9/14/25   Romans 12:1-8       “The Road to Fulfillment” 

12 Sep 9/14/25   Romans 12:1-8       “The Road to Fulfillment” 

9/14/25   Romans 12:1-8       “The Road to Fulfillment”

This past week, Sharon and I got to go on a train ride to Montana to witness the wedding for our grandson, Ben, to Bayley.  It was quite an event.  Weddings need to be celebrated no matter where they are.  Whether they acknowledge it or not, God is in the midst of all weddings.  We wish Ben and Bayley the best life possible.  It is the same way with life.  God is always with us whether we know it or not, whether we like it or not.  Anyway, today’s passage is really talking to me and it should be talking to all of us.  I found that talking about all the different aspects of this passage in Romans is too much for the time we have.  So jot down any questions you have and we will try to get to them next week.  Paul is giving us some very explicit instructions here.  Let’s see if we can follow them.

Steve Shepherd tells the story of Billy Graham.  It seems that Mr. Graham was driving through a small town down south somewhere when he was pulled over by a policeman and charged with speeding.  Mr. Graham admitted his guilt but was told by the officer that he would have to appear in court.  In court the judge asked, “Guilty or not guilty?”  When Billy Graham pleaded guilty the judge replied, “That’ll be $10—a dollar for every mile you went over the speed limit.”  Suddenly the judge recognized the famous minister.  “You have violated the law,” he said.  “The fine must be paid—but I am going to pay it for you.”  He took a ten dollar bill from his own wallet, attached it to the ticket, and then took Graham out and bought him a steak dinner! “That,” said Billy Graham, “is how God treats repentant sinners!”  I’m here to tell you today that you don’t deserve it, not a person here does, but you can have it anyway.  You can have Jesus Christ.

Today, we are going to begin by talking about living sacrifices.  According to Biblical scholars there were only two living sacrifices in the Bible.  The first one was when Isaac willingly climbed on the altar to be sacrificed by Abraham.  Then the ram was found and substituted for the life of Isaac.  The second, of course, is Jesus Christ who went to the cross and died for your sins.  In this case Jesus took our places on the sacrificial altar.  Jesus had to die so that you may have life.

Now in light of all that Jesus has done for you, all He asks in return is that your body be a living sacrifice to Him.  That isn’t very much considering that you may already be giving your body as a living sacrifice to many of your idols.  Here’s what I mean.  I want you to think of what you have for an idol or idols.  It may be something obvious like money or power or food.  Or it may be something hard to see like your family, helping others or the church.  The difference between the 1^st set of idols and the 2^nd is that the second may seem like you are doing the right thing.  All these things may be the right thing to do.  However, if you are so focused on your family that it interferes with you walk with Jesus, then your family becomes an idol.  If you are working all the time at the church or at helping others to the detriment of your walk with Jesus, then it is an idol.  Anything, even if it is good, can become an idol if it interferes with our walk with Jesus.

In our modern world that is moving so fast that we can’t keep up, Satan is having a good ol’ time putting idols in front of us.  But you can break this cycle fairly easily if you want.  If you want to continue to be on the road that is so busy that you don’t have time to breathe, you can.  It is your choice.  Or you can learn to stop and ask yourself, ‘is this worthy of Jesus Christ?’  ‘Is what I am doing for the glory of Jesus?’  One of the ways to break the cycle of an idol is have Jesus on your mind all the time and this takes some training.  It is called praying without ceasing.  Work on this because the benefits are great.

I have heard many excuses for not following Jesus Christ.  And they are just excuses.  Most of the time, excuses involve chasing something or someone to places that we will get to anyway.  We forget that we have a way to break any and every idol we have.  Paul is saying to sacrifice yourself.  I guarantee that if you do this, you will not even notice that you aren’t chasing your idols any more.  I’m going to keep reminding you, maybe not every week but often, to put yourself into that collection plate as it goes around.  Put yourself in there and let God use you.  You will feel good about this.  You will do things you never thought possible.  And best of all, you will begin to lose the devil’s idols.  The chains will fall off like rain.   Just imagine yourself in chains and they are falling off.  What a great thought!  There might be a song like that.

This is the physical aspect of following Jesus.  Remember when we talked of the burning bush in the Moses story.  You have to first turn aside to the bush before God answers.  We have to physically give ourselves to Jesus so that He can use us.  I know this is hard to do but it is necessary.  But physically following Jesus isn’t the only thing Paul is talking about here.  Paul tells us that we also have to renew our minds.  Mentally we have to be with Jesus.

Paul tells us ‘do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world.’  I don’t think that there is a person hearing this who doesn’t conform in some way, shape or form to the ways of the world.  We have to in order to survive.  We live here so we have to obey the laws of the land and the world.  This is not what Paul is talking about here.

And I think that we have to tread a little lightly here.  There are people and denominations who feel that we have to live like they did in Biblical times.  They still use horses and candles and things like that.  This is the extreme and it is ok if that is what you want to do.  But I have never read in our Bibles where new inventions, like electricity, are bad.  I think that just the opposite is true.  God gave us a brain to use.  He wants us to think things through and that includes most science which I heartily endorse.  I don’t think that God has any problem with us using things like the internal combustion engine.  As long as we keep it connected to the eternal combustion engine which is God, then we are all right.  God gave us brains so that we could have doctors who can help us figure things out for our health.  God works through doctors and nurses.  God gave us a brain so we could figure out how to produce more and more food to feed the world.  If you use our brain for any of these things, plus whatever else you can think of, for the glory of God, then you will be ok.  It is when we use our brains for ourselves that we begin to create personal gods which are bad.

