Orthodoxy to Orthopraxy

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being one body in Christ are individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; if ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.

When doctrine becomes life: how the truths of Romans 1–11 are meant to be lived out.

What Is the Point of Salvation?

Father, thank You for Your word. We pray that You would speak to us now, that You would continue to give us insight and understanding. As this passage shows, transform us by the renewing of our minds, so that wherever we go this week—to work, to school, into our neighborhoods—we would be able to display and prove what is Your good and perfect and acceptable will. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

What is the point of salvation? What is the objective in the Christian life? We have spent nearly ten months considering the core doctrine of salvation in the first eleven chapters of Romans. But what is the purpose of this faith? We are saved—Romans 10 makes it clear that as we confess the Lord Jesus and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead, we are saved. But what are we saved from, and what are we saved to?

We are saved from death and hell, and saved to heaven, to be with the Lord where there is fullness of joy. But then a question remains: if that's the whole purpose, why does God not immediately translate us to heaven at conversion? It would seem reasonable—if we believed and were instantly taken to heaven, you might think that would compel people to believe. So if salvation's purpose is not only being saved from hell and saved unto eternal life, then what is this Christian life for?

Saved to Be Restored

Surely one reason God keeps us here is to be visible evidence of His grace and glory, a witness to others. Another is to worship and glorify Him in this life. But I suggest that at least one of the objectives of salvation and the Christian experience is becoming more, in this life, of what God created us to be at the very beginning.

God had a purpose in creation. As we read in Genesis, God created man in His image, to be His image-bearers, in unhindered relationship and fellowship with Him. There was total communion with God before sin entered. And there was also community with one another—a community devastated by the fall. In Genesis 3, when sin entered, separation came first between man and his wife, for they saw their nakedness and were ashamed and tried to hide. Then came separation between God and man, for God entered the garden asking, "Adam, where are you?" Communion with God and community with one another were both disrupted by sin.

But the Gospel brings the restoration of those things—the reuniting of man with God and the rekindling of community within the body of Christ. So God's aim in salvation is not only that we would be saved from death and hell, and saved unto eternal life, but that here in this life we would experience the restoration of things being made right to what they were before the fall.

The Problem of a Fallen World

There is a problem, however. We still exist in a fallen world, in a fallen humanity. These bodies are fallen because of sin. Because of the fall's effects upon humanity and creation, there are hurdles that keep us from entering into the full enjoyment of this restoration. Sin dwelling in our bodies, as Paul describes in Romans 7, wars against the work God's Spirit is seeking to do in us.

Paul identifies this in Galatians 5:17: "For the flesh wars against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these two are contrary the one to the other, that you do not do the things that you wish." We have all experienced this as we walk with the Lord. So the question is: how do we experience the more abundant life promised to us in Christ? In John 10, Jesus said, "I have come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly." The aim of salvation is the restoration of the abundant life here and now that God intended in creation. How do we experience that?

From Orthodoxy to Orthopraxy

The exhortations of Romans 12 through 15 are aimed at bringing us into that experience—transforming us into Christ-likeness and away from conformity to this world. What is outlined in the next seventy verses is antithetical to the natural default of our flesh. Because of the fall, our flesh defaults toward the carnal, toward those things that disrupt communion with God and community with one another. The desires of this fallen flesh always lead us away from the abundant life God desires for us.

The whole of creation is under the sway of the wicked one—the apostle John tells us this in 1 John 5:19. Everything in this world is ordered by the enemy to distract us from those things that bring us into the abundant life Jesus gives through the Gospel. These seventy verses, then, are the application of salvation in Jesus Christ.

There is a clear turning point at Romans 12. The first eleven chapters were primarily doctrinal, focused on right orthodoxy—right understanding and belief of who we are in Christ and what Christ has done. At Romans 12 we turn from orthodoxy to orthopraxy—what it looks like to put these things into practice. We cannot expect everything will be fine just because we know it in our heads; it needs to overflow into our lives.

Transformed at the Heart, Working It Out

There is no way to bring our flesh into conformity to the Spirit on our own; we need a complete transformation by God. And God has already given us this in the new birth. He told Nicodemus in John 3, "You must be born again." At the new birth, God gives us a new heart, completely transforming us at the heart level, and the Spirit of God comes to dwell in us. Our spirit is revived into fellowship with God again, and His Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are His children. As His children we have received an inheritance—Ephesians 1 says we have received every spiritual blessing in heavenly places.

Now, with these gifts and the presence of His indwelling Spirit, we need to work out our salvation. In Philippians 2:12 Paul says, "work out your salvation with fear and trembling." We are saved by no work of our own—Ephesians 2 makes it clear we are "saved by grace through faith, that not of yourself; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." We are saved by His good works, not ours; but now that we are saved, we are saved unto good works, working out what salvation looks like right here and now.

Many people are not experiencing the abundant life. They are hoping for the day they are in God's presence, where there is "fullness of joy, at His right hand pleasures forevermore" (Psalm 16:11). They know their position in Christ—they've studied Romans 1–11—but they are not experiencing the joy of the abundant life. Why? Because we must move from knowing about these things to having these things become a part of who we are, lived out in our lives. Sadly, this section is often overlooked, because we live in a culture that loves good doctrinal clarity but rarely moves into working it out.

