Chapter 12:9-21 

“⁹ Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. ¹⁰ Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; ¹¹ not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; ¹² rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; ¹³ distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality. ¹⁴ Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. ¹⁵ Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. ¹⁶ Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion.

“¹⁷ Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. ¹⁸ If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. ¹⁹ Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord. ²⁰ Therefore ‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him; If he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head.’ ²¹ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Last week we compared the transformation that Jesus will do in us once we sacrificially surrender ourselves to that of the caterpillar transforming to the butterfly. One must die for the other to live. The human transformation is a bit more tedious and at times painful. But the process is no different; our old self has to die and the new self, in Jesus, comes to life. Now, in reality, the old self and the new self co-exist for a period of time until we die and then we become the completely new person that God intended. But it is possible to live less and less like the old self.

• Don’t be two-faced, verse 9 

There is nothing more hurtful than to find that someone you trusted is two-faced. This is what hypocrisy is. It is the art of playing a role depending on who you are with or who you think is watching. Sadly, many Christians feel the need to live two-faced because they are not accepted as they are. Many of the apostles did not get some of Jesus’ teachings until long after the resurrection. They just kept working away. Some, like Peter, had a difficult time understanding Paul’s writings. But one of the things that should mark a Christian is authenticity. What you see is what you get; even the barnacles and flaws. Christians fail all the time.

I saw a devotion yesterday about the High Priests in the OT, and one of the things that the speaker pointed out was how often the High Priest had to offer sacrifices for his own sins. Even as religious leaders, they were sinful and required to offer sacrifices. Often the first sacrifice of the day was for themselves and their sins. One of the most destructive forces in the New Testament church today and forever is that there are too many two-faced people. Letting your guard down and being real may cost you a lot in the short run, but it brings lasting peace and less stress. Now, this does not mean that we are not to be seeking to surrender to the Lord; but don’t act out what you are not.

• Learn to Hate Evil, verse 9 

Notice that we are called to stop something and then do something. We will never just hate evil and live in a vacuum. We must then learn to love what is good. Take time and read the scriptures, and you will see what God calls evil; these are the things you should hate. Likewise, He calls things good; these are the things we should love and hold on to. It sounds simple, and it is simpler than we make it out to be. Sadly, too many of us are not avid students of the scriptures, and we don’t know what God hates nor what He loves, and so we just float along following the crowd and not making personal convictions and choices based on God’s relationship to us and we to Him.

Take a look at the Ten Commandments to start; what are things that God hates? Idolatry, lying about a neighbor, covetousness, adultery, disobedient and unruly children, stealing, and on we can go. What if we started there and then moved on? As we explore more of Romans chapter 12, we will find some good things that we can cling to and add to our lives.

• How do you treat your fellow saints? Verse 10-13 

We are called to love each other, serve each other and to humble ourselves around each other. We are called to meet the needs of our brothers and sisters in the Lord. We are to pray for each other, help each other as we go through the trials of life, and then we are to encourage each other and take responsibility for each other. We are not islands unto ourselves, and we do not live for ourselves. We are a family in Jesus, bought and paid for by His blood, and no one got in any other way. We all stand on equal ground at the foot of the cross. We got here by God’s grace, God’s love, God’s kindness, God’s sacrifice, God’s Holy Word, God’s Holy Spirit convicting us and God’s life given to us. NONE of us earned our way into the family. We are called to honor each other, consider each other and do all we can to not hurt each other.

• Learn to Absorb hurts, verses 14-20 

I cannot tell you how often I have heard people drop out of the church because they ‘got hurt by someone.’ Sad really. Well, you don’t know what they said to me or did to me. I agree. What have you done to Jesus? And yet, He still loves you and forgives you every day. But He is God. Yes, He is. But we are to be made in His image. Jesus forgave the men who nailed Him to the cross. Stephen, in Acts 7, forgave the men who stoned him to death. Joseph forgave his brothers for selling him into slavery and looked out for their best interests and did not hurt them.

Here is a newsflash for you: you are going to get hurt in churches, in families, at your work, amongst your friends and anywhere you go. Part of maturing as a Christian, part of morphing from the caterpillar into the butterfly, is learning to absorb hurts. You will never grow in Jesus until you learn this. Until you learn to forgive without keeping score, you will not begin to look like Jesus. We have too many Christians who wear their feelings on their sleeves and are too touchy. The reality is that if you are that touchy, the Devil will find you everywhere you go. Someone in every church will hurt you. You will just flit from church to church and never grow up and never mature in Jesus. No Pain, No Gain; this is true in Christianity as well.

