Transformed Life: How Romans 12 Reframes Daily Life | Romans 12:1–2

We explore Romans 12:1–2 and how God’s mercy fuels a life of reasonable worship, surrender, and nonconformity. We move from grace to practice, urging each other to lay a “blank check” before God, renew our minds, and become a church marked by prayerful presence.

• grace before command and why mercy fuels obedience
• living sacrifice as a pre-signed yes to God
• fears about surrender and the risk of wasted days
• worship as a whole-life response, not only singing
• daring distinction from the world’s patterns and values
• renewal of the mind through Scripture and prayer
• eliminating the bad by inserting the good
• discerning God’s will with growing spiritual instincts
• a crossroads for our church between programs and presence
• call to become a praying people who seek God’s face

If you’re in our area and you don’t have a church home, we would love to see you any Sunday morning at First Baptist El Doredo

Chapters

• 0:03 Welcome And Invitation
• 0:32 Reading Romans 12:1–2
• 1:15 Prayer For Teaching And Transformation
• 1:55 Why Romans 12 Turns Practical
• 3:34 By The Mercies Of God
• 6:03 Living Sacrifice And The Blank Check
• 10:49 Counting The Cost Of Obedience
• 13:37 Worship Beyond Sunday
• 14:12 Daring Distinction From The World
• 18:41 Screens, Culture, And Conformity
• 22:01 Transformed By Renewed Minds
• 24:44 Scripture And Prayer As Renewal
• 28:12 Learning To Pray Like Children
• 30:01 Discerning God’s Will
• 31:46 A Church At The Crossroads
• 35:18 Prayer And Call To Respond

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:03

Hello and welcome to the FBC El Doredo Sermon Podcast. My name is Taylor Gere, and I have the privilege of being the pastor here at First Baptist, and I want to thank you for listening into our sermon this week. And I want to tell you this if you're in our area and you don't have a church home, we would love to see you any Sunday morning at First Baptist El Doredo. Would you join me now in listening to our sermon from this week? Open with me to Romans chapter 12. Romans chapter 12 as we continue our series throughout really the year in the book of Romans. Romans chapter 12. I'm going to read 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. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, by your spirit this morning, would you teach us and transform us and mold us? And Lord, truly our greatest need is to behold you. And so, Lord, by your word, through the power of your spirit, once again, would you teach us, Lord? Speak through me, speak to us, speak to our hearts, Lord, in Christ's name. Amen. As we look at Romans 12 through 16, we've we've covered a lot of ground this year, and now we arrive at these final few chapters of Romans that really serve in a lot of ways as the practical side of Romans. And so if for 11 chapters we've walked through what it means to be children of God, what it means to have that positional standing that we've learned about before God, well, now we turn the corner, okay? If that is your standing, how do you live that life? What does that mean for your day-to-day life to have that standing before the Lord? And I want us to see two things this morning. And number one is simply this our lives are to be lived in rightful response to God. Our lives, your life, is to be lived in rightful response to God. Look with me at the very beginning of verse one of chapter 12. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers. You can think of that generally, brothers and sisters. I appeal to you, first of all, that word I appeal to you, Paul is urging you. This is a serious urge. This is not a mere suggestion or an idea. Uh, you know, try this on for size, see how it works for you. No, no. I urge you, uh, therefore, brothers and sisters, and then he continues, by the mercies of God. And so he's about to ask us as believers to do something. He's about to ask you and I to take a step in our faith, in our sanctification. But first he says this, under what basis, or really, why should you do this? And he he prefaces with this by the mercies of God. What does he mean by the mercies of God? Well, uh a few things we could think of. We could really take up the whole first 11 chapters of Romans. If you want the mercies of God as seen in the person of Jesus Christ, read the whole letter up to this point. Chapters 1 through 3, we saw just how sinful we were, and it was a bad picture. Uh halfway through chapter 3, we then saw the picture of what Christ has done for us, and all the way through chapter 8, we saw that Christ has been the sacrifice for us to forgive sins. Not only that, chapter 8, we saw our assurance of salvation, both in this present moment, but for the future for all eternity. Chapters 9 through 11, we saw the beauty of God's sovereignty in salvation. We saw this full picture of the mercies of God. And what Paul wants to show us as he's leading us towards this practical section is simply this: that it is God's mercy that fuels our action. It is God's work that fuels our obedience to him. Another evidence of this, think of uh Exodus chapter 20. Uh God is meeting with Moses at Sinai, giving the Ten Commandments. And in chapter 20, you might ask, well, what comes first? And you'd probably say this, have no other gods before me. And you would be right, but also not quite right, because