11/14/2025

romans 12relationship

Disclaimer: this sermon is inspired by Chip Ingram and his True Spirituality book & series. His podcast, Living on The Edge, has brought me much closer to Christ over the years.

This sermon is a little bit different than what I usually do. Usually when I preach and prepare I come with an idea and then I think about that idea. I find verses that go along with that and preach that way. But as a preacher, there are two different ways to look at the Bible.

You can come with an idea in mind, and you can find places in the Bible that support that idea (eisegesis), or you can just look at the text and let that drive the ideas, let only the text be the thing that you learn from (exegesis).

In the bible, we all know John 3:16. That is one of the best “single” verses that describe the Gospel right? In one verse it encapsulates Jesus coming to earth, dying for us, giving us salvation, and its just a great summary. But are there any other places in the bible that have such a strong message on how we should live life as a Christian? Well there are many, but theres one chapter in particular, that many know, that many have probably and read and heard of multiple times. And its the book of Romans, and specifically its Romans chapter 12!

It's a very powerful chapter in the Bible that gives us clear, clear direction in our lives. And we are going to focus on this specific area. And I hope that at the end of the sermon we can see just how beautiful the entire book of Romans is, its really a very powerful, just detail filled book in the new testament.

One of my favorite podcasts to listen to is from Chip Ingram, he's an american pastor and has a really strong podcast that personally brought me much closer to Christ over the years. And he poses this question. “What does it mean to be a Romans 12 Christian?”.

He specifically calls out Romans 12 as a direct chapter that we can base our lives on. That living as a true disciple of Christ means living as a Romans 12 Christian, living out Romans 12 in our lives. Lets read the entire chapter once together, and then we can start digging into it.

Romans 12 "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. 2 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. 3

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 4 For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, 5 so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. 6 Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; 7 if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; 8 the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

9 Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. 10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.

14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. 17 Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

Praise God! When we read this, on the surface level, this kind of looks like a big todo list right? Apostle Paul here is just giving us a big list of things that we should do as Christians. Right? He says to be a sacrifice, dont be prideful, love one another with affection, bless those who persecute you, and on and on. But as we’ll see this chapter goes so much farther than just a todo list that we need to follow as Christians. Has anyone ever heard of the idea that Christianity is a relationship and not religion? That means that we don’t live life as a Christian to find favor with God, or do things for our salvation. But out of what God did for us, we seek to have a deep, open, and powerful relationship with him. Its not about being a good person or doing good things, but its all about our life with God. And this is exactly what Romans 12 talks about. Apostle Paul here in this chapter gives us very clear examples of what our relationship with God looks like. And not only God, but Apostle Paul outlines 5 key relationships and what they look like for true disciples of Christ, for a true “Romans 12 Christian”

Relationship with God

Let's look at verse one:

Romans 12:1 “I appeal to you therefore, brothers,a by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”

Apostle Paul here is directly mentioning the first relationship, our relationship with God. He says to present or offer our bodies as a living sacrifice. Notice that Paul uses the word body, he doesn’t mention hearts, hands, or minds. He is considering our entire body! He’s saying that everything about us, our thoughts, our actions, our words, everything should be a living sacrifice to God. And notice he uses the word living.

This is a constant, every moment, living sacrifice. Just as we breathe, we live our life in a constant, deep relationship with God. All that we do during the day can be that living sacrifice to God. And we’re going to come back to the very beginning of this chapter at the end of the sermon. Apostle Paul does something very interesting here that we’ll look at later, so lets put a pin in it.

It’s very interesting how Apostle Paul uses the phrase “living sacrifice” here. Remember that this book was written to the Romans long ago, where Jesus recently came and its still very much Old Testament thinking in this time. That’s why Apostle Paul was writing to them, to teach the Gospel. To the Romans, sacrifice only meant one thing. It’s an actual sacrifice of something like an animal to God to atone for sins. It's a big event that happens but not all the time. He uses the word “living” with sacrifice, even though sacrifice meant usually the opposite of living. Apostle Paul's making it clear that this isn’t like the old anymore.

This is a new kind of relationship we should have with God. one that is living, one that is constant in every stage of our lives. How we submit ourselves to God tells you everything about the kind of relationship you have with him. If its surface level, or if its deep, sharpened and strong.

And look at what Apostle Paul says at the end, why should we present our bodies as a living sacrifice? Because ourselves as a living sacrifice is how we worship God. It’s not just singing songs on a Sunday. But worshipping the Lord is that plus so much more. How we sing yes, but what we do, how we work, how we talk to other people, how we show love, what we do when no one’s around to see. What we do when life gets really hard, and what we do when life is easy.