First Step: Submission

Look at verse 1: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service." How do we work out our salvation? The first word to write down is submission.

Notice the word "therefore." It points back to everything said in Romans 1–11. Everything going forward in chapters 12–15 is the response to that doctrine. What is our response to the work Jesus did, demonstrating God's love in His death on the cross? What is our response to being crucified with Him, buried with Him in baptism, and raised to walk in newness of life?

Paul urges us, by God's strengthening mercy, to offer ourselves to God sacrificially. He says "by the mercies of God," because you and I are utterly unable, in our own strength, to do these things. Read the Sermon on the Mount, then try to live that apart from God's grace—it's impossible. God has given us His Spirit indwelling us to empower us, but we still must actively apply these things. It will not just happen one day while we sleep. As the Psalmist says in Psalm 103, "He knows our frame," that we are dust; He pities us as a father pities his children. That word "pity" is connected to mercy. God deals with us not according to our sinfulness, but according to His mercy.

What is Paul urging us to do? To present, to yield, to submit this fallen, carnal humanity to God sacrificially—as living sacrifices. We are still alive, but we are dead to our natural desires, reckoning them dead and offering what we have to Him: "God, it's Yours, use me as You will." Paul's wording is passionate and pleading—"I beg you"—because he knew this was the only way to experience what God has for us.

Holy and Consecrated

Another translation renders "reasonable service" as "your only right response." The only right response is to offer ourselves to God as holy and acceptable instruments. The word holy is the Greek hagios, translated 161 times as holy and 61 times as saints. We tend to think someone is called holy or a saint only after living a perfectly holy life, or after a council declares it once they've died. But Scripture reveals that, based on the work Jesus did on the cross, God has declared you and me holy and called us saints. So Paul calls us to live in keeping with what we already are. To be holy is to be completely set apart, consecrated for His use only.

We easily understand consecrated things. We have a little dog at home named Walter, and Walter has his dish. That dish is consecrated, holy unto Walter; we don't use it for anything else. We all understand a thing set apart for one use only. Paul says we are to offer our bodies as holy, consecrated, living sacrifices to God.

Second Step: Renunciation

How do we experience this abundant life? Number two: renunciation. Verse 2: "And do not be conformed to this world." In 1 John 2:16, John tells us that all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—and this world is passing away. It will one day fade and burn up. The desires and lusts for the things of this world will pass away with it.

Knowing this, the Christian ought to renounce and relinquish all claim to this world. This world should not be forefront in our expectations; our desire should be for the Lord. The world has a pattern, a current, all under the sway of the wicked one. If you go after the things of this world, it will press you into its mold. If you invest everything you have in something you know for a fact will fail, you are a fool. You wouldn't invest with Bernie Madoff if you knew he was going to prison and you'd lose everything. If we know this world is passing away, to fully invest our hearts in it is absolute absurdity.

Third Step: Transformation

Thirdly: transformation. The middle of verse 2: "but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." This transformation begins in the mind. The word translated "transformed" is the Greek metamorphoō—where we get metamorphosis.

This transformation does not happen by default. We are active in yielding ourselves to Him, relinquishing all claim to this world, and then allowing Him to transform us by renewing our minds. There is a way in which the logos of God does this. In John 1, "In the beginning was the Word," the logos, and in John 1:14, "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." Jesus is the logos, the Word of God, and by His presence, His Word, and His revealed truth, He transforms our minds.

Notice this mind change results in something: "that you may prove" what is the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God—that is, you may work it out in your active life. If we are to do what pleases God and results in our joy, we must first submit and yield ourselves, relinquish all claim to this world, and then allow our minds, by His grace and His Word, to be changed. Then it affects the way we live.

Many ask, "What is God's will for my life?" Scripture gives explicit instruction in places like 1 Thessalonians 5. But one truth here is that as we submit to God, renounce the things of this world, and let Him transform our minds, we walk in His will and experience it. The will of God is on display in the life of one who, by God's grace, is endeavoring to live out what is good and acceptable to Him.

Think Soberly, Not Highly

Verse 3: "For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith." Romans has made clear that we cannot, by our own strength, make ourselves acceptable to God. Paul reminds us of this so we will have clear thinking and not be arrogant, imagining we saved ourselves—"I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps."

It's our carnal flesh that needs to be crucified, the flesh that thinks we are in relationship with God because of something we did, or because of something intrinsically in us. We want to think that when God saved us, He got a really righteous deal. The reality is we are nothing. Yet we are not to walk around with a spiritual inferiority complex, always doing the Eeyore thing—"I'm just terrible." God saved us to use us for His glory, as vessels of honor, earthen vessels containing the glorious riches of His grace. We have value because He ascribed it; we have dignity because He dignified us. But apart from Him, we are nothing.

Sometimes we look at an unsaved person in our family or workplace and wrongly assume, "God doesn't love them like He loves me." But "God has dealt to everyone a measure of faith," and by His grace His Word caused that faith in you to germinate into saving faith. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:10, "By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace towards me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me." When God gives His grace, it is not in vain—it stirs us up to serve Him.

