Dead & Living Sacrifice

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Abraham David John • 9 August 2023

Romans 12:1-2

Dead & Living Sacrifice

Romans 12:1-2, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. ² 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. Apostle Paul having concluded 11 chapters of profound doctrine that defines what God has done for every believer, Paul says "Now here is what you need to give."

The key to powerful living is not getting something more, but giving all that we have. It is very prevalent in Christianity that what you need to be successful in living the Christian life is to get something, when the real issue is to give.

John 4:23, But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.

God redeemed us in order that we might give Him glory. We might give Him ourselves. Our church 10-year challenge we took in 2020!

Philippians 3:3, For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh,

1 Peter 2:5, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

We are a spiritual priesthood. Every priesthood as was like the Aaronic priesthood, the Levitical priesthood. We are every bit as much a priest as was Melchizedek. We are priests under the Most High God. We are a kingdom of priests, whose goal is to offer up spiritual sacrifices, even as priests of old offered up physical sacrifices of animals before God.

As spiritual priests there are many kinds of sacrifices. We offer the calves of our lips.

Hebrews 13:15, Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.

We can offer God our petition and our prayer.
We can give to God of our substance of what we possess.
We offer Him worship when we serve others.

But above all these things, prayer, praise, giving and serving, there is one act that is the supreme act that a believer must do in his life is to offer himself as a living sacrifice. What we hear these days that to have victory in Christian life you must get more of God.

But what Scripture requires us is that of presenting yourself as a living sacrifice. This is the sum of Romans 11 chapters. What is the conclusion of all that could be said about what God has done for us? The conclusion is we give back to him all we are.

The conclusion is the supreme act of spiritual worship.

It isn't easy, but that it is necessary if we are ever to know the fullness of the blessing of God and be able to render to him the service that is due to Him and bring Him glory. Giving of oneself totally unto the Lord.

Most Christians never really come to that place fully. They become victims of the philosophy and psychology of the world around them. They entertain themselves with the world's mode of entertainment. They think along the lines the world thinks.

So, they never really come to the place of total commitment that is discussed in these two verses. Therefore, they forfeit the fullness of the blessing that God would have for them. "a living sacrifice."

1 Peter 2:5, we are spiritual priests offering up spiritual sacrifices.

The primary sacrifice we are called to offer is ourselves. The language here is Old Testament.

It is the language of ritual offerings.
It is the language of ceremony.
It is the language of the Levitical system.
It is the language of the priesthood.
It is the language of sacrifice.

In the Old Testament an offeror would come to God bringing his lamb or whatever that was going to sacrificed to the holy place. It was given over to the priest and the priest took it, slew it, put it on the altar and offered it to God.

That system has come to an end. God no longer desires that animal be offered to Him. There is no more animal sacrifice pleasing to God. ➢ No more dead sacrifices. ➢ Now what God wants is Living ones. The essential act of the Old Testament Jew's life was the presentation of a sacrifice as an indication of the genuineness of his faith.

The central act of a New Covenant believer is the presentation of his heart, his soul, his mind, all that he is, as a living sacrifice. When we say that the central act of the Old Testament Jew in the ceremony and the ritual which God had instituted was to offer an animal, that is not to say that that animal was to be offered instead of his own life.

It was to be offered as a symbol of the offering of his own life.

1 Samuel 15:22, So Samuel said: “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams.

The intention in the Old Testament offering of a sacrifice was not that a dead animal was offered instead of a living soul. But that a dead animal was offered as an outward symbol of the offering of the heart and the soul.

Psalm 51:17, The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A broken and a contrite heart— These, O God, You will not despise.

Psalm 141:2, Let my prayer be set before You as incense, The lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. ➢ An Old Testament Jew who offered a dead animal only as an outward symbol of the inward reality of that was offering his own heart. ➢ In the New Testament, the outward sacrifices have ceased. God calls only for the living sacrifice.

This is a call to dedication and commitment.

Romans 12:1-2 is the only proper response to God's redeeming work, the only proper response.

We are then to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice.

What does that mean? 1. Soul, 2. Body,

3. Mind and

4. Will.

1. Soul

Offering myself to God as a living sacrifice implies that my soul has been given to God. It starts at that point. We cannot offer anything else to God unless our soul has been given to Him. Because it is to my soul that the text appeals.

It is a call to a regenerated soul to make a proper offering. If that soul is not a regenerated soul, then there is no way that the message of God can be communicated to that soul. V 1, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

Implies that they are believers whose souls have already been given to God in salvation.

This is not something that a person can do unless they are redeemed. Nothing else can be offered to God if the soul hasn't been offered. An unregenerate person cannot give God his body for service. 1 Corinthians 2 says that the natural man can't even understand the things of God. They are utter foolishness.

Scripture and the Holy Spirit would never ever appeal to an unregenerate person to make a supreme act of dedication to God. So, the implication here is that the soul must come first. This truth is repeated in Scripture.

Matthew 16:26, For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

Now Scripture refers to the soul as that inner part of man which God seeks to redeem. Sometimes Scripture calls it the spirit of a man. The spirit or the soul is that inner part, that invisible part that is the very basic man himself, the essence of being, that must be given to God.

In 2 Corinthians 8, the churches of Macedonia were very poor and afflicted. They were having a very difficult time. They gave

in great abundance of joy, and they gave richly with liberality. Though they had very little they gave much.

2 Corinthians 8:3, For I bear witness that according to their ability, yes, and beyond their ability, they were freely willing,

They gave their food money and their survival money to give.

Why would they do that?

Why such dedication?

Why such commitment?

Why such living sacrifice?

2 Corinthians 8:5, And not only as we had hoped, but they first gave themselves to the Lord, and then to us by the will of God. Before any single at of sacrifice can be done, there must be the giving of self. It all must start there.

Romans 8:8, So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. To be in the flesh means to be unredeemed. An unredeemed person cannot please God. Cannot make an offering to God, worship God, and present anything to God.

God doesn't accept that. There is no sacrifice made of body, mind or will unless there is first the giving of the soul in redemption. This is what essentially what Paul is saying.

1 Corinthians 13:3, And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. If you are not one who possesses the love of God, all your acts of self-sacrifice are worthless. It doesn't mean a thing to God. He may give to charity, he may give himself to philanthropy, he may sell everything he has and dispense it to poor people. Think in his heart he is making an offering to God when the fact of the matter is that's not the case at all. "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God."

It is because they are brethren, a term of identification of those who know the Lord.
It is because they are brothers in Christ,
It is because they have received the mercies of God.

They can be begged to follow through the full phases of dedication.

If the soul has not already been given to the Lord, then the rest of the exhortations are useless because it is the soul that responds to the beseeching. So, all dedication to God begins with salvation. It begins with the soul and the spirit being given to God.

Only when that innermost self has experienced the saving mercy of God does it have the power and motivation to desire a life of sacrifice to God! The parables of the Sower in Matthew 13, when the Lord was talking about the different kinds of soil, He said there was a soil that had rock bed underneath the ground.

When the seed went into what's called the stony ground, or the rocky soil, as the roots went down, they hit stone.

The nutrients,
The water,
The sunlight, and
All the things,

that cause growth caused it to go up because it couldn't go down. It flourished for a while, but the sun came out and burned it and it withered away. The Lord said this is the one who hears the

message, who listens to it, but when tribulation comes or when persecution comes, they have no real root, and they die. These are people who make an outward, rather joyful, and immediate response to the truth about Christ but it's never genuine as proven by the fact when it calls for sacrifice, they die.

Since the soul was never really given to God, they can't make any other sacrifice. It is very much the same in the soil that was filled with weeds. The weeds began to grow along with the seed, and they choked out the seed. This is an unredeemed soul that can't make a sacrifice because it's never been redeemed.

It is the same as the rich young ruler, who when told by Jesus, "Sell everything you have and give it to the poor,"went away.

He was not willing to make such a sacrifice.
He was not willing to obey the Lord.

He was not a redeemed soul. He walked away. No such sacrifice would he make.

"I beseech you," The word "beseech"basically means to beg, parakale. It is a word of tenderness. The Holy Spirit is called the paraklt. The one called alongside. It is a word sometimes translated "comfort." Gentleness, tenderness, and affection.

He comes alongside brethren who are already bent toward this kind of dedication because their souls have been given to God. It is the most natural response to their redemption. Paul speaks to them in terms of love and calls to them as fellow believers and brothers.