Every aspect of our lives can be viewed as spiritual worship to the Lord! So what kind of relationship do we have with God? Do we understand what God did for us? Do we understand the mercies that God gave us? Do we submit ourselves to Him and live it out not to be saved, But rather out of our salvation in Jesus, that we serve him? Or is there anything in our lives that gets in the way of us truly sacrificing for God?

Lets move on to relationship number two.

Relationship with the World

Romans 12:2 “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.”

It’s very clear that Paul is talking to us about our relationship with the world. He’s calling out what our relationship with the world should be! He very bluntly says DO NOT be conformed to this world.

What does conformed mean? See he’s saying do not fall into the values and desires of the world, but keep yourself separate from the world. The fallen world we live in has a set of values, and we as Christians also have a set of values. And these are really separate and they cannot fully go together.

1 John Chapter 2 does a great job explaining this exact thing:

1 John 2:15-17 “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.”

Notice here that the world mentioned in this verse is the same world mentioned in Romans 12:2 and its referring to the “world system” we live in. In Romans it says Do not be conformed to this world, and here in 1 John it says do not love the world or anything in it. And notice what it says further, it describes “everything in the world”, and it can be boiled down to 3 main things, money, sex, and power, right?

We’ve heard of that before. And in the verse it says the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. So if Romans and 1 John are talking about the same world, and 1 John describes that everything from the world can be boiled down to those 3 things, we are called to not be conformed to it. We are called to not conform or be a slave to those three human desires. We as Christians are called to live separate from it. So if we are supposed to be separate from the world, what do we do? Notice right after that Apostle Paul says BUT, after that first statement.

He’s saying instead of being conformed, transform by the renewal of your mind. He’s saying let God and his word transform you from the inside out to not be like the world and desiring things of the world, but being like Jesus and desiring him. See everything starts with our minds. Our actions before we do them are thoughts. The more we can allow God to change our minds to even think differently, it completely transforms our lives. And when we think not like the world, we live not like the world. And He further says that we get transformed and renewed so we can discern the will of God. We can know what is good, what is acceptable in Gods eyes.

But so we can also know what is bad, and sin in his eyes. See when we have a proper relationship with the world, and when we are in a close relationship with Christ as we read before, in our heads we clearly know right from wrong. We know good from evil, and we have that spiritual gas tank to be able to fight against temptations that try to pull and conform us into the world.

So ask yourself, what kind of relationship do you have with the world? Are you separate from it? Are you a part of it. Are you actively renewing your mind through Gods word? Do we absolutely know what is right from wrong and are convicted to stay away from the wrong? Or are we floating in the middle somewhere, half in the world half out? Not having the strength to fully get out of it?

Lets move on!

Relationship with Ourselves

Romans 12:3-8 “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.”

Are we starting to see the theme here? Apostle Paul in this chapter is outlining many of the interactions and relationships we have as disciples, with God, the world, and now hes talking about the kind of relationship we have with ourselves.

What kind of identity do we have in Christ? Do we know our own identity in Christ? And more importantly what do we think of ourselves?

Paul here is giving us a clear directive of how we should be seeing ourselves. I think we hear of that first part of these verses pretty often right? The bible in many places tell us to not be prideful, and here paul is saying do not think of yourself more highly than you ought to. Don’t be prideful! And Jesus in his life here on earth gave us so many examples of the opposite of pride, of humility! But notice again Paul uses BUT, to say something else. He says don’t think to highly of yourself, BUT think of yourself with sober judgement. What does sober judgement mean? Paul here is saying don’t think too high. But at the same time, dont think too low of yourself.

Look at yourself with sober judgement, with a clear mind. Meaning you know who you are in Christ, that you are confident in the things and talents God gave you, because he gave you them for a reason, but still being humble knowing you are not perfect, you sin, you fall short. And apostle paul goes right into that in the next section He says in one body, the church, we have many members, and these members do not do the same thing. He’s calling out that we are made unique!

He’s saying God specifically designed us to have certain skills over others. And that when you combine a bunch of different people with a bunch of different skills, you get a church that is living, a body that has all of its body parts, and it can do great things from it. God made us exactly unique and how we are out of billions of people. And its so important as a Christian to examine yourself, and find in yourself Gods will for you, your skills that God gave you, and how you can use what God gave you for his glory. And I think this is something that comes to be true more and more as we get older. I remember years ago when I was younger, I didnt’ really know who I was. I thought I was this and that, and at many points in my life I tried to act and be like other people because I thought that was what I should be. But God designed us the way we are for a reason, and he has a plan to use us. I personally am a lot better with certain things, and a lot worse with others.

I’m pretty good with technology and I can help out in that way, and im confident in that! I’m not prideful, but God gave us certain skills and its our spiritual worship to use those skills for His glory. And im slowly getting better at preaching, but I wouldnt make a very good sunday school teacher, or a cook, or playing the piano or singing. And often times as we grow and mature we become more confident in those things, and thats good! See, being very humble in our lives, while at the same time knowing what skills and abilities God gave us, are what a balanced and healthy relationship with ourselves looks like.

