Preaching Romans 12

So this is new. As I said, I'm preaching at the IVCF chapter retreat this weekend, and I've been asked to preach Romans 12. In days gone by, this passage would have been easy to preach. A long list of commands. Check. Hammer away for a few hours about how we should be doing these things, and if we're not, we might not really be Christians, or at the very least, we're about to be judged terribly by a holy God. A series of great big mean sermons. Easy.

Now that I'm recovering from my Christian moralism and actually believe the gospel is our only hope for being saved from sin and progressing in sanctification, I'm finding it not so easy to preach a list of moral commands!

Something tells me the way to do it is to place it in the context of the whole biblical story, especially since it follows 11 chapters of Paul's accounting of that story, but that's going to take more work than just listing rules we should be following.

I've got a long day of sermon writing ahead of me.