How’s Your Walk: Renewing the Mind and Resisting the World
Romans 12 doesn’t begin with advice. It begins with mercy.
Senior Pastor David Rose calls the church to start the year where the gospel always starts, not with resolve, but with response. Because of God’s mercy in Christ, believers are called to offer their whole lives as living sacrifices. Not part-time obedience. Not spiritual add-ons. All of life, given back to God as worship.
Pastor David walks us through what it means to resist the patterns that shape us and instead live with minds renewed by the truth of Christ. This renewal is not abstract. It reshapes how we see ourselves, how we relate to one another, and how we engage the world around us.
This isn’t a message about setting better goals. It is a call to surrender, sustained by mercy and shaped by grace. Romans 12 presses us to ask whether Christ is forming our desires or whether the culture around us is quietly conforming us. It invites us into a life that is both costly and joyful: a life lived as worship.
Key Takeaways
- God uses His mercy to call us to sacrificial obedience.
- God receives our obedience as pleasing worship.
- God empowers us to resist cultural conformation.
- God transforms our minds to know His will.
Further Study
- Colossians 1:27 speaks of “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” How does this connect with Christ’s call to abide in Him in John 15:4–5? How does this truth shape your sense of identity and the way you live before others?
- Colossians 1:29 shows Paul laboring with strength that comes from Christ, not himself. How does this echo Philippians 2:12–13? Take a minute to consider where you might need to shift from self-reliance to dependence on Christ’s power in your work, ministry, or relationships.
- Romans 12:1 calls believers to present their bodies as living sacrifices. How does this reflect Christ’s call in Luke 9:23 and Paul’s confession in Galatians 2:20? How might ordinary routines become intentional acts of worship?
The Gospel
If you have questions about what it means to be a Christian, we would love to talk with you about it.
Reach outChristian obedience does not earn God’s mercy. It flows from it.
The gospel is the good news that we are sinners who cannot fix ourselves. Scripture is clear that all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory, and that the wages of sin is death. But God did not leave us there. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. He took our place, bore our judgment, and rose again so that forgiveness and new life could be ours.
This salvation is not earned by effort, background, or moral improvement. It is received by faith. When you trust in Jesus, confessing Him as Lord and believing that God raised Him from the dead, you are saved. Your old life is replaced with new life in Christ, the hope of glory. Shame is removed. Identity is restored. You are brought into God’s family.
The call that follows is not to prove yourself, but to live in grateful response. A life offered to God is not a burden. It is worship. And it is sustained by the same mercy that saved you.
If you have questions about what it means to follow Christ, or if you sense the need to move beyond religious habit into real faith, we would love to talk with you. Reach out and let’s have that conversation.