the reality is in Exodus 20, verse 1 and 2, there's something that happens first. It says that the Lord spoke to Moses, and he says this, I am the Lord who called you out of the land of Egypt. Therefore, have no other gods before you, and then the nine other commandments. But do you see what happens in that moment? Before giving us that law, the commandments, where does God start? I am the Lord that called you out of Egypt. So, but before anything else regarding our obedience, and trust me, we're believers, we should be, will be obedient to God's call on our lives. But even before that, what does he do? He reminds us of what he's already done. And so our obedience is based on what Christ has done. Not in obedience, as we always talk about, to earn our way to him, but in obedience because we've already found our standing in him. And so I urge you, brothers, I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, and now here's what he's going to ask us to do: to present your bodies as a living sacrifice. To present your bodies as a living sacrifice. An old writer, George McDonald, said this: that the chief law of hell is this, that I am my own. The chief law of hell is this, I am my own. Do you know we live in a world and in a culture that that buys into that lie, that I am my own? What do I mean by that? That that buys into the lie that I get to be the master, the king, the ruler of my life, and I get to sit on the throne of my life. When as believers, we know this, that we haven't been invited to now come take the place on the throne. We've been invited to live in freedom under the rightful one on the throne. And we get to live in the freedom that comes from that. And now that one, God Himself, has uh called us to do something, to present our bodies as a living sacrifice. I remember when I was a kid, I um went on a uh a cruise with my grandparents, took the whole family on a Disney cruise. Okay, it's uh it's it's everything with Mickey Mouse, but you're just on the water. Uh it's amazing. Uh we had a great time, and and we still joke about this in our family. Our grandparents took us on this trip, and and you got this key card, and it's it's like a key card that works at any hotel you've checked into in the last you know 30 years. You you put that key cord key card in, and your stateroom door opens, you walk in, but it was called the key to the world, okay? And it did more than just open your door. And so, all the grandkids, we got a key to the world. And and what we would do is, yeah, it'd get us in the room and all that, but more than that, it's unbelievable this little card. At the beginning of the week, we would go and we would want to get the soft drink package for the week, unlimited soft drinks, of course we did. And so we went to the guy, we handed him this card, and we got it. It was ours. No money changed hands, nothing happened on our end, just that card. If you're passing by the gift shop and you see a uh you know, Buzz Lightyear stuffed animal that you just have to have, here's the beautiful thing. If you just hand them that card, you can take that little guy with you. It's yours. And so for us grandkids, it was just the most unbelievable thing, this key to the world. Here's what I didn't know. That as we were getting ready to arrive back at at uh our port to go home, uh my grandfather, uh Mickey Mouse, gave him a call uh to let him know some of the charges that that he owed. What I didn't know, as uh as just the grandchild having the time of my life, that though it was free to me, it was not free. And my grandfather found out just how not free all of this stuff was. And our family, uh, we still joke about that, but for me, it was just a blank check. It was just a thing that at any point it could be laid on the table, this blank check, and and and and it could do whatever uh I needed it to do in that moment. Here's uh the beauty, here's the the, and you may say this is a little scary, here's the reality of the Christian life that when we come to Christ, what we do, we have our standing before him. Here is our job and our role as believers is to lay our blank check on the table before the Lord and say this whatever you need to do with my life, it's yours. Now, here's the good news. The Lord God is a lot better at governing and ruling these things than a grandchild on a cruise ship. The good news is this that as we lay our blank check on the table, quite literally, put our yes on the table before we even know what the question is from the Lord, we put ourselves before him, this living sacrifice. The Lord then will do things in our lives and through our lives and for our lives and with our lives that we can never imagine. And you will see the Lord work in ways as you bring that blank check, that yes before him that you never thought possible. You will see the Lord if you are practicing the presence of God and bringing your life as this sacrifice, you will see him do things that you can't imagine. And I know we're here this morning and we're saying, Taylor, that's a little scary, though. Because it's easy to say I want to do that, it's harder in the moment. To put that blank check on the table. Because the reality, Pastor, is this what if God calls me to something that's far outside my comfort zone? My family, we've got a good thing going. The status quo works great for us. What if God calls me to do