Kennystix's podcast
Build Your Life on the Mercies of God
The following resource is from desiringGod.org. The scripture text for this morning's message is found in the book of Romans chapter 12 verses 1 and 2. If you don't have a Bible in the pew in front of you, there should be a pew Bible and it's on page 947. It's Romans chapter 12 verses 1 and 2. "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." My aim in this message is that God would encourage you and that the Spirit would enable you to build your lives on the mercies of God manifest in Jesus Christ. There are two parts to it, there's two points, the first one is that you build your lives on something, that's point number one, and second, that you build them on the mercies of God. So let's pray and ask God to encourage us and the Spirit to come and enable us to do that. When a president dies as the beloved sometimes revered and sometimes hated, Ronald Reagan did yesterday, a nation should be sobered, Father, and we ask that we'd be sobered. There's 93 or 33 or 3 to die is an awesome thing, and so as we look upon a man's body in the next several days and contemplate a life lived and a death died and an eternity entered, I pray that our nation would be sobered that we would number our days and get a heart of wisdom and that seeing that we will all very soon face an infinitely holy God and judge. May we now, this morning, understand the call to build our lives on his mercy lest we meet him in wrath. So God come and help me and help us to listen to your word. Would you buy your power and spirit, enable us to be saturated with the mercy of God and built upon the mercy of God and display the mercy of God to the glory of the mercy of God manifest in Jesus, in his name we pray, Amen. Point number one, build your life on something. Now the place that I get that as I launch into chapter 12 is from the word, "therefore" in this verse, verse, "I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God." That's all we're going to look at this morning is that phrase. "I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God." Now want us to understand the fullness of the implications of the word, therefore. How do we use the word, therefore? I'm going to give you two examples from the life of our church and our mission. First on April 28, the day before I left, the church gathered and voted 315 to 39 to move forward with treasuring Christ together, a vision of spreading a passion for the supremacy of God in all things, for the joy of all peoples through multiple campuses, church planting and a global deaconate. Therefore, a $5.4 million campus will be purchased in the next two weeks, in Moundsview. That signature that goes on there, probably from Tim Johnson, didn't come out of nowhere, it doesn't hang in the air, it's not rootless, it's built on something. Years, praying, dreaming, experimenting, struggling, thinking, visiting, months of planning, struggling, praying, studying, designing, thinking, weeks of communicating, days of refining and tweaking, and then an hour or two of robust discussion, and then the best people in the world you could ever disagree with, voting 39 against it. Love every one of them can see right into their heart to know the good thoughts they had. This is a wonderful thing, all of that, and now, therefore, we move it. That's the way we use it. This movement over the next couple of weeks to sign on the dotted line, to gather in whatever down payment you give and move is built on something. So we say, "Therefore, we're doing it." We'll give you another example. We've got about 12 of our folks in Fort Eliza, Brazil right now, it's on the northeastern coast. My wife and daughter are one or two of them. Noel and Talatha flew to Rio first to visit Linda Oatley. Linda is a missionary to street kids in Rio, and Noel wanted to see that, be a part of it, encourage her, and she did, and then Linda gets on the plane with Noel to join the team from Rio to Fort Eliza for five hours flight north. It's a very big country, and that night, Linda gives her testimony to the women of the church gathered for whom they're building a church. Her testimony goes something like this. Noel's telling me all this on the phone a couple of days ago. I always wanted to be a missionary, married a man, and he never did want to be involved. In fact, in the end, he abandoned me, and he divorced me. And after years of struggling with what my life should look like in this condition, I felt led to give my life at age 50 to the kids of Rio. It's a single woman, and she did, and has, and that's where she is. The next morning after this testimony, the pastor's wife of this church stood up and said in the women's gathering that met again, I want to say something, my husband has felt called all of our ministry to be a missionary to Chile, and I have said absolutely not. I won't consider it. And last night, all my objections fell to the ground, and all my heart was changed, and I want to say publicly, therefore, I'm willing to go. Now, that did not come out of nowhere. That didn't hang in the air. It was built on something. It's got roots down in a testimony of the faithfulness of God. You need to build your life on something. There needs to be a grand, therefore, in front of your life. Therefore, I live like this, therefore, I choose like this, therefore, I talk like this, therefore, I feel like this. There needs to be a foundation, a root from which you say, therefore, I do, I speak, I feel. You need to build your life on something. Now that may seem so patently obvious to you, but it isn't to millions of people. Paul is turning from chapters 1 to 11 theology to ethics now, doctrine to life, morality, doing, feeling, thinking, information