Adam the father of us all Paul says brought sin and death into the world and his sin counted as our sin we were in Adam and therefore guilty in Adam our head and father and yet Christ has come and Paul says just as through the one man condemnation came to all men so also through the one man Christ Jesus justification in life has come to all men Paul is not satisfied with saying you are forgiven for the sins that you can remember that you've committed Paul wants us to know that this salvation is rooted in the very beginnings of the entrance of sin into the world from the very beginning right there in Genesis chapter 3 when we read of the account of the fall we soon after that read in the same chapter

[20:27] God promises a coming seed from the woman a descendant of the woman who would in fact crush the head of the serpent he would deal with the issue of sin not your sins individually merely but sin as a whole and Christ has done that glance down in chapter 5 I want you to see this for yourself verse 19 for as by the one man's disobedience that's Adam the many were made sinners so by the one man's obedience that's Christ that many will be made righteous that is they will be counted and declared to be righteous that's the gospel message the gospel message is that Christ has come to deal with your sin and your sinfulness he has paid the price so that all your sins might be forgiven and he has lived a life of righteousness so that it might be counted and credited toward you in the place of the unrighteousness that had been counted as yours the gospel is the good news that by faith alone in Christ alone we can be rescued from our sins and granted the gift of eternal life through the righteousness of Jesus counted to you and me and all those who trust in

[21:51] Christ alone that's the gospel that's the gospel message but Paul has to do more than define it in this book he also defends it in chapter 4 by citing the Old Testament examples to say this isn't a new teaching this has been here from the beginning but also in chapter 6 and 7 Paul begins to defend the gospel against the most common objections you're justified by faith alone you're saved just by your faith in Jesus then why in the world would you ever live a righteous life why not just go out and sin why even have the law of God maybe the law of God is something bad and we just need to kick it to the curb and get rid of it in its entirety Paul addresses all of those things and you can see it he asks questions chapter 6 verse 1 what shall we say then are we to continue in sin that grace may abound here's his answer by no means and he explains that answer verse 15 of chapter 6 what then are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace here's his answer by no means or chapter 7 in dealing with the law what shall we say then that the law is sin here's his answer again by no means and then once again he follows it up by explaining that answer so Paul wants to define the gospel for us he wants to defend the gospel for us from its detractors and the most common objections that are raised against it and the first seven chapters of the book of

[23:17] Romans are aimed to do just those two things define and defend and then we arrive at chapter 8 where we begin to see Paul draw some conclusions there is therefore now if all this is true then there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus and following that promise to the end of chapter 8 is promise after promise after promise for all those who have trusted in Jesus is this promise filled chapter in fact if you're struggling if you're battling with depression or anxiety or frustration or doubt or if any of those things are plaguing you on a regular basis then I would encourage you to begin to read Romans chapter 8 once a day every day do it for the next 30 days and see if you are not filled with hope it doesn't erase all doubts but it battles them it doesn't erase all anxiety but it helps you as you walk through to battle against anxiety these promises are precious and life giving but if these promises are going to be held out as the great gospel promises that come through faith in Jesus then Paul has one more objection to deal with to the gospel before he moves in chapter 12 to the implications for gospel centered life and that is how can we trust the promises of God to us if it at least appears on the surface that the promises of God to Old

[25:03] Testament Israel have not been fulfilled because if you are living in Paul's day that is how it appears even if you are living in our day that is how it can appear read the Old Testament promise after promise after promise given to the descendants of Abraham and yet in Paul's day on the surface especially in light of the preaching of the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ it appears as if those promises have not been fulfilled because by and large yes with many exceptions but by and large the Jewish people in Paul's day and in our own have rejected the Messiah and that means in Paul's own words that they are in verse 3 of chapter 9 accursed and cut off accursed condemned cut off why because they haven't trusted in him they haven't believed in him so all of the great promises made to them do not fall there at their feet fulfilled!

[26:05] complete! Thousands millions even of the descendants of Abraham under condemnation so Paul must address the issue can we trust God's promises to us if it appears on the surface that his promises to them have failed and his answer to that question in a nutshell is that the promises of God to Israel have not failed because God's promises were never intended for every physical descendant of Abraham but they were intended for the remnant for the elect for the chosen within the people of Abraham and then from them for the elect from all the nations he says over and over throughout chapters 9 10 and 11 that there is a remnant that there is an elect there is a chosen there is an Israel within Israel and all of those within spiritual Israel have indeed received the promises through faith in Jesus Christ take a look there at verse 6 chapter 9 it is not as though the word of

[27:08] God has failed for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel so two Israels not everybody who is a physical descendant is Israel and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring but through Isaac shall your offspring be named this means that it's not the children of the flesh who are the children of God but the!

[27:26] children of the promise are counted as offspring they're children of promise within the physical descendants of Abraham and they're all counted as offspring they all receive the promises there is Paul later uses the word in chapter 11 there is a remnant and all the remnant of Israel have indeed through faith in Jesus Christ received the promises so that Paul through 11 chapters has successfully defined the gospel and defended the gospel he defines it again he defends it again he lays out the promises of the gospel he defends our right to trust in those promises the gospel has been fully defined and defended through the first 11 chapters of this book and now he writes in chapter 12 verse 1 in view of in light of these great mercies of God I want you to live in a certain way your life should reflect what you believe what you do in this world ought to be a reflection of what you believe about the gospel that

[28:37] Paul has so clearly laid out for us for 11 chapters and I want you to see how he defines! gospel centered life here in this verse he uses a couple of different words that should draw our attention here first of all he describes the gospel centered life as a sacrifice notice what he says he says to present your bodies as a living sacrifice highlight that word that's how he describes sacrifice that's how he describes the life that is shaped and formed by the gospel by the mercies of God it's a sacrifice and the second word that I want you to notice the second way in which he describes this gospel centered life is at the end of the chapter at the end of the verse where he mentions!

[29:28] that this is this sacrifice is your spiritual worship so underline or highlight the life of a person who is not only with their minds believe the gospel but has fully embraced the gospel of Jesus Christ with their minds with their hearts with all of who they are so that they are fundamentally transformed their life becomes one of sacrifice and worship these are important words they're words that you would obviously recognize that are tied to the entire Old Testament temple and sacrificial system all of that we know has now come to an end because Christ is the final ultimate sacrifice all of those sacrifices were looking ahead to the sacrifice of Jesus and now that Jesus has died on the cross as a substitution and as a sacrifice for his people now all of those sacrifices are no longer needed they were pointing!

[30:34] ahead to cling to those! It's like watching the trailer to the movie that you just came out of over and over and over you don't need to watch the preview you just watched the movie Jesus has fulfilled all of that you don't need it anymore and yet the language of sacrifice and temple worship is not abandoned it's reinterpreted for us in fact this word that's translated worship you'll notice in some of!

[31:03] translations it's rendered as service and some of them it's rendered as service of worship and in others it might even be translated as acts of worship because this particular word is the equivalent of a Hebrew word that's frequently used throughout the Old Testament to describe the activities of the priestly class within the temple districts so that their service within the temple was a service of worship it was their duty as the people and to do all of these acts of worship to serve within the temple and now Paul uses that word that at one time described a particular set of ritualistic activities within the temple performed by a certain group of people on behalf of Israel he now uses that word to describe the Christian life for all believers all followers of Jesus our lives have now themselves become a service an act of worship to God himself that's what the gospel centered life looks like it looks like worship throughout your life and what does that worship look like it looks like sacrifice that's what it looks like in fact he specifically describes it as presenting your bodies as a sacrifice so this is not merely some internal attitude that we have that's important it is important that our attitudes that our thoughts and our feelings align with what we're doing because it's very easily to do things outwardly right you can come to church you can do all the outward things with no inward change taking place but

[32:51] Paul's already dealt with that possibility because he added the word that's translated in ESV as spiritual to worship spiritual worship which really probably should be translated a bit differently but it's hard to come up with an English word that really accurately conveys this word it means something along the lines of reasonable or that which accords with reality with truth so that Paul is saying that the worship the outward acts that you perform ought to accord with the things that you believe inwardly in your heart and mind the mercies of God that he has been expositing throughout those 11 chapters but it's a real thing that we do our inward attitudes and feelings should correspond to what we do outwardly but you better bet that we ought to do something outwardly it is a bodily sacrifice and we can easily I think spiritualize that term body and many people do many people will say oh he just means sacrifice yourself but there's a reason that he chooses the word body he wants to emphasize the reality that our external actions that we actually perform with our hands and feet and eyes and ears and mouths and all of these things the things that we do with our bodies those are the acts of sacrifice and worship that God himself is demanding you can't just say

[34:10] I have an attitude of worship in everything that I do no everything that you've got to do actually has to reflect the gospel and the character of the God of that gospel why do I say that I say that because if you turn back to chapter 6 where you'll remember a minute ago I said Paul was defending the gospel against the charge that the gospel leads to sinful behavior since it's salvation by faith alone apart from works notice in verse 13 of chapter 6 Paul says something important he says do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and your members to God as instruments for righteousness now that word members is how he describes another word that he uses in verse 12 do not let sin reign in your mortal body body is the same word that we find there in 12 verse 1 and he describes your body as your members in other words the individual parts of your body your hands your eyes your ears all the parts of your body