something? What if God calls me to actually witness, evangelize to that person that's been in the back of my mind? What if God calls me to restore that broken relationship and I know that person doesn't deserve my forgiveness or restoration? What if God calls me to do something that's so far outside my comfort zone and I just get into so much more than I signed up for? I I think the better question is this what if God doesn't? And what I mean by that is this. What if you're so closed off to the movement of God in your life that you get what you're after? And God doesn't use you, and God doesn't move in your life. And God's will will be done because nothing can stop the will of God, but you don't get the privilege, the joy, the beauty of getting to be on mission and letting Him do this work through you. What if that doesn't happen? And my biggest fear for you, my biggest fear for me, my biggest fear for my children, my biggest fear for all of us is this that we would get to the end of our days and realize that while we've had a beautiful life and we've done a lot of good things and and you know we we've kept up the status quo that in so many ways we have wasted the days God gave us. Because we've been unwilling to practice the presence of God in our lives, to lay the blank check before him and say, God, your way, your will in my life. By the mercies of God, because what he's already done, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. You may have a translation that says, which is your reasonable worship. Just think in these terms. This is the rightful worship. This is what God deserves in our lives. Well, let's be clear, God deserves more than what I can give him, but he better get all that I can give him. That's a way I can worship. And that word worship, we we think about it, and and we think about it in a lot of good ways. What we do right here on Sunday mornings, what we're gonna do tonight at five o'clock when we come back, we think about worship in those terms, and by the way, we absolutely should. That is worship. It's not less than that, but it's certainly more. It's certainly a way we can worship with our entire lives, by daily, moment by moment, bringing our sacrifice of ourselves to Him, saying, Lord Jesus, whatever you do, whatever you need with my life, however you want to use me, your will be done. That's a way we worship. But number two, I want to see this. Not only are our lives to be lived in rightful response to God, but number two is simply this. Our lives are to be lived in daring distinction from the world. Our lives are to be lived in daring distinction from the world. Now, you say, Pastor, why do you say daring distinction? Is just because you're a preacher and you like when you use the same letters. It absolutely is, but it's more than that. It's also because of this that you and I both know if if you live out the Christian life practicing the presence of Jesus, living that blank check before him, letting him work in your life. Here's what is not breaking news to you that if you do that, you will look different from the world. And why do I call it a daring distinction? Because there may be consequence with that. It is not the easier path. It is, in fact, the more difficult path to look different than the world, to think differently from the world, to live your life for Jesus Christ in such a way that you look different. That's why verse 2 says this do not be conformed to this world. Do not be conformed to this world. I want to say this. We look around, our world is a beautiful place. I love this world. I love the people of this world all around us, but we also know this it is a very, very broken place. We say that all the time. You don't have to look far to see the brokenness in our world. And while let's be clear, as believers, we are called to be in the world. We are not called to go form some holy huddle somewhere else. We are called to be in the world, to live amongst the world, but not be of the world, not be conformed to the world. What does it mean to be conformed to the world? It could mean any one of ten billion things. I've been thinking so much this week about what the world values, what the world gives its time to, what the world uh puts on the throne of its life and its heart. Think for a second with me. What would you say is the the average amount of screen time? Now you're getting nervous. The average amount of screen time for the individual in the U.S. That's not age specific, that's not life stage specific, just the average screen time for a day in the U.S. That time is this, six hours and 40 minutes. Six hours and 40 minutes. Now let's take that over the course, a child born right now, over the course of his or her next 80 years, on their 80th birthday, if they just hold that average, if they can keep that average, they will look back on their 80th birthday and they will find that 22 years has been spent on a screen. Am I saying screens are bad? Absolutely not. You FaceTime your grandchildren on that screen. You you may right now have a Bible on that screen. I hope you do. You may it's it's not a bad thing in and of itself. None of us are going to be at zero. We we hey, I'm nothing without my GPS. I'm not saying that's bad. What I am saying is this 22 years of our lives. And you may be in the room saying, no, no, Taylor, don't, don't, don't, don't blame me. This you