Romans 12: In view of God’s mercy...

Looking back in anger
In 1956, a young British playwright called John Osborne put on a play in London called ‘Look Back in Anger’; the main character, whose name was Jimmy Porter was a young man who was burning with rage against all the conservatism and complacency of Britain in the fifties, and he came to represent an entire generation of "angry young men." The play sparked a whole movement in British theatre and film and music and popular culture, and in no small measure itn was Jimmy Porter who lit the fuse that set off the huge cultural explosion that went off among the baby-boomers in Britain in the 1960s. The effects are still being felt today, of course, and my generation in turn finds itself working out whether to go with the values of our baby-boomer parents, or to react in anger against the mess that they left behind. If you’ve ever seen the film Reality Bites you’ll know what all that’s about.

For us as Christians, in the midst of all that, the great pressure and temptation is to let ourselves simply become products of the movements in the culture around us, shaped by the society around us. That happens just as much if we are conformists, setting our values and our lifestyle by the culture around us, or on the other hand if we are rebels or reactionaries, letting the agenda be set by our reaction against what came before us. And again and again what happens in churches is that we just import into the church community the culture and the culture wars of the society around us.

Looking back in thankfulness
The pattern that the Bible presents to us is quite different from that. Here in Romans 12, the pattern that Paul wants to call us to is not one that is shaped by looking around us to the society we live in - either in anger and rebellion or in conformity and imitation - not looking back to our parents or around us to our peers, but looking back far beyond all that to the cross of Jesus and letting that be the thing that shapes the culture of our church community.

Look back, Paul says, not to the generations that went before us, but to the cross of Jesus, and not in angry rebellion or in mindless tradition, as slaves to the culture that we were born into but in thankfulness, as people who owe everything to Jesus. It’s an appropriate starting point isn’t it, on a day like today of all days.

Listen again to the opening verses of Romans 12. Paul writes: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God — this is your spiritual act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer 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, pleasing and perfect will.”

Not conformed but transformed (v.2)
Two things to emphasise. First, verse 2, notice the encouragement Paul gives us not to be conformed to the world around us, but instead to be transformed as our minds are renewed by the gospel of Jesus. If our church is going to have a culture and a flavour and an ethos, that is what ought to be the thing that shapes it. Not the values and the lifestyle of the society around us, but the will of God, revealed in Scripture, centring on the pattern set by Jesus himself in his death on the cross.

A life of worship (v.1)
What will that look like as we take it on board? Well, what Paul says in verse 1 is that it will mean a whole life that is about worship. Not six days a week where we live by the values of the world around us and one or two hours where we do our religious thing on Sunday - that’s not what worship is. No, Paul says in verse 1, worship is our whole lives; our whole lives from Sunday to Saturday, offered up as a sacrifice to God.

We can’t say often enough, I think, that worshipping God is not about singing songs in church,. We worship God in the way we put out the chairs for people to sit on; we worship God in the way we talk after church over coffee; we worship God in the way we drive home when church is finished and the way we do our work when we turn up in the office on Monday. It’s all worship. There are no more sacred buildings, sacred days, sacred rituals. We come to church to encourage one another to keep following Jesus; we sing songs to express our thanks to God and our delight in him and our love for him; but church services and songs are not the centre or the essence of worship; the centre of worship is the place where God meets us in the gospel of Jesus, in the way that God takes the message of the cross and writes it on our hearts by his Spirit and makes us into new people in Jesus.

Which means that the foundation underpinning all our worship is the mercies of God - the mercies of God that we have learnt all about in Romans chapters 1-11. Underneath all our worship is the grace of God in the gospel. And in response to that grace we offer up to God not just our songs, not just our money, not just our Sunday mornings but our whole lives. That is spiritual worship.

Within the family of God’s people
What does it look like in practice? Well Paul begins to tell us that in the remainder of the chapter. There’s a whole lot of things that we could talk about here in Romans 12, but this is a short talk in the context of a long day, so let me stress just half a dozen, and do that pretty briefly.