[35:16] Paul says you don't present them to sin as instruments literally weapons of unrighteousness you present them to God as weapons for righteousness and now he says in chapter 12 present your bodies as a living sacrifice that is use this body lay it down do everything that you've got that you can with this physical body to serve God and bear witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ that's what your body is for that's why you exist you're here and you've been given a real physical body so that in a real physical world you can live a life that is shaped by the gospel of Jesus Christ and looks different from the life that you once lived and different from the lives that everyone else around you lives present present your members the parts of your body present them to God as weapons for righteousness present them present your bodies after 12 verse 1 and then quickly before we're done I want you to notice the three adjectives that he uses to describe the sacrifice of our bodies that we're going to offer to him because these

[36:24] I think come with incredible practical power in your life real quickly notice how he describes there in chapter 12 first he says this is a living sacrifice now the order of the words is different in Greek than it is in English it's present your bodies as a sacrifice and living holy acceptable to God just list it in a row like that present your bodies as a sacrifice and the first thing we need to know!

[36:50] about the sacrifice it's living that is it's in contrast to the sacrificial system of the Old Testament dead animals sacrificed over and over that's done because Jesus has already taken care of that he gave up his body died on the cross that's done and that's over but now you're alive and you're walking around and I want your bodies to be a sacrifice it's living it's in contrast to those sacrifices it's different from those sacrifices and it's ongoing it's not something that stops as long as you are alive you are to present your bodies as a sacrifice everything that you do with your bodies thinking how might I glorify God how might I point to the gospel with my hands and my eyes but then he says that it's to be holy the ways that we use our bodies and the members of our bodies are to be holy in light of all that God has done for us in the gospel to be holy so that what you look at with your eyes should bring honor and glory to

[37:56] Jesus or the way that you perceive the things that you look at with your eyes should bring honor and glory to Jesus and what you hear with your ears! ought to Jesus I'm dumbfounded at times by the movies and television shows that followers of Jesus watch on a regular basis I'm dumbfounded because so many of them are filled I mean filled with all manner of sinful behavior all manner of sexual immorality and nudity and things that inspire lust and the worst language that you can imagine it's now become trendy for most of the comedies that come out in the movies if you read online you can find the counts of the curse words and it's become trendy to have 50 or more occurrences of the F word in movies that's something supposed to be funny these days and

[38:58] I'm astounded by how frequently and how often followers of Jesus are taking that in with their eyes and with their ears and I don't want to go the route of becoming legalistic Justin and I were joking the other day talking about how it used to be really popular I don't know if it still is anymore I doubt it but it used to be really popular for youth ministers to encourage their students to bring all your secular CDs and we're going to light a bonfire and throw them in or smash them to pieces or do something like that or in the 80s your cassette tapes bring all your cassette tapes we're going to rip them to pieces and we're going to get rid of all I don't want to become legalist we were!

[39:38] what would we do today erase your iTunes account what do you do we don't have those things anymore how does that happen but I don't want to go the legalistic route of saying that Christians can't enjoy any art that doesn't explicitly mention the name of Jesus or we can't watch any movie that's not a Bible movie I'm not pushing that but what I'm!

[40:03] saying is! what we it matters to God and it ought to be informed by the gospel of Jesus Christ it ought to be informed by that it ought to be holy and then he finally says it's got to be acceptable to God maybe that's the ultimate test of all of our behavior because holy can be kind of a nebulous category at times sometimes we struggle figuring out what do we mean by holy and how exactly do we determine if something is holy or not such a religious sounding word that we can get the idea that well if it's not explicitly about Jesus it must not be holy and it can be confusing so this last category is maybe the most helpful acceptable to God acceptable to Him what is it that you do!

[40:59] with your feet where you go where you walk or with your eyes and your ears and your mouth with the things that you say is acceptable to Him is okay with Him do you really think it's acceptable to Jesus I imagine that Jesus and his disciples sitting around the campfire had conversations about all sorts of things and they probably weren't all a lesson on the Old Testament it's probably not everything they talked about they probably talked about sheep they probably talked about crops in the field they probably laughed about things that they saw and they did on a daily basis I don't think everything was a Bible study but I think everything that Jesus said was acceptable to his father the question becomes are we doing things with our bodies so real practical things living out of our lives in ways that God would ultimately!

[41:55] say it's acceptable to me right it's okay the gospel demands not only faith in Jesus Christ so that you might be saved from your sins but the gospel demands and creates in those who genuinely believe it a lifestyle that is shaped by the good news of Jesus Christ let's pray