know, that younger generation is really up in the average, and and you're you're having those thoughts. What's the what's the uh time for 65 plus? It's four hours a day. And so if you've just been averaging that since really the uh let's say 15 years since the iPhone has been uh very popular, uh 2.5 of those years are gone. Uh think about this, just how our culture views what's even right and appropriate. You know, there was a day, and and you may remember it on I Love Lucy when Lucy and Ricky would go to bed at night. Do you remember this? They'd head into their room and they would go into their two twin beds. Because even being married, it was too scandalous for television to have them in the same bed. And they were a married couple, and they had two twin beds in that room. And now look in 2025, when we turn on the television, multiply that by streaming services that have a lot less rules than the uh the cable or network programming does, and you look all around. Uh, think of our music in 2025. I found this interesting that in the 70s, uh, 0.6 of every 1,000 words was considered profane in our music in the 70s. 0.6 of every 1,000. In the 2020s, 25 out of every 1,000. Now, you probably say this, Taylor, 25 out of 1,000. That does not seem, I mean, that's not, we don't like that, but that doesn't seem like too terribly much. 25 out of 1,000. Well, think about this. I've been preaching long enough to know my average 30-minute sermon is about 3,000 words. So I do the math on that. If this morning 75 words of those were profane, I can promise you two things. Number one, it'd be the most memorable sermon you've ever heard. And number two, it'd be the last sermon of mine you ever heard. But you really do the math and you look at this and just see where our culture is heading. I want to do one more thing. I want to count to three. One, two, three. In that time, there have been 4,000 worldwide visits to the leading website of adult content. 4,000 visits in that three seconds, 78,000 visits in a minute, 3.5 million, a billion, excuse me, billion, 3.5 billion visits in a month to the leading adult content website. Now, that is simply the one leading website. That doesn't account for everything, of course. That's one website. You look around at our world and what we value and what we put on uh the the podium, the the pedestal, you look around at the world and what we are okay with. We look around at the culture around us, and what we see is a world, quite simply, that just needs Jesus, and what we see is the fact that if you and I are called to live according to the word of God, we are going to look different. And let me tell you something: the world, in the worst way, they need you to look different. I would argue this that the world doesn't know it, but they're begging you to look different. They are begging you to look different from the world, to not be conformed to the ways and the priorities of this world. Because I know this, whether they know it or not, the world is looking for something different, for something better, because they've tried the old ways, and time and time again they do not work and they need something different. Do you look different from the world? Do your coworkers know that you're a follower of Jesus? I don't mean do they know you go to First Baptist Church. They may, they may not, but do they know you're a follower of Jesus? You're called to look different. But I love what Paul does here. He says this do not be conformed to this world, but look what next, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Here's the beautiful thing: it's not just about eliminating the bad, it's about inserting the good. Think about something in uh Luke chapter 11. Jesus tells a story of a man who has this evil spirit, and this evil spirit is removed from him. Praise God. Yet later the evil spirit returns to this man, finds the place swept and well kept, calls seven of his friends, and they all come back in, and this man is worse off than when he started. It's a story Jesus tells. The point of it is simply this that this man eliminated the bad, what didn't need to be there, but did not bring in the good. So often we do the same thing. How many times we talk about screen time? How many times have you looked at your screen time and you saw there's that app that's taking too much of my time? And you said this, I'm gonna I'm gonna be a warrior. I'm I'm deleting, let's say, Instagram. Instagram has been deleted, it's not on my phone. And you look on your screen time next week, and Instagram says zero, and look what else happens. Face uh Facebook doubled. You seen that one? Twitter has now doubled. Because you eliminated what needed to go, but then you just filled the space with other things. I'm not picking on screen time or your apps this morning. I'm just telling you, so often we eliminate, but don't bring in the good. What is the good? To be transformed by the renewal of your mind, to let God do the work of transforming us and really renewing our mind. Renewal. That's a word maybe we use now than ever as we think about subscription renewals every month, every year. What does it mean to be renewed? To be made new, to be refreshed, to be really turned inside out, upside down, and and changed. And our minds have not just run away from the things of this world and the priorities and practices of this world, but they