about God, wrath, sin, death, Christ, death, resurrection, spirit poured out, faith, justification, progressive holiness, therefore, I beseech you by the mercies of God, live this way that I'm going to describe in chapters 12 to 16. Build your life on something. Now that may seem so obvious to you. Let me illustrate why it's not obvious and then give you one application for your families. I've been reading about Hinduism and I want to quote a paragraph from an article by Herbert Hoffer to show you that there are about 800 million people in the world at least who do not agree with this, therefore, or even the worldview behind using, therefore, here's the paragraph. The proper name of Hinduism is Sanatana Dharma or the eternal way of life. You can have whatever beliefs you like, but you are expected to live out of Dharma, to live out Dharma. Your religion is expected to participate in the values and customs and organization of society. If a Hindu finds you to be a person of character and propriety, it does not matter to him that much if you have differing theological beliefs. What matters first and foremost is that you are a person of Dharma. In Hinduism itself, one can identify hundreds of different religious traditions. At the end of quote, here's the point. The worldview represented by that paragraph and the worldview represented by the therefore, and verse 1 of Romans 12 are infinitely different. In Hinduism, there is no 11 chapters with objective truth about God, his character, nature, with contours. This is out. This is in. This is true. This is false. This is good. This is bad. This is ugly. And sin and Christ and cross and resurrection and spirit and faith and life. There is no 11 chapters followed by therefore do Dharma. There are two totally different worldviews here that say what you believe about God, Christ, death, life does not matter fit into the Dharma of this society. Those are two totally different ways of viewing the universe. And you need to know that the Bible has a worldview encapsulated in the word therefore. You may not want that worldview, but that's the biblical worldview. There is truth in chapters 1 to 11. There is life in chapters 12 to 16 and there is a massive therefore in the middle. Build your life on something. Have a worldview that says, I will know truth and I'll build on it. I'll root in it. I'll stand there. I'll change my behavior. I'll change my emotions. I'll change my words in order to seek my roots in and live out of a truth. That's a worldview. It's a way of approaching life that millions of people. I simply pick on the Hindu religion because I was reading about it. I could use America, right? I could use postmodernism, relativism and talk about the same disinterest in therefores. You can have your own views, just do what you feel like. You don't root your behavior in a grand 11 chapters of theology. You root your behavior in what you feel like doing. Don't hurt anybody. Those are two different worldviews and it isn't just Hinduism from which the biblical worldview so radically differs. Let me give you a reason why the Bible has the therefore where it does and then the application to your family. The reason the Bible has a therefore at the beginning of verse 1 of chapter 12 that says because of that, because of God's mercy in Christ, therefore I'll live a certain way. Because of God's mercy in Christ, therefore I'll talk a certain way. Because of God's mercy in Christ, therefore I'll feel a certain way. The reason that's therefore is there is that the point of Christianity is to magnify the beauty of the mercy of God in Christ. The point of Christianity is to make beautiful, to look good in the world, the mercy of God manifest in the work of Jesus Christ, you exist to make Jesus look good. You exist to make God's glory shine, therefore if you choose your lifestyle without reference to the glory of God in Christ, how will that happen? It won't. The reason our lives can call attention to the beauty of God is because our lives are rooted in and shaped by the first 11 chapters that display the glory of God in Christ. Hinduism does not have this goal. No other religion has this goal, namely to exist, to magnify, to display, to glorify, to make much of the mercy of God revealed in Jesus Christ crucified and risen. That's the only reason we exist, therefore if there's no therefore at the front of your behavior built on Jesus, how's your life going to show Jesus? It can be as morally squeaky clean as you want and Jesus will get no credit for it. The whole meaning of Christianity hangs on the therefore because we exist to glorify Christ, therefore our lives must be built on Christ and if they're not consciously built on, rooted in, shaped by Jesus, he gets no glory for our life. This is huge. This is absolutely huge. Application parents, single people who love kids and get in their lives, teach your children from the earliest days, the meaning and the worldview contained in therefore, which simply means this. It is not Christian parenting to say to a kid, just do it. That's atheistic parenting. Just do it has no therefore at the front of it and therefore does not teach the child to root his or her behavior in Christ, in the gospel, in the mercy of God. If you develop a kind of legal list and say, this is what you do to belong to this family. This is the way we do this. Just do it. I said so. If authoritarianism trumps theology, you won't raise Christians. You'll raise moral prigs who probably will never be able to understand the gospel. From the beginning, we must say because of this in Christ, therefore, obey my name, because of this in Christ, therefore don't hit your sister. Because of this in Christ dress