• Stop waiting for someone else to be good, verse 17-21 

You live right! Stop holding grudges. Stop wanting to get people back. Stop hurting those that hurt you; often you hurt the ones that did not hurt you. Seek peace with everyone, even your enemies. Do not repay bad behavior with bad behavior. God knows what is going on. He knows that whole story. Maybe, just maybe, God needs you to absorb some pain as a help to a brother or sister. He needs you to show His unconditional love and grace; He needs you to be kind and patient in the midst of hard things so that the person He is trying to reach can see Him in you. You do the right thing proactively. We all want the other guy to do right first. Love the unlovable, serve the ungrateful, be kind to the hurtful and patient with the demanding.

This is some hard stuff, but it is called adult Christianity. We need some of God’s people to put on their big spiritual pants and step up. This is the spiritual butterfly effect; let the old you, the caterpillar die. Let the new you, the butterfly, live and set the example for others. Lead and serve, humble yourselves and step up, stand out and let Jesus live in and through you to the hurt and hurting around you. Let Him teach you how to absorb hurt and forgive others all the time, just like He forgives you and me all the time. This is how we cling to the good.

I leave you with verse 21 once again; be an overcomer and help others be overcomers.

“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding

Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

How to Connect with Us

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MississaugaMissionaryBaptistChurch

Online: https://www.mississaugamissionarybaptistchurch.com/ (under construction)

Email: missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca

Chapter 12:1-8 

” 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. 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. ³ For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. ⁴ For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, ⁵ so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. ⁶ Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; ⁷ or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; ⁸ he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.“

We spent the last few weeks in chapter 9-11, and as we were speaking, we were seeing in the news the enemies of Israel begin to sign treaties with them. Now, I cannot think of one commentator that thinks that President Trump is the anti-Christ. As I understand the scriptures, he is too old, not Jewish and is the head of a country that has never been a part of the Roman Empire. He is also too well known; as far as I can understand, the anti-Christ is a nobody. He just comes out of nowhere and helps broker a deal with Israel and her enemies that includes rebuilding the Temple. No such treaty has been signed. But make no mistake, these small victories, small doors opening, are the key to the big one that is to come.

If you were to go back and read the end of Romans 8 and then skip ahead to Romans 12, there would be continuity. Once we have been assured of our security in Jesus, then the great Apostle Paul can beseech us to be transformed. Security in Jesus is the catalyst for true transformation. This is a very important doctrine to grasp. We do not transform to be saved; we seek to be transformed because we are saved and secure in Jesus. This is so important.

I have children, three to be exact. I love them dearly; they are mine. Two of them were born to my wife before my wife and I even met, the third during our marriage. I introduce all of them as my kids. I love them and they identify with me. They have security to know that even when they fail, I love them. Now, there are times when I fail and I have to ask for forgiveness of them. My littlest is no more my kid than the other two. Most people who meet us for the first time cannot deduce that the first two are not mine by blood. They have security, and I as a dad have security with them. Now that there is security, I have the right as the dad to expect certain things of them and they of me.

In the passage we are about to look at here in Romans 12, we will see that we have the same situation because of our security in Jesus; go back and read the end of chapter 8. Now, Jesus expects something of us, and we expect something of Him. He expects us to surrender our bodies to Him, and we expect Him to transform us first by renewing our minds, verses 1-2. In verse 1, we find that the surrender of our bodies to Jesus, to give Him absolute control over our bodies, is a reasonable service. Paul, via the Holy Spirit, is not asking us to do something that is unreasonable. The least we can do, based on the security we have in Jesus, is to give Him control of our bodies. This is a reasonable request that is made of us.

When I was 17, I answered the call into the ministry. When I left home that Sunday in the spring of 1984 to go to a Fifth Sunday Youth Service, I had no idea that I would come home heading to seminary and not to a secular university to study accounting. But during the invitation, I felt the leading of the Lord to go and surrender to the ministry; I have never looked back. Sometimes I feel as if the Lord made a mistake, but that is an impossibility.