have allowed the Holy Spirit to do his work in us so that we are now made new. Well, here's the question, Pastor. How in the world do we do this? We do it with this by having fellowship with the renewer, by having fellowship with the one who is able and capable and willing of renewing our minds. Okay, practically, how do we do this? I want to just give us a couple things. Number one is this just run to his word. And I mean this, don't walk to it. Run to it. And I know I sound like just some pastor telling you, read the Bible. It's more than that. Commune with the Father. When you get up in the morning before anything else, run to his word. You say, Pastor, I don't know how to do it, I don't know where to go. Well, uh none of us really know that well. I'll tell you this: wake up tomorrow morning, read Psalm 1. Meditate on it. And then Tuesday morning, here's your task. Read Psalm 2. On Wednesday. You guessed it, Psalm 3. Do the same thing with John. You can do John instead. John chapter 1. Half of John chapter 1. Whatever that looks like, build that consistency and look at distractions. Look at anything else that fights for your attention. Look at your calendar. Look at where you've got to be. Whatever it is, look at it, and you tell it to flee because you've got to get with your father. Make practicing the presence of God the most important thing in your life. Set your alarm to it. Find your calendar and write it in there. Say, no, no, no. At this time, I am practicing the presence of God. I'm running to his word, and distractions are not allowed in this moment. And feast on the word of God. And commune with your Father through prayer. I love Charles Spurgeon, the great preacher of the 1800s, who said this, I'd give up my sermons long before I gave up my prayer. And as someone who would love to hear Charles Spurgeon preach, and many did, they probably all tell them, No, no, don't give up your sermons. But Spurgeon said this, you can keep the sermons. Don't take my communion with the Father. I want to ask a question. Is the practice of prayer a priority in your life? If you say, Pastor, I'm not all that good at it. I get distracted. I don't even know where to begin. I just want to invite you. I really want to welcome you to the human race this morning. We're all in it. There's none of us who have a PhD in prayer. A few have made it to middle school. Most of us are in elementary school, and we're happy to be here and we're walking towards Jesus together. And so, what can you do? You can sit down and you can put distractions away and just commune with your Father. If you want a great method to do it, come back tonight at 5 o'clock. We're gonna pray together in a way that you can do every day at home if you want to. But just being in the presence of God. But you say, Taylor, I promise you, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not messing around with you. I've tried, and it's just hard, and and my words don't come. It's not let me ask you a question. My daughter Olivia, in the same way with James, as he was learning to talk, my daughter Olivia is learning to talk, and and she's starting to get a few words going. But let me ask you a question. When she comes to me and she just says the word dada, well, first of all, when she does that, literally, she could ask for anything in the world and it'd be it would be hers, and and I would go buy it for her, right? She she could have my key to the world on the cruise ship if she just says dada. But when she comes to me, and when James used to do it, come to me and just say dada. Let me ask you a question. Did I do I look back at them and God forbid, I hate to even say it, do I look back at them and say, hey, hey, Olivia, have a when you can get a sentence together, maybe come chat with me then. When you can get kind of a subject and direct object, and there's a verb and a noun and these things, then maybe we can have more of a comfort. No, no, no. I invite her to me time and time again, and as often as she just wants to say dada or mumble out any other word, uh, whether you can understand what it is or not, guess what? Every time I want it, I'll take it, I smile upon it. There's nothing I love more than hearing that. Is God your father? Because my Bible told me he was. And if God is your father, do you not think that he delights to hear his children come to them, to him? And we say, I don't have the perfect words. Well, that's good. That's okay. Just come to him with the imperfect words, lay your request before him, or just sit silently in his presence, practicing the presence of God. Run to the Father, let your mind be renewed. The verse ends like this that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is the Good and acceptable and perfect. It's interesting as we are a people who practice the presence of God as we seek His face, as we seek His will for our lives. I don't want to sit here and say we suddenly have all the answers, not at all. I don't want to sit here and say there's we get the full blueprint of what's ahead in our lives and we never have to wonder where God's taking us, anything like that. I'm not saying any of that. What I am saying is as you commune with your Father and you practice the presence of Jesus and you live life in communion with him, it's just so funny how so much of life with him just gets more natural. How suddenly the will of God