like this. Because of this in Christ, don't go to that party. Because of this in Christ, don't watch that movie. Because of this in Christ, spend your Friday night in the city serving the poor. If we don't talk like that, what kind of children will we raise? Build a worldview into your children that doesn't ask the question when they're going off to high school or college, what's wrong with it? What's wrong with this dress? What's wrong with this party? What's wrong with this show? What's wrong with this word? What's the wrong question? Don't teach them to ask that question. Teach them to ask how can I so speak, so live, so feel, so that all the people who watch me will see there's a satisfaction in the glory of Jesus better than any party they've ever been to. That's the question. How can I so live as a teenager or an eight-year-old so that my heart is so satisfied with all that God is for me in Jesus that I make my decisions out of something? I'm not consulting my parents list as I go off to college. I'm consulting the gospel, I'm consulting the cross, I'm consulting the resurrection, I'm consulting the Holy Spirit, I'm consulting the whole Romans one to eleven, and I'm living out of Romans one to eleven on Friday night so that people will give my King glory and not say, why don't you do that? What good is an avoidance ethic in a world like ours? We don't have a proactive, get in people's lives, love people, be merciful to people, show the outpouring of the love of God in sacrifice, they will not be interested in the list that we avoid. Nor should they be. It's a big deal, just therefore, really big deal. That's point number one, build your life on something, and I've already mentioned what it is, so now let's go there and let it sink in. It's the mercies of God, let's read it again. Verse one, "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God." I'm appealing to you now as I begin my practical, ethical, lived out part of this letter, I'm appealing to you by something it is amazing, isn't it? It is amazing that he had to stop here, he's dictating, but to tertious, is that his name over in chapter 16? I don't know how long it took him to dictate this book in prison, but maybe he got a good night's arrest before he started on chapter 12 and he stopped and got up the next morning and said, "Okay, let's go." He starts and his secretary is ready to go and he says, "Now I appeal to you, therefore, spent several days working on Romans 1-11, I appeal to you therefore, and at this point he's got to make a choice. That word, what phrase will I use to sum up everything I've seen?" And he chooses the mercies of God. It's amazing when you think of the richness of these 11 chapters and all that he could have chosen. "I beseech you by Christ, I beseech you by the cross, I beseech you by the Spirit, I beseech you by any number of things," he says, "I appeal to you therefore," I'm going to sum it up with mercy. Now unless you think that he just got that out of the air, that's kind of a, but just came to his mind and have any root in his big picture theology, turn to chapter 15. It's just a page or two over from where you are now. Chapter 15, verses 8 and 9, describing the reason that Jesus came as a Jew into the world as the Christ. 15, 8, "For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness," there's one purpose, "in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs," there's another purpose, "and here's the one that's so relevant, and he came in order that the Gentiles," that's all of us mostly, "might glorify God for his mercy." So the one thing he chooses to highlight as the goal of all missions among Gentiles is let them come to glorify God for his mercy. And I just say, "Oh, Bethlehem, let's build our lives," now I can say, not just on something, I can say, not just on chapters 1 to 11, I can zero right in on what Paul zeroed in on and say, "Let's build our lives on the mercies of God." And we know we're on the right track here and we know why he says this if you just read through chapter 12, because we are diving in to an ocean of mercy. Let me just highlight them for you. Walk with me, verse 9, "Let love be genuine," that's mercy, verse 13, "contribute to the needs of the saints," that's mercy, verse 14, "bless those who persecute you," that's mercy, verse 15, second half of the verse, "weep with those who weep," that's mercy, verse 16 at the end, "associate with the lowly," that's mercy, verse 17, "repay no one evil for evil," that's mercy, verse 19, "never avenge yourselves," that's mercy, verse 20, "if your enemy is hungry, feed him, if he stirs to give him something to drink," that's mercy. There's no doubt where this is coming from. He knows where he's going because he knows where he's been and there's this great therefore because of the mercies of God, therefore this is the life Bethlehem that we've got to live. If we live like that, the world will know he's worthy. I don't think in that list, well I guess there is, "repay no one evil for evil," I'm going to say in that list, there isn't a "don't," there is, but it's mainly positive. Love, contribute, bless, weep, associate, return good for evil, not negative, don't avenge yourselves, God's the one who can do that, leave it alone, give food to your enemy. Mercy is two things, it is forgiving people who are guilty and sinners and it is pitying people who are broken and hurting. Those aren't the same and we need both and listen to Romans 5 and see if you don't hear both where it says, "For while we were still weak," underline that word, "at the right time Christ died for the ungodly," now scarcely will one die for a righteous man, but one might die for a good man, but God commends