God's Grace at Work: Spiritual Gifts

Salvation from hell unto eternal life, and sanctification here and now, are God's gracious work in us by faith—therefore we cannot think highly of ourselves. All the good we will ever do for the name of Christ is according to His grace. How do we know? Verse 4: "For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ... Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them."

How do we know God is still graciously working in our lives to bring us into the abundant life? He has given each of us gifts by His Spirit to enable us to walk in what He's called us to do. Paul lists seven gifts here—not a comprehensive list, but one of several in the New Testament. Others appear in 1 Corinthians 12–14 and Ephesians 4. If you want to study these in depth, our website has the audio from our seventeen-week series on the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians.

You may say, "It seems like God is doing all of this—what part do we play?" We play a huge part. We submit ourselves to Him, relinquish all claim to this world, are transformed by the renewing of our minds, and then actively engage in using the gifts God has given us. The Christian will never experience the abundant life here and now if they are not using the gifts He has given. If you just casually attend church on a Sunday morning and that's the extent of your Christian faith, you will not experience this abundant life.

What the Gifts Are For

A spiritual gift is a God-given capacity through which the Holy Spirit supernaturally ministers to the body. It is an ability the Spirit gives us to express our faith in order to strengthen another's faith. The gifts are for the building up and edification of the body, and through that we experience the abundant life. We are all members of the body of Christ, members in particular, each given a different gifting and function. As we function in our place, we experience the abundant life.

If you don't know your gifts, one of the best ways to discover them is to step out by faith and begin to serve the Lord and see how He has enabled you. We also have a Spiritual Gifts Test on our website at ccesco.com. These can be helpful, though sometimes people get led to conclusions—several people have come to me since we posted it and said, "I'm a prophet." And I think, "Really? I'm a little scared."

Prophecy. When we hear "prophecy," our minds go to people in camel's-hair robes eating locusts, saying "Thus saith the Lord" in King James English about future events. Yes, there is an aspect of prophecy that is foretelling. But much of prophecy is simply forthtelling—declaring God's specific word to a specific group of His people.

Ministry. This word is the same from which we get diakonos, deacon—the idea of a servant. Every Christian is called to serve God in some capacity, but some are uniquely gifted and called to serve as servants of the Lord.

Teaching. The ability to clearly explain and effectively apply God's truth so others can learn it. Every Christian gets opportunities to instruct, but some are uniquely called and gifted as teachers.

Exhortation. The ability to motivate others to respond by providing timely words of counsel. The word is parakaleo—to come alongside with a call. It's like a personal trainer or a coach who says, "You can do ten more! Come on!" even when you think you can't, the one who comes alongside and says, "You can do this."

Leadership. The ability to discern God's purpose for a group, set and communicate appropriate goals, and motivate others to fulfill them for the service of God.

Mercy. The ability to deeply empathize and engage compassionately with someone going through a difficult time. All of us are called to be merciful, but some in the body uniquely have this gift.

The Gift of Giving

The gift of giving—the reality is that every person in the body of Christ is called to give and to be involved in the work God has called us to accomplish. Giving can involve our time, talents, and treasure. Our minds go to treasure, but sometimes time and talents are equally important. Paul says the one with this gift should use it liberally, giving in abundance.

I want to step out of the text for a moment because this is appropriate for where we are as a church. The ministry of Cross Connection Escondido only happens because of what you, the body, give to it. At the end of last year we shared the great things God did. Then, interestingly, from December to January the giving dropped by 50%. Some people told me, "When you shared how well the church was doing, we thought, 'You don't need what we're giving, so we'll divert it.'" We're not 50% off now, but we are more than 10% off our budget goals. We've significantly reduced our budget and are cutting costs in every way we can.

So I have to say plainly: if you are part of this church, you need to give to the work of this ministry. I know some of you don't like when we talk about this; that might be conviction. I don't like to talk about it either. But this ministry only happens based on how we give to it. Through the rest of the year, we'll need you to prayerfully consider giving over and above your regular tithe. We'll receive a few special offerings—for the Harvest Celebration in October, which we can no longer cover in our budget, and for needed improvements to our more-than-twenty-year-old facility and Children's Ministry building. Begin praying about these now. Ultimately God provides all our needs by His riches—amen—but He has called us to be part of this body, using our gifts to bless and build it up.

Closing: Good Stewards of God's Grace

One last verse. In 1 Peter 4, Peter says, "As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." God has given us great grace, hasn't He? As good and faithful stewards—the kind to whom God says, "Well done, my good and faithful servant"—use the gifts God has given you for the building up of the body. Learn what those gifts are. Step out into the work to experience God's grace working through you, and then minister to one another.

This church amazes me by the way you serve and engage in the work—here at this facility, in our community, in your workplaces and neighborhoods, on the ball field. Serving God doesn't happen only at church events; ministry happens wherever you are. I hear and see God doing amazing things through this body, and it blesses me to be a part of it. It's very clear: the abundant life is lived as we use what God has given us, as good stewards of His grace, ministering to others. May we be stirred up to do that even more in the seasons God brings us into. Amen.