We need both. We can’t be prideful, and we can't bury all of our talents never to use them. So ask yourself! How do you see yourself? Do you look in the mirror and see someone you are proud of, grateful that God made you the way you are for a reason, or do you see something else?

Lets move on to relationship number 4.

Relationship with Others

And this one keeps on the same topic as the Church that we just mentioned, but lets read verses 9 to 13:

Romans 12:9-13 “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.”

Apostle Paul here is talking now about other people. He gives us an outline of how our relationship with other people, other believers should look like.

To be a true disciple of Christ, we need to really understand how important the community and the church is for us, and how important our service is for others. We all need a strong community of believers around us. We need a strong relationship with others in Christ, even Jesus gave us an example of this by choosing multiple disciples to be with him to learn from him, and to even support him.

The first thing called out is that we need to be genuine in our love. And this one's super important. (Thomas from earlier). Just as Jesus served and loved those around him, genuinely, He’s calling us to do the same. And there's some examples that follow. It says to love one another with brotherly affection, and brotherly, just like a family, truly love and serve one another and go so far as to outdo one another it says! This goes right into the most important commandments that Jesus calls out.

Mark 12:28-31 “One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

What are the two most important commandments? Love the Lord with all your heart, have a proper relationship with him, just like we’ve seen, and two, love your neighbor as yourself! And to love our neighbors as ourselves we show brotherly affection, we show honor, we do not be lazy about our serving, but overflowing in the spirit.

In verse 13 He gets more specific and says contribute to the needs of saints and seek to show hospitality. There’s so many times we have people visiting our church, missionaries, people around us in need, youth groups coming for the weekend. Paul is calling out here that its important for us as Christians to help contribute to all of our brothers and sisters around us. That’s giving finances when others need it, giving our time to volunteer for others, opening up our doors for visitors and showing them love. And these verses go beyond just the church. Its to those outside the Church as well! There are so many stories of people coming to Christ through someone they know.

That the interaction with a Christian shows Jesus to that person. And the question we need to ask ourselves, just like those verses say, are we genuine in our love? Do we stand strong and confident against what is evil and what is not? Are we not afraid to tell someone these? Do we have a genuine love for those around us? both in the church and outside?

I’ve heard this saying before (I think from Chip Ingram) that for someone out there, you are the strongest Christian they know. And they may be looking at you and drawing examples or even connecting what Jesus is like to what you are like, if you claim you follow him.

Apostle Paul is calling us to be genuine, to be loving, and to not be lazy but being fervent or overflowing with the spirit. And think to all those times we’ve been encouraged by someone else. Maybe it was here at youth, in some small group or prayer group, even talking with a pastor or someone else. Those times when someone in the church serves us, it builds up our faith, it lifts us up and thats the point in these verses. Just as we read about the relationship with ourselves, when we know ourselves and build up the body of Christ part by part with everyones strengths, when we start to serve one another and outdo one another in showing honor, our Church just gets lifted and lifted. Praise God!

To be a true disciple of Christ, to live life like a Romans 12 Christian, our relationship with God is very important, but just as important is our relationship with all of those around us. We portray Jesus in our lives to others, and God so often uses us as vessels to help others, to reach others, to save others, and so much more. God’s directly calling us here to understand how important it is to see our relationship with our fellow believers, with those lost in the world, with everyone around us.

Onto the last one!

Relationship with Our Enemies

Let's read the rest of the chapter.

Romans 12:14-21 “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

So far we’ve talked about God, the world, ourselves, our church and brothers and sisters. And Apostle paul finishes the chapter off by talking about our enemies. Maybe they’re non believers, someone in the church who did wrong. Or even the outside fallen world. What does the world teach us about our enemies, about those who wronged us?

We take revenge, we fight back, an eye for an eye. That they get what they deserve. But Apostle Paul is talking directly against our first instincts as humans. When someone does us wrong, we get angry, we want to take things into our own hands. But notice what is written. Bless those who persecute you. DO NOT curse them, but bless them. And he goes further and says to live in harmony with everyone.

Be a true Christian in front of others, show respect, rejoice when others rejoice, comfort others when they are weeping. And if we look at verse 17 deeply, I think Apostle Paul was very intentional in how he wrote this. He said Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. Like I mentioned, our first thought when someone does us wrong, honestly even before we think, we get mad we throw our hands up, and we get angry and want to fight back?

Its our natural human response! But Paul specifically says give thought. He’s saying when someone does wrong, Stop. Your emotional response you feel is probably not. Wait a second and think, give thought to what the right thing to do is. What would Jesus do? Well in his life he gave so many examples of turning the other cheek. Of laying himself down for others. He knew when to show grace and mercy. And he even says do what is honorable in the sight of all.