To begin with, Paul wants to remind us here in Romans chapter 12, that life of worship in response to God’s mercies is lived out not in some sort of splendid isolation but within the family of God’s people. And there are five things I want to highlight in the way that Paul paints that picture.

Belonging (v.5)
In the first place, verse 5, that means belonging. Verse 4: “Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”

If you have been around Petersham Baptist for a while you may have picked up that there is a kind of mantra that we keep on repeating, that church is not just an event that you show up to but a community that you belong to. We keep saying it because we keep thinking that it needs to be said. We live in a consumer society, and the danger for us as Christians is to think of church as a kind of spiritual product that we consume. We turn up when we’re free, we keep coming as long as it works for us. We get ourselves a dose of music or good teaching or whatever else it is that we come for, and then we go home. But that’s not the way Paul wants us to view church at all; it’s not something that we come along to; it’s something that we are part of.

That’s what a dozen or so people are going to be expressing this afternoon when they officially become members of Petersham Baptist at the AGM, and if you’re not yet a member then I’d urge you to do the same thing. Those kind of statements and promises and commitments mean something, and they’re worth making. But it’s not just about making the statement and calling ourselves members; it’s about living it out - which is what the rest of the chapter goes on to say.

Ministry (v.3-8)
So in the second place, verses 3-8, in the context of that image of the church as the body of Christ and the importance of not just attending but belonging, Paul talks about ministry - not ‘the ministry’ as if it was just something that we paid people to do - but ministry in the broadest possible sense, the ministry that all of us are called to be involved in. Verse 3: “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. 4 Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. 7 If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; 8 if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.”

Zeal (v.11)
Thirdly, verse 11, it’s about zeal. ‘Zeal’ is not a word we use much in our society these days, and when we do it’s not usually a positive word. When someone is described as being ‘a bit zealous’, or still worse a ‘zealot’, it’s not usually a compliment.

In Paul’s day, particularly in Jewish circles, ‘zeal’ was a word with currency. It was a word that had a strong meaning, nad a controversial one. In Judaism, the ‘zealots’ were the fanatical nationalists, the guerrila fighters and the terrorists, in the tradition of the Maccabees. Paul talks about his life before his conversion in Phil 3, and he says, “as for legalistic righteousness, faultless, as for zeal, persecuting the church.”

And after his conversion, for Paul, zeal doesn’t become a dirty word. It just gets reshaped and redirected. So Paul writes, verse 11: “Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.” Don’t let the pressures of life or the advancing years rob you of your passion and your zeal for the gospel of Jesus. Pray that our church won’t develop a culture of comfortable, moderate, middle of the road luke-warmness, but that we will always be a church that has a culture of fervour and of zeal.

Prayer, Generosity, Hospitality (v.12-13)
Fourthly, verses 12-13, it’s about a string of things like prayer and generosity and hospitality. If we really mean things things about belonging to each other as a body and a family, and if this zeal for Jesus that we talk about has any genuine, solid reality, then these things will express themselves in practical, concrete actions and habits. We will pray for each other. We will give generously. We will share our homes and invite others into them. You will be able to see in the way that we relate to each other that we are zealous for the Lord Jesus and we belong to one another in him.

Love
And then fifthly, verses 9-16, if you want to sum it up in one word, that one word will probably be love. Love that is genuine, not just the right words. Love that means devoting ourselves to each other’s good; love that means we really do rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. Love that overcomes our natural pride and apathy and defensiveness and learns how to imitate Jesus.

Beyond the family of God’s people
One last thing to say, particularly based on the final verses of the chapter, and that is a reminder that this sort of love and this sort of lifestyle doesn’t just suddenly stop when we move beyond the borders of the family of God’s people. There will inevitably be a spillover into the way that we relate to others in all of our relationships, so in the final verses, Paul seems to shift seamlessly into talking about our relationshps with the wider, non-Chrsitian world.

Verse 17: “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Let’s pray that in this coming year these things become more and more the features and the characteristics of our life together here at Petersham baptist.