It carries the authority of an apostle, and yet the tenderness of a loving brother.

Philemon 1:8-9, Therefore, though I might be very bold in Christ to command you what is fitting, ⁹ yet for love’s sake I rather appeal to you—being such a one as Paul, the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ— I could as an apostle command it, but as a brother I exhort you! Typical of Paul to encourage someone along these lines.

"I beseech you therefore by the mercies of God.” Believers have experienced the mercies of God. Since we have experienced the mercies of God, therefore, we ought to do this.

What are the mercies of God? The mercies of God are everything that God has done for the believer listed in Romans 1-11 Chapters.

Love

Romans 5:5, God's love is shed abroad in the heart. Romans 8, Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Romans 1, 3, 5, 6-11, grace, another of the mercies of God. Romans 8, we have received the Holy Spirit to dwell within us.

The Holy Spirit is a mercy given to us by God, an undeserved blessing.

Peace

Romans 1:7, 2:10, 5:1, 8:6 we have received peace. That's a mercy of God.

Faith

Over 20 times.

Comfort

Romans 1:12,

Power

Romans 1:16,

Hope

Romans 5:2; 8:20, & 24.

Patience

Romans 9 and 11.

Kindness

Romans 2:4,

We have received,

Glory,
Honour,
Righteousness,
Forgiveness,
Reconciliation,
Justification,
Security,
Eternal life,
Resurrection,
Sonship/Adoption, and
Intercession.

All those are the mercies of God.

We have received all these marvellous things to us through God’s mercy.

What does mercy mean? What we don't deserve any of them. What should be our response who have received so much? Sums up the mercies of God! All because of the work of Jesus Christ in the sovereign mercy of God to us who believe.

The greatest motivation of all is gratitude! Giving himself a living sacrifice to the God who gave him so much. To hold back at all is an incredible act of injustice and ingratitude, demonstrating a woeful lack of thanks to a gracious, merciful God.

Psalm 116:12, What shall I render to the Lord For all His benefits toward me?

God doesn't expect us to return in equal. All He asks is that we give ourselves as a living sacrifice.

What is the deepest desire of your heart? What weighs heaviest on your mind right now.

What is your deepest hunger in your heart? My greatest desire is to give all I am and have to Jesus Christ. Because you have experienced the mercies of God, because you have been benefited by all the things that God has done, you ought to give yourself a living sacrifice.

Paul gave those eleven chapters, and it is taken for us more than two years, but the principle is the same.

1 Timothy 4:6, If you instruct the brethren in these things, you will be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished in the words of faith and of the good doctrine which you have carefully followed. Paul says the same thing to Titus.

What is important in the ministry is that you hold fast the faithful word that you have been taught and are able by sound doctrine to exhort. You exhort based upon the foundation of truth. Having scaled incredible heights until in chapter 11.

Romans 11:33-36, Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! 34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counsellor?”

³⁵ “Or who has first given to Him And it shall be repaid to him?” ³⁶ For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen. Paul’s way out there and he says, "Now, present yourself a living sacrifice.”

He always ends up with his feet on the ground. In Galatians, first 4 Chapters filled with doctrine, and he comes to the application.

Galatians 5:1, Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. In Ephesians, first ³ chapters of doctrine, and then he comes to the application.

Ephesians 4:1, I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, Paul comes to exhortation after the foundation of doctrine has been laid. After the testimony Philippians chapter 1.

Philippians 2:1, Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, ² fulfil my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. In Colossians first ² chapters he presents the great truth.

Colossians 3:1, If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Paul does the same thing in 1 Thessalonians. It's the pattern that all behaviour is predicated on doctrine. Ethics rise out of dogma.

We must know what we believe before we can apply it! So, when we say that we are to present ourselves a living sacrifice, that must begin with the soul. That is to come to Christ and receive Him as Savior and Lord. Receive the salvation that He offers, that's where it starts, give your soul to God.

2. Body. V 1, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice." Now "present"here is a temple term.

It has the idea of surrendering up, of yielding, of offering. It also is a technical term for the Levitical offerings, to bring it as an offering as a sacrifice. What God wants here is our body! God already has that inner man.