How Christians react to bad things happening to them can sometimes be so different and striking to non believers, that that alone can be a testimony to the spirit of God living in you, right?

A couple weeks ago I preached about the sovereignty and justness of God. and that sermon was on, what do you do when life is unfair? when someone or something bad happens to you? And the response we need to take is exactly the last few verses in this chapter. Do not avenge yourselves, Paul says, do not take things into your hands but let God handle it. God is the ultimate judge right? God will handle all the rights and wrongs done to us and others at the end of our lives. He will perfectly and justly judge everyone. And it can be such a relief for us to let go of that anger and emotion and know that the God of the universe will take care of us.

And Paul ends off by giving practical examples of even to our enemies, we should serve them, and that we need to stand on guard and not let evil take over us, but fight evil with good. To do the opposite of what the world says and does, but do what God tells us to.

And that is Romans 12! Praise the Lord. There’s honestly 50 other ways you can break down this chapter and read through it, there is so much content in this I only scratched the surface really. There’s so many connections to other parts of the Bible in this chapter alone we can even build sermons on single verses and just go deeper and deeper. I asked in the beginning when we first read through the entire chapter, is this just some big todo list for us as Christians? Or is this something more? Is this just a religious list of things we follow to be good people?

"Therefore"

And the answer to this question actually lies in the rest of the book of Romans. And this is something I never really noticed until I started digging really deep into this book, but if we go back to verse 1 of Romans 12, what's the first words that he says?

“therefore”! But the word therefore means “for that reason, or because”. But He just started this chapter? There is nothing before, he just blindly says therefore we should present ourselves as a sacrifice and worship.

Okay.. A little weird. So lets look at the last verse in Chapter 11 to see what he’s talking about.

Romans 11:36 “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”

It sounds like that's the end of revelations right? It literally sounds like Apostle Paul ended the book of Romans at chapter 11 right here. So how can chapter 11 end like that, but 12 says therefore as the first word?

This is something very beautiful about the book of Romans. That the first 11 chapters of Romans, Apostle Paul outlines all of the Doctrine of God and Jesus. He talks about everything from the beginning to the end for us to get a clear picture of Who God is, Where we came from, and What God did for us.

In chapters 1 to 3 He talks about sin and where it came from, and how we lack God’s righteousness because of our sin. In Chapters 4 and 5 he talks about Gods solution to this sin problem, in that he sent Jesus Christ to die on the cross for us that we can freely accept through faith in him. In chapters 6 to 8 Paul talks about sanctification, living our new life in the hands of Christ and growing. In chapters 9 to 11 Paul talks a lot about Israel and the Jews and how God saved them and confirmed his righteousness, that God kept his promises. And at the very end of chapter 11 Paul isn’t just concluding the chapter but hes concluding the entire doctrine part of the book! And then In chapters 12 and further, he goes into practical application of everything written earlier.

So lets look at Romans 12 verse 1 again:

Romans 12:1 “Therefore, by the mercies of God, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship”

That therefore makes a lot more sense now right? Apostle Paul is basically saying Based on the past 11 chapters in this letter, that everyone is under sin, that justification only comes through Christ, that its by faith and not by works we are saved, that we die to ourselves and live in Christ, that the old testament law was fulfilled and we live in a new law, that the Holy Spirit sanctifies us, that God is sovereign and fulfills his promises, based on all of this, which is all mercy from God, present your bodies as a sacrifice, which is your spiritual worship!

And what do we do for our spiritual worship? We make sure we have a proper relationship with God. We have a proper relationship with the world, knowing we are separate from it. We have a proper relationship with ourselves, knowing what God gave us as gifts while being humble. We have a loving, overflowing relationship with those around us, just like we heard this morning. And finally we have the proper relationship with those who hurt us, who are enemies to us. That we show Jesus through our forgiveness of those who hurt us.

See, we don’t live like a Romans 12 Christian to be morally good, or to be a better person, but out of everything God did for us, we live like a Romans 12 Christian to worship him. Do you see the difference? That is how we live life as a Christian. Every “good” deed we have ever done apart from God is nothing to God. We are sinful and all deserving of death, but only by the grace and mercy of God, that sent his son, Jesus Christ, to die in our place, we can find salvation through faith. And because of this amazing, amazing thing God did for us, we live like Apostle Paul explains in Romans 12. And its not just chapter 12 but 13, 14, and the rest of the book. Praise God!

And for a little homework i’d like for you to read for the first time or reread the entire book of Romans with this new view into how the book is written. Knowing the first part is Paul telling us all that God has done through hundreds of years. And meditate and pray and truly understand in your hearts and minds what God has done for you and me. And once you did that, read chapters 12 to the end with that new light, ready to give yourselves as worship for him.