it becomes more natural for you to see and understand. And even at those points in your life where you're seeking the will of God, maybe you get a curveball, you can even sit back and say, But I can trust my Father in this. That I know He's taking me somewhere in this. There is something about a life of practicing the presence of God and your mind being renewed by Him. We can see all throughout Scripture that gives you a peace, even in the storm, gives you a joy, even in the sorrow, gives you a hope that nothing else can give. Here's what I believe. I believe that you and I, and really I believe this church, I'll speak for all of us this morning. I believe this church sits at a crossroads. I want to be clear. It's not simply specific to our church. I believe every church sits at this same crossroads constantly, but I believe we all in this room as a church, we sit at a crossroads. Because here's what I truly believe that option number one is this. I I truly believe that a church this size, with just your natural talents, with a church budget like we have, praise God for it, that we could go, and if we just press the right buttons and if we pull the right levers, we could make church go. I mean, I kind of do believe that. That we could continue to have the activities we have, I love them. And that under our own power, we could probably make them go. That uh we could get the right volunteers in place, we could do the right things, and we could probably uh maintain a a good group of us coming, we could probably maintain just a good thing going. I I really believe that if we desired, we could press the right buttons, we could pull the right levers, and I truly believe church could go forward. That's option number one, and that's one option, okay? But option number two is this we could be a church that beholds the face of God. We could. A church that practices the presence of Jesus in such a way that the aroma of Christ is just thick in our midst and the community is changed because of it. We could be a church that really is a city on a hill, a light on the hill. Drive down to the bottom of Northwest Avenue right now and look up. You're gonna see our dome standing above the whole town. And I just pray that we would be a church that, as anyone and everyone looks to that, they would see a place where God's presence is real and active and moving. And we could have all of our events and everything and yet have God's spirit so behind it and in it because the people of God in our midst are completely captivated and undone by knowing the presence and person of Jesus Christ, that we can't stop being a people in prayer, and we can't stop being a people serving, and we can't stop telling others about Jesus, and we don't have to drain the Baptistry, and we just can't stop this because it's really not us doing it, because the Holy Spirit is doing it. Option two is simply this that we would behold the face of God. And we can choose option one. But I got a feeling no one in here wants that. I've got a feeling everyone in here, collectively and individually, you want to say that I know what it is to be in the presence of Jesus. And I just want us to pray for that. Lord God, it is our desire. Every one of us that knows you, Lord, in our individual lives, it is our desire that we would be people as individuals that practice your presence. That know what it is to follow you, to know what it is to have fellowship with you, to know what it is to live life with you. And so for myself, for my family, for each person in this room that knows you, Lord God, I just pray that you would do a work in their lives. That step by step, day by day, that they would dwell with you. Make that a priority. God, the truth of the matter is is that you're ready. You are ready, you are willing. The question is for each one of us individually, are we ready and are we willing? Lord, would we be? And God, not just as individuals, but as a church. Once again, you are ready and you are willing. Would we as a church be ready and willing? Would we as a church be a church that knows what it is to practice the presence of Jesus? Would we practice your presence at a church? One, so that we can be built up, but also so that a community that is lost can see you clearly. Can be so affected and changed and helped by the ministries of this church. Lord, would be we be that kind of people? And would it be fueled by nothing else but your spirit? Because that's how it can be lasting. And so, Lord, make us a church, Lord, that seeks your face. Lord, if there's even one in this room right now that doesn't know you, they don't need to wait till tomorrow, they don't need to wait till next week. Even now, would they give their heart to you? If they need to walk right down in a minute and talk with me about what it means to follow Jesus, I'd love nothing more. Any decisions that may need to be made, Lord, would those happen now and for the rest of us? Maybe we just need to respond in prayer, maybe we just need to respond in worship. But however we respond, let us respond. And Lord, with our lives, we give that blank check over, Lord. Would we hold nothing back? Would you take our lives and let them be used for you and your glory? Would we respond now, however, we need in Christ's name? Amen. Would you stand as we worship? I'll be down front if you have any decisions. Please come see me.