Do not be conformed to the ways of this wicked world is more in line with what Paul is saying here.  We read about our wickedness every day but yet we don’t do one thing about it.  We watch wickedness on our TV’s and movies and we don’t turn them off.  We live in a society where we think that lying is a way of life.  People, don’t be conformed to the ways of this world.  I take my hats off to groups like the Amish because they have not been conformed to the ways of this world.  We can do this also and we don’t have to be so extreme.  It can be done through Jesus Christ and that is the only way it will be done.

Paul tells you to be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  This word ‘transformed’ is the same word that is used in the Gospels when we first come to Jesus and our lives are transformed.  This is just another example of how all things in the Bible are connected.  What Paul is trying to say is that if you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, then you have taken the first step.  Then you have to figure out how you are going to be in continuous prayer in our world where evil is everywhere.

We can lead you to the water but it is up to you to drink and in this case it will be the living water.  Once you get the living water working in you, then you will begin to see changes in your life and your world.  You will see all the wonders of the world and all the bad stuff will fade to the background.  As Paul put it, ‘you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will.’  I have said this many times and I will say it again.  A life in Jesus is far, far, far better than any life without Jesus and that’s a fact, Jack!

So we become transformed to the world of Jesus by our bodies, minds and souls.  So what does all this mean?  Paul goes on to tell us that we are not to think of ourselves individually but rather as a part of the whole body of Christ.  We are not to think that we are some sort of hot shot because we get up in front of everyone and preach every Sunday or that we mow all the grass or that we head up lots of missions for the church.  We are never to think of ourselves as great when we are in the body of Christ.  This is because it takes all the parts of the body to make a preacher or a mower or a missionary.   I think we all understand this and that we are pretty humble for the most part.

An interesting part of this is in verse 3 when Paul says ‘think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.’ What Paul is talking about here, I think, is that we have to know what our spiritual gifts are.  If you are a gifted teacher, then what are you doing as the administrator of the church?  Or if you are a gifted administrator then what are you doing running the missions program?  Do you see what I mean?  There are always things that have to be done in a church where we have to cross over and do other things, especially in a small church.  But that doesn’t mean that you should give up on your gifts.

Then you ask, ‘how do I know what my gifts are?’  Well, there are a couple of ways.  We have spiritual gifts Bible studies that I would be glad to point some out to you.  You can go on line and get studies for yourself that help you discover your gifts.  Or lastly you can just use a little common sense.  What is it that you do that really gives you joy and fulfillment?  What are the things you do that really make you happy?  Most of the time you already know what your gifts are, but you have to verify or clarify them a little.  On the other side of the coin, if you are doing something that you absolutely hate to do, then it probably isn’t your gift even if you have been doing it for several years.  What I’m trying to say is that you should try to slide into whatever gift God has given you.

The reason for all this isn’t so that you have more work to do.  It isn’t so that you keep yourself busy.  This work helps us.  The world is looking for fulfillment.  If you go to the bookstore, you will find shelves filled with books on how to fulfill your life.  I know people who are looking for fulfillment.  They read a book on this and then they try out the fad until they read another book on that.  They are in this and in that and in everything else but they are no closer to fulfillment than when they started.

They don’t understand that they were made by God for a purpose.  Their purpose is to give their mind, body and soul to Jesus.  Then they are to use their gifts to further the Kingdom of God.  And if you think that using your gift is work, then listen to this.  When you are doing the work where you are gifted, it seems like no work at all because you are being fulfilled by Jesus himself.  You feel good about yourself and your world.  Sometimes you wish that it would never end.  It is satisfying.  It is fulfilling.  It is the most wonderful way that you can live your life.  I know this for a fact because I have had this wonderful job working for Jesus and for you for the last 19 years.  I praise the Lord for this every day because it is so good!  You can have this also and some of you do.

One of the things I love is to sit down to a good adventure movie like “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.”  I will leave Nicholas Sparks’ movies for other people.  Anyway, this movie has adventure in almost every scene and I don’t think there is a dull moment in the movie.  Bruce Emmert made this observation.  There is a real message in this movie and it’s about happiness, joy and in our case today, fulfillment.  Do you remember the scene towards the end of the movie where Elsa has fallen to her death grasping for the Holy Grail and then Indiana nearly dies as he reaches for the Holy Grail even as his father is trying to save him?  Indiana is grasping for the Holy Grail over the edge of a great chasm.  He is about to plunge to his death grasping for this artifact.  His father implores him, “Indiana, let it go.”

Far too often in our lives we have too much stuff.  We keep trying to fulfill ourselves by using empty calories.  We grab for anything of this world.  This holds us back from Jesus because we often lack faith.  People, Jesus Christ offers the most fantastic life possible.  All you have to do is ‘let go of this world.’  Let it go!  Instead of living in this world and dipping into the world of Jesus once in a while, live your whole life in the world of Jesus and dip into this world once in a while.

Jesus is waiting for all of us today.  For some it may be the first step to the best life possible.  Confess, repent and give your life to Jesus.  For others it might be a step further into your faith.  Whatever it is, I guarantee you that it will move you towards fulfillment and happiness.  Jesus only has love for you.  That is all that He has ever had for you.  Go to Him now and love Him back.  Thank you, Jesus, for first loving us.  Let’s pray.