His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Verse 6 says, "While we were weak, He died for us," and verse 8 says, "While we were sinners, He died for us," and do you hear the two kinds of mercy there? A merciful person walks along the road and they see a person who's bleeding or broken or hurt and their heart feels pity, mercy, they don't know whether they're a good or a bad person yet, they just feel, "Oh, if I were there, I'd want someone to help me, that's awful," and the heart goes out in mercy and compassion, and then they find out they're a stinking, rotten, no good person, and they go on showing mercy because the other part of mercy is, you forgive? You don't look on the merit part of people. You look on the grace of God shown to you when you were sinners and unworthy and you were broken and needed help and you've got both because of the mercies of God and now here comes a lifestyle, therefore built on this, so I close with a call to Bethlehem and a request for prayer for each other and for me, we need to pray about this. Pray for me, in fact, what I did with my, there it is, pray for all these sinners right here on the back, did you do that? But especially pray for this one up here in this dangerous, dangerous top left hand position, that's a very dangerous place to have your picture, and here's the way I want you to pray for this, this one, this sinner, pray not just make pastor John merciful, but be more specific, pray so saturate pastor John with the mercies of God at the core of his being deep down below consciousness where un-premeditated words formulate, where un-premeditated facial expressions are formed, where un-premeditated grunts while you're reading the newspaper happen, because those are the things that make my marriage hard, right? If all of my life could be premeditated, I think I'd do all right, but most of our lives that we live at home, and probably most of the life we live everywhere, is un-premeditated and spontaneous, reflex-like, and therefore if mercy hasn't sunk deeper than consciousness, we're probably going to spend a lot of time saying un-merciful things, so that's what I want changed in my life. I would like to be a more deeply merciful person. I think if I cross somebody on the road, if I run through the park while I'm jogging and I find somebody lying in the grass and they look like they need ambulance, I really feel a lot of pity, and I act, but that's not enough. I want to have a work done, I don't know if it's my kidneys like the Bible says or if it's my heart like the Bible says, or it's my brain, I don't care where it is, I just want God by his spirit to penetrate deeper than he has so that I become a better husband, a better father, a better pastor in terms of spontaneous mercy. And the last thing I think I would say is here we go Bethlehem into treasuring Christ together really big time, we are pushing the bounds of stretching growth on so many fronts right now, you know what happens when a church does that? There are a lot of 12 midnight elder meetings. And when elders meet till midnight, they almost totally act out of spontaneity. You got it, which means we need to do a lot of forgiving. And when a church begins to feel the push and the stretch to go to another place and give money and worship in fresh ways, feelings can be raw. And we're just at a season in the life of this church where this is the right passage for us, a lot of mercy needed to each other. So I ask you to give it to each other, really give it to each other. And then the last thing, we're also a church that's not only stretching and pushing and fraying emotions, but we're a church with pretty strong convictions. What are you going to do if mercy hasn't shaped you to the core of your being and made you a merciful person? What are you going to do when you get slandered or when you get persecuted in some other way because you've taken a stand that this book is inerrant and authoritative and is the last court of appeal for every human being on planet earth? And when you say marriage is one man, one woman, committed in faithful life together and not two men or not two women, or what are you going to do when you receive feedback negatively because you raise the question, was racial justice done when the police were acquitted? Maybe, but what if just the question gets you in trouble? Or you say to a Hindu or a Muslim or a Buddhist or a Jewish person, there is one name given among men by which we must be saved, Jesus Christ, and there is no salvation outside of him and you're put in prison? If mercy hasn't sunk to the bottom of your heart, what are you going to do? You're going to get angry. That's what you're going to do and you're going to fight and you're going to demand your rights and you're going to get in people's face and there won't be much of Romans 12 happening in your life. Let's pray. Father, we're a needy people and I pray now that you'd come, work down in me, mercy, and work in us as a church, mercy, and work in us as a public testifying people, mercy towards those who may be angry at us for stands we would take. Let us not return evil for evil. It's drawn near now I pray and give us strength that we need through Christ I pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to this resource from DesiringGod.org. If you found it helpful, we encourage you to enjoy and share from thousands of resources on our site, including books, sermons, articles, and more available free of charge. DesiringGod.org exists to help you treasure Jesus more than anything else because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.
The mercies of God ground our life in Christ. Because he’s immeasurably gracious, we have endless riches forever in him.