God already has transformed person by His saving grace. Now what God wants that real me to give Him is the body. New creation is now called upon to present the body in which it exists. So, we are to be priests who offer up the body.

This isn't always easy because the body is the place where our humanness resides! When a person dies, their spirit goes to heaven and their body goes to the grave. Once that separation is made, there is no problem. The body is that which contains our humanness. Our humanness is that which contains our flesh and is that which contains our sin as Romans 7 so clearly point out to us.

So, it is essential then that we yield the body. Now this isn't the first time Paul has talked about this.

Romans 6:12, therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. Sin will no longer reign in your soul, that's transformed. But it will still be there in your body. Our body is not just that which we can touch, it includes our mind and our will. So, it's very difficult to make exact dividing points in the unity of man. There is so much unity that you can't clearly cut him in half.

But the soul has been redeemed, the body is unredeemed. As chapter 8 says, we wait for the redeeming of our body. Our soul has been redeemed. So, sin therefore still resides in our mortal body, and we cannot allow it to reign there, or to be supreme or to call the shots.

Romans 6:13, And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

There is the call to yield the body to God.

Romans 6:16, Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? Whoever yield yourself to you is your master. Yield yourselves to God.

Romans 6:19, I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness [f]for holiness. In the end you yield your members servants to righteousness to holiness.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20, Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? ²⁰ For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. Dwelling within our humanness, this flesh is the Holy Spirit dwelling in our redeemed soul.

That redeemed soul, that ever-present Spirit is encased in our humanness. It is in that humanness that sin finds its expression.

Romans 7:17, But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

Remember what we learned there was that the soul is redeemed, the spirit is redeemed, it exists within a body of flesh which has a bent toward sin. That's why we are still waiting for the redemption of that body and the receiving of a glorified body that doesn't have that bent, but until then we still struggle with sin.

Romans 7:22-23, For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. ²³ But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

We must do is take that body and offer it to God as a living sacrifice.

We cannot offer it to the world.
We cannot offer it to its own desires.
We cannot allow its lusts and passions to run rampant.

Our redeemed spirit already His must make a presentation to God of our body, such an important thing, such an important thing.

We long to get rid of this vile body and to be fashioned like unto Christ's glorious body. We long for that! But until that time comes, we must present these bodies a living sacrifice. It is a fearful thing the way the body can dominate the redeemed soul. Here we are redeemed creatures with redeemed souls, transformed inner man, indwelt by the power of the Holy Spirit of God, the almighty God living in us, and yet it is remarkable how much power is still there in the body to retard the work of the Spirit, to dominate the redeemed soul.

➢ The body is the centre of desire. ➢ The body is the centre of disease. The body must be brought into subjection, it must be offered to God as a living sacrifice. Body must be continually offered and continually presented.

Paul gives us an insight into the difficulty of this in

1 Corinthians 9:27, But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified. I preach and represent Christ and in order to do that effectively, I have to control my body, that human part of me that wants to

surge with its desires and take control. The body has tremendous power.

Why discipline an unredeemed body? You can bring an unredeemed body under the subjection of the power of the Spirit of God. The body can become, according to Romans 6, an instrument of righteousness. It can and it does. Whenever your body is used for the purposes that are divine it becomes an instrument of righteousness.

Whenever it used, or whenever it is fulfilled in something that displeases God, it is an instrument of unrighteousness.

1 Corinthians 6:12-13, All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. ¹³ Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods, but God will destroy both it and them.

Now the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. The body is for the Lord. He can't work through you unless He works through your body.

If you are going to speak, you have got to speak through your mouth.
If you are going to hear, you have got to hear through your ear. If you are going to see, you have to see through your eyes.
If you are going to go, you have to go with your feet.
If you are going to help, you have to help with your hands.
If you are going to think, you have to think with your mind.

The body is for the Lord. The Lord is for the body. God wants it. So, there is no sanctification at all which does not include the body.

1 Thessalonians 5:23, Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. ²⁴ He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it. Before you were regenerated the body was what expressed the old nature. Now that you are in Christ the body is what is expressive of the new nature. That's God's desire.

Part of offering ourselves as a living sacrifice is offering the body. What does it mean to offer the body as a living sacrifice? Contrast with the Old Testament. They offered the body of an animal as a dead sacrifice. What God wants is a living one.

A living sacrifice is a sacrifice which lives, which perpetually lasts. An animal was put down and burned up. It was one-time. What God wants is a perpetual offering. What God wants is not something that you bring once and it's burned up, but something that is perpetually offered, never dies, and consumed, it's just always offered.

A living reality rather than a dead. Illustration Genesis 22. Abraham and Isaac. Abraham was told by God, you will have a great nation, your children will be as the sands of the sea, the stars of the heaven. Whoever blesses them will be blessed.

Whoever curses them will be cursed. You will be the father of a great nation. I will bless you. I will multiply your seed.

God gave him this marvellous Abrahamic covenant. God gave them the son of promise by the name of Isaac. Then God came to Abraham and said, "Abraham, I want you to take Isaac, come to Moriah, lay him on an altar and kill him. Isaac was everything.

Yet Abraham took Isaac took him to hill and lifted a knife ready to plunge it into the heart of his son. Now Isaac would have been a dead sacrifice, but Abraham would have made a living sacrifice. ➢ Isaac would have been a dead sacrifice.

➢ Abraham would have made a living one. What God is saying is, are you willing to say to God I will live the rest of my life without anything that I now hold dear if that is Your will? A perpetual and lasting commitment.

This living sacrifice, this surrender of self in a humble submissive act to God. Paul put it as bearing about in my body always the dying of Jesus Christ. This kind of living sacrifice is the basis of true worship. It is the foundation of all Christian dedication.

Philippians 1:21,"For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain."

Philippians 3:8, Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I

have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ. Lu Fook Christian in China was moved with compassion for his own countrymen when they were taken to South Africa to work as slaves to work in the mines. This very prominent man sold himself as a slave to a South African mine company for five years. He became a coolie slave with slaves to reach them with the gospel. He died as a slave in South Africa but not until he had won over 200 of his fellow men to Christ, a living sacrifice.

Those who make a living sacrifice usually don't see it as such. This is a living sacrifice that God calls for. It involves the body, presented to Him holy, acceptable unto God. How the body of the animal presented in the Old Testament sacrifice?

Without spot or blemish. It was to be the best, cleanest, and purest. When we present ourselves, we present to Him a holy sacrifice, spotless, and without blemish. God wants our physical body, our mind and all our humanness, He wants it brought into subjection and offered to Him as a living sacrifice.

We have become so comfortable in this society. We hold things to tenaciously in our hand. We are willing to serve the Lord if it doesn't cost us a little extra time, if it doesn't take a little too much energy, if we don't miss our favourite television program.

Are we like the people in Malachi? The Lord, through the prophet Malachi, said, "You offer polluted flesh upon the altar." Instead of bringing the best they have, they were bringing the rotten meat. They were offering blind, lame, and rotten ones.

Would you offer that to the governor? Not on your life, yet you are offering it to God. Only a holy sacrifice is acceptable to God. The word “acceptable” means “well-pleasing,” “satisfactory.” God is not satisfied with anything less than that, not satisfied.

With the sacrifices of total commitment, of purity, God is satisfied.

Hebrews 13:16, but do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.

God is satisfied with goodness, virtue, generosity.

He is satisfied when we offer our bodies totally holy, set apart, pure, undefiled, and this is your spiritual worship. The word "service,"or "worship,"is latreia. It is used in the Septuagint, to speak of the worship of God according to the Levitical law.

Priestly kind of language and language of sacrifice. The priests came to worship. That is the word used for worship in the Old Testament. We come to worship God with an offering.

What are we bringing Him? Lord, I give You myself, It is reasonable. It is intelligent. It is of the inner man rather than of the outer man.

In the Old Testament they offered a dead sacrifice which was external service.
Now we offer ourselves as a living sacrifice which is an act of internal worship, or spiritual rather than physical.

Paul is not asking for a mechanical outward form, but an intelligent, heartfelt, consecrated devotion to God.

Worship is not elaborate prayers, not ritual, not candles, robes, stained glass, and music. Real worship is not feeling spiritual goosebumps in a church service. Real worship is right here, the intelligent, spiritual act of giving to God my body in all its expressions, holy, set apart unto Him.

That is what God wants. ✓ God isn't looking for your talent! ✓ God isn't looking for your innate gifts of leadership. ✓ God is looking for you to give yourself. So, the Christian who would offer himself as a living sacrifice begins with the offering of his soul and then the offering of his body.

3. Mind. V 2, 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. Paul tells us that one of the very basic keys to being able with your soul to offer your body is to be sure that your mind has been Renewed.

The mind must be presented for renewal. It is in the mind that our new nature. It is in the mind that we make choices as to whether we will express that new man in holiness or allow our flesh to act in unholiness. So, if the soul is to present the body, the mind must be renewed.

Paul presents it with a negative and then a positive. Be not conformed to this age. The age is the fallen, unredeemed philosophy of life. The world is an instrument of Satan. Satan promote his goals and his ambitions. We can see it everywhere.

We can see how the spirit of this age is a spirit of pride and ego.

1 John 5:19, We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. Stop allowing yourselves to be fashioned like this evil age.

The assumption is that it's happening. Stop it. Don't sit there and allow it to be done. Don't masquerade as if you belong to the world.

Don't allow yourself to be continually patterned after the world and the spirit of the age which is not connected to what you are on the inside. Don't wear the mask of the world. Inconceivable that a Christian, who is a new creation in Jesus Christ, would want to wear the mask of the world.

We want to wear the clothes they wear.
We run down to buy every new thing that comes along.
We want to be a part of all the systems that come floating through.
We want to have their entertainment, stay up with all the latest stuff. We are just caught in that whole wash.

Stop assuming an outward expression which is patterned after the age. Be transformed, metamorphis, totally changed. You are to be transformed on the outside to match what your redeemed self is on the inside. It is a present passive imperative as is the word "conformed."

Stop allowing yourself to be confirmed.
Start allowing yourself to be transformed, continually.

It is the work of the Spirit who changes us from one level of glory to the next, conforming us to the image of Christ.

2 Corinthians 3:18, But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

How do you renew yourself? By the renewing of the mind. The word "renewing"here is “renovation.” The renovation of the mind.

How do you renovate your mind? Word of God!

Psalms 119:11, Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You.

The renewing of the mind through the Word. If you are going to walk worthy, you have got to know the Word of God.

Colossians 1:28, Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.

Colossians 3:10, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him,

Colossians 3:16, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and

hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. The renewed mind is a mind that is saturated and controlled by the Word of God. Do you spend as much time in the Word of God as you do in the allurements of the world?

Have you set your affections on things above and not on things on the earth? When something happens in your life, is your involuntary response biblical? That's a renewed mind. A mind saturated with the Word of God, a mind whose constant preoccupation is the Word of God.

Constant influx of the Word of God that brings about the transformation to a renewed or renovated mind so that a renovated mind then can more readily present the body to God.

4. Will. V 2, 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. When we have presented the soul and the body and the mind, we will approve what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

We will say, I approve of Your will, God. We will give our will up and we will say Your good and Your perfect will, I approve. I don't want what I want, I want what You want. Good, genuinely good, acceptable, and perfect will of God.

It calls for giving up our own will ultimately. A renewed mind, a renewed mind will be expressed in a submissive will and in a body presented as a living sacrifice. It all comes in one package. You can't present your body unless you have a renewed mind because you won't have the will to do that.

But when you have a renewed mind, your will, will be submissive to God, and you will offer your body as a living sacrifice. The key is a saturated mind, an obedient will, body presented.

Do you do this once in your life? No. You must do this every waking moment, it's a conscious renewing act. Give Him your mind renewed by the Word. Give Him your will, submitting to His will. Stop exercising yours all the time I need it and I want it. The controlling factor is the will of God.

So, the renewed mind, the submissive will and the consecrated body go along with the redeemed soul.

Conclusion.

Think of the words of the great woman of Shunamite, speaking about the prophet whom she had observed but whom she did not know very well.

2 Kings 4:9, And she said to her husband, “Look now, I know that this is a holy man of God, who passes by us regularly.

It was not what Elisha said or did that conveyed that impression, it was what he was. By his merely passing by she could detect something, she could see.

What are people sensing about you? We may leave many kinds of impressions. We may leave the impression that we are clever, that we are gifted, that we are this or that or the other. But no impression left by Elisha was an impression of Elisha, it was an impression of God.