I have recently finished my Ph.D. in Theology and look forward to learning more. It was a reasonable request for the Lord to ask me to enter the ministry. It was a reasonable request for the Lord to ask me to give up the perceived security of the secular degree for seminary degrees. It was reasonable for the Lord to ask me to leave my home, my family, and travel far away to a Biblically conservative seminary so as to be equipped for the work ahead. The call on you is no less reasonable. Whatever God has called you to surrender your body to is reasonable when we consider the salvation and eternal security we have in Him.

In turn, Jesus will transform us. The word that we get the English word transform from is the root word for metamorphosis. We understand this process best in the caterpillar. It cocoons itself and emerges a short time later as a beautiful butterfly. No one erects caterpillar sanctuaries, but we have a rather large butterfly sanctuary not far from my home in Niagara Falls. But, without the caterpillar, there are no butterflies. Once we have presented our bodies to Jesus for His service, He then transforms us, and this first happens in the mind. If you can change the way a person thinks, you can change the way they act.

We have all met people and, sadly, one of those people is the man or woman in the mirror that can act a certain way but think another. We have all made assumptions about a person’s mind by the way they think, only to be surprised later as we get to know them more. Jesus wants to illuminate this discrepancy. He wants the way we think and the way we act to be the same, so the first transformation must be in the mind.

Most churches spend forever working on the outside, and we conservative Baptists are the worst for that. Some of the things that have gone on in conservative churches, from sexual trysts and deviation to just about anything you can think, is testimony that unless you change the mind, no amount of acting will work. Sooner or later, they all find out that you are acting and not truly transformed. The mind is transformed by the Holy Word of God and the Holy Spirit; they work hand in hand to change the way we think. For the butterfly to live, the caterpillar has to die; they cannot co-exist. The same is true for us; we must die to self and put aside all of our dreams and hopes for Jesus and His ways only. Anything that gets in the way has to go, and this is not an easy task.

In verses 3-8 we are told that there are some things that we will become as we are transformed. First of all, humility is the most important thing. One of the first things that Jesus will change through the Bible and the Holy Spirit is how you see yourself. You and I are nothing without Jesus. You and I are just a part of the absolutely gargantuan family of God. We need each other, and none of us are more important than the other. There are no big “I(s)” in the Kingdom. Each has a God-ordained part to play, and none are more important than the other. Jesus is the only Superstar.

Think of all the ‘great’ preachers that have died; from Billy Sunday to Billy Graham to Jack Hyles, and someone else has taken their place. We are all replaceable. If you do not want to do God’s work, He has others that will take your blessings and take your place. The world system has conditioned us to think that we are important; we are not. Jesus and His way are important. Too many of the Lord’s churches are people-centered and not Jesus centered. If the church you attend can only survive if the pastor stays, then Jesus is not the Head and Center of your local church. I tell my people often, preachers leave in U-hauls or hearses, but they always leave.

We need each other. We are supposed to be helpers to each other. We are to carry each other and serve each other. We all have strengths and gifts. I am not an emotional person, most of the time, but my wife can empathize and cry with everybody. She is strong where I am weak, and vice-versa. I need her. She completes me as a minister and gives me the help I need to serve and reach more people for Jesus. This is what verses 4-8 is about. We all, via the transformation brought about by Jesus, are called to do certain things. Now, some of us will have several of these strengths, but one or two will be dominant. We will all have a way to serve in the Kingdom. No one gets left out; God will give you one of these callings to be transformed with. Notice that they all include serving others:

“⁴ For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, ⁵ so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. ⁶ Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; ⁷ or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; ⁸ he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.”

Even leadership in verse 8 has to do with others; one has to have someone to lead, and anyone who has done leadership right will know that the essence of good leadership is serving. You see the progression; give your body as a sacrifice to Jesus, He transforms you in your mind and you humble yourself, then you become a great servant. This is the Christian transformation; sacrifice, humility and service. Come, let us old caterpillars die so we can be butterflies in Jesus. I leave you with Philippians 2:5-8 (MEV):

“Let this mind be in you all, which was also in Christ Jesus,

who, being in the form of God,

did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.

But He emptied Himself,

taking upon Himself the form of a servant,

and was made in the likeness of men.

And being found in the form of a man,

He humbled Himself

and became obedient to death,

even death on a cross.”

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding

Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

How to Connect with Us

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MississaugaMissionaryBaptistChurch

Online: https://www.mississaugamissionarybaptistchurch.com/ (under construction)

Email: missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca