“With God”
Notes
Transcript
In these last few Sundays together as we made our way through Luke 6, we came to see how Jesus prepared for and began to announce the glorious kingdom of God. It is in God’s kingdom where wrongs will be set right and this lost world will be made new. And I pray that we also came to see that Jesus calls citizens of this kingdom to live in a way that shows forth its other-worldly beauty, glory, and power. And now we set our focus for these next few weeks to see how the righteousness of King Jesus is displayed through me and you. That will be our aim as we set our course to study Romans 12 over the next four weeks.
With our Bibles open, let’s look at
Romans 12:1 (ESV)
I appeal to you therefore...
Any time we start reading the Bible with the word therefore, you need to see what it is there for and you do that by reading what comes before it. So, if we glance back at the last verse of
Romans 11:36 (ESV)
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
So, because God is so great and mighty and awesome, the human author of this letter, the Apostle Paul writes
Romans 12:1 (ESV)
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.
Now, the problem with a lot of Christians, and maybe some of us in this room, is that you are only involved in a Christian religion or you are merely participating in church work. It is like the conversation that took place in the barnyard between a hen and a pig. The hen and the pig were talking to each other, discussing the problem of human hunger around the world. They decided they would do something about it. So the hen said to the pig, “All right, this is what we’ll do. Because people are hungry, this is what I propose. I propose that every morning, we provide a ham and egg breakfast to hungry people.” The pig looked at the hen, and said, “For you that only requires involvement; for me it requires total commitment.”
Some of us are like that hen; we are just sort of involved. We give a little bit here; give a little bit there. This passage of scripture is talking about a pig kind of commitment, total commitment, where
We give all that we have and all that we are to Jesus.
We give all that we have and all that we are to Jesus.
There are two sides to this transaction and they’re in verses 1 and 2.
Looking to the first side, I’ll say that if you want to make a total commitment to Jesus, you make a sacrifice to God. I know we have thrown this word “sacrifice” around a lot, like when we talked about retiring the parking lot note. When you hear the word “sacrifice,” you may be thinking, “What is it going to cost me? Is it going to hurt my bank account?” We are not talking about giving something; we are talking about giving yourself. I want you to notice four things about the living sacrifice we are to make to God.
1. The sacrifice is permanent
1. The sacrifice is permanent
Look at that word “present.” It is the same word that was used in the Old Testament of the priest who would go up to the altar in front of the temple. He would take a living animal, whether it was a lamb, a goat or an ox and he would lay that animal down and take a very sharp knife, and point it to the throat of that animal and sever its jugular vein. The blood would pour out and he would even collect the blood. That was part of the sacrificial system. What would they do with that animal? They would cook it, barbecue it, or roast it. That was part of the Jewish sacrificial system. The same word for a priest who offered an animal as a sacrifice is the word that is here. Offer yourself.
Now, I want you to pay close attention for a moment, because this is why preachers learn Greek, so we can read it in the original language. You know it would make more sense to me if I told you that offering yourself is something you should do all the time – you do it Monday, you do it Tuesday, you do it Wednesday, you do it four or five times a day. But, that is not what the text says. The word “offer” in the original language is written as it is a once-forall transaction. I would be misleading you as your pastor if I told you it is something you do all the time. Those words “offer your body” mean one time you do it; a one-time transaction.
It is like when Gwyn DeLeon received a kidney donation last year. She was offered a kidney by her donor, they both went to the hospital, and the doctors took one of the donor’s kidneys, gave it to Gwyn, and they’re both doing OK right now. Where I’m going with this is to say that her donor didn’t say, “Here, you can have my kidney today, you can have it tomorrow and the next day.” No, it was a one-time deal and now Gwyn is living because of that.
The Bible says that you offer yourself to God and it is something you do one time. This is the point I want to make, that a lot of people are confused about.
God demands total surrender, not rededication
God demands total surrender, not rededication
I think one of the problems we have today in the church is that people think that all you have to do is keep on rededicating, keep on rededicating. If you are the kind of person who must continually rededicate yourself, friend, you don’t know the true nature of dedication.
Sometimes people ask me, “Pastor, I notice in our church when you give the invitation, you don’t ask for people to come down and rededicate their lives. Why don’t you do that, because sometimes I want to rededicate my life?” I have a deep feeling that we do a disservice to people by telling them that all they have to do is rededicate. If you are dedicated, you don’t have to keep rededicating.
Surrender is saying, “Once and for all, God, here I am.”
Surrender is saying, “Once and for all, God, here I am.”
This verse is talking about a one-time total surrender of your life to God. I’m here to ask you today, “Have you done that?” Don’t you get tired of rededication? Try dedication. Try commitment. It is a permanent sacrifice.
2. The sacrifice is personal
2. The sacrifice is personal
He says, “Offer your bodies.” He is talking to people individually. You see, this group of believers called First Baptist Church, is a body of believers. And of course, we offer ourselves to God, but that is not what it is talking about. It is talking about your individual bodies, one-on-one, something that you do.
What God wants from you...is you!
What God wants from you...is you!
He doesn’t want your money; He doesn’t want your time; He doesn’t want your talents. He wants you. If you give him you, all those other things come along.
I heard about a young man who was in a worship service and felt God was calling him. The offering plate was being passed and he had absolutely no money to give that night. When the offering plate came to him, he picked it up, excused himself, walked out of the pew, stood in the aisle, put the offering plate down on the floor, and then stepped into the plate. “Here I am, Lord, I’m yours.”
And yet, sometimes the reason we don’t like the idea about sacrifice is because that anytime we sacrifice, we give up something. One of the biggest problems we have in churches today is that people are still coming, trying to receive something, rather than to give something. I still have people tell me, “I didn’t receive much from that worship service. I didn’t like that music” (as if it was intended for your consumption), “I didn’t like that sermon. I didn’t get anything out of it.” Well, friend, the whole point of coming to worship is not to get something; it is to offer something, to sacrifice something. That is what it is all about. There are people who don’t go to church anymore because they say, “I don’t get anything out of it.” Friend, don’t come to receive something. You come to give something. If you give something, you will generally receive something out of it.
I heard about a family who visited a church. As they were leaving the church parking lot, the daddy says, “That was the worst sermon I ever heard. It was long, it was boring; it was awful.” The wife in the passenger seat chimed in, “Yeah, the music was awful too. It was off-key, too loud, and I didn’t like those songs.” The teenage girl said, “Yeah, the people weren’t very friendly either.” The little kid who had watched his dad when the offering plate was passed, said, “Dad, you’ve got to admit it was a pretty good show for a quarter, wasn’t it?”
You usually get out of something what you put into it.
3. The sacrifice is physical
3. The sacrifice is physical
He said, “Offer your bodies.” I don’t know about you, but wouldn’t it make more sense if God had said, “Offer your spirit to God. Offer your soul to God?” That is not what it says. It says, “Offer your bodies.” We can either offer our bodies to sin or we can offer our bodies to God. Look at
Romans 6:13 (ESV)
Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.
When Paul wrote this letter to the church at Rome, Greek philosophy was prevalent. If you know about Greek philosophy, you know they made a deep division between the physical and the spiritual, between the body and the soul. For instance, they believed back in the time this book was written that it didn’t matter what you did with your body. You could do anything with your body you wanted to, as long as you were noble and honest in your soul. That is why there were members of the Roman Senate who could conduct political business, and that same very night go do terrible things with their bodies. The next day they would go back, put on their clean fresh togas and conduct business. They said that what you did with your body didn’t matter as long as your mind was right.
That is why the Apostle Paul, writing to the church in Corinth, said,
1 Corinthians 6:19–20 (ESV)
...do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
That is why Paul said, “Listen, guys, when you connect your body with the prostitute, you are part of that prostitute.” That is what this whole passage is about. God wants your body. He wants every part of your body.
There was once a great preacher named Bud Robinson. One thing that made him great was that he always saw the funny things in life and the funny things in the Christian life. He was leading a service one time and when he gave the invitation, a lady came down the aisle. She was known as one of the most notorious gossips in town. Everybody knew it. She came to the front and she said to Bud, “Oh, Brother Bud, God has convicted me, and I came tonight to lay my tongue on the altar.” Bud said, “Our altar’s only twelve feet long, but do the best you can.”
God wants us to do that. He wants us to give him our tongues. Some of you may cuss and claim to be Christians. You say, “I can say what I want to, it’s my tongue.” Excuse me, not if you have offered it to God, it is not your tongue. Or “I can consume whatever I want to, it’s my body.” Excuse me, not if you have offered it to God, it is not your body. Does God really want my body?” That is what it says. “My body is fat; I have B.O., bad hair days. It gets tired and it aches. You are saying God wants this body?” Yes, he wants this body.
“Well”, says someone. “I had better clean it up then. I need to fix it up before I offer it to him.” No, friend, we will never fix it up good enough. The whole point is we offer it to him just as it is, just as we are. Then he starts working on it; he starts fixing it.
4. The sacrifice is practical
4. The sacrifice is practical
It is a living sacrifice. Remember I told you the priest would put an animal on the altar and kill it? That was it; the animal was dead. That is what makes our sacrifice a different kind of sacrifice. We are still alive, and God wants us to be a sacrifice but to keep on living for Jesus. Let me ask you a couple of questions here.
Would you die for Jesus?
Would you die for Jesus?
Just think about that for a moment.
Will you live for Jesus?
Will you live for Jesus?
I know that this is a very sensitive subject, so I want to tread lightly to make a point. Approximately 15 Christians will die today because they are followers of Jesus. These are not people who are dying and happened to be Christian, which to God be the glory for their salvation. I’m saying that 15 brothers and sisters around the world today, will be murdered because they unashamedly live for Jesus. Last year, 5,621 Christians were killed because of their faith.
But, do you know what I think? I think in a lot of ways, it is easier to die for Jesus than it is to live for Jesus. I honestly believe that for many of us, if somebody pointed a gun at our head and said, “Either renounce Christ or die,” we would say, “I will not renounce Christ” and, in an instant we would go on to glory. That’s one thing but it is another thing when we go to work tomorrow or go to school Tuesday, and somebody points a temptation or points a challenge at us. Sometimes it is even harder to live for Jesus than it is to die for Jesus.
This is a sacrifice that is so practical we live it out day by day by day; that is what makes it unusual, it is a living sacrifice. So on one side of the transaction you say, “God, here I am, I offer my body to you as your sacrifice.”
The other side of the transaction is
Romans 12:2 (ESV)
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.
How do you do that? You maintain separation from the world.
It is possible to maintain separation and the first thing to know is why:
The world wants to mold you
The world wants to mold you
The world is trying to pressure us to act like everybody else, to look like everybody else, to dress like everybody else. That is why everybody is so interested in these social media influencers. The world is trying to make everybody exactly the same.
And maybe someone is wondering, when we talk about “the world,” who is it that we’re talking about? Not the world of people, because John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” We are not talking about the world of nature, because the Bible says, “the heavens declare the glories of God.”
The Biblical definition of
“The world” is “mankind without God”
“The world” is “mankind without God”
It is the mindset, the philosophy, the thinking that says, “I don’t need God.”
This verse says, “Don’t be forced into the pattern of the world.” That word “pattern” is the word “schemata.” What is the scheme of the world? Here is what the world tries to teach you.
Look out for yourself!
Look out for yourself!
The world or the devil doesn’t want us to disbelieve in God. The devil is not trying to get us to renounce God. The devil and the world are trying to get us to live for ourselves, to make “self” God. I better watch out for myself, because if I don’t watch out for myself, nobody else is. I’ve got to promote myself, protect myself, I’ve got to get myself up where I need to be. If I don’t do it, nobody else will.
That is just the opposite of what the Bible teaches the Christian life is. The Christian life is one of surrender, a life of service, where you give yourself away to God, give yourself away to others. You don’t think first, “How is it going to affect me?” You think first, “How is it going to honor God?” You and I are supposed to be different from the world. That is where the word “holy” comes into being, holy and acceptable to God.
A lot of people don’t understand what holiness is. Some people think you don’t wear makeup, you don’t wear pants if you’re a lady, or you don’t play cards, or you don’t smoke or drink or chew or date boys that do. And if you are really holy, you don’t go to movies. If you are really, really holy, you sell your television. That is what we think holiness is, something you do or don’t do.
Do you know what the word “holy” means? It means that you are different from the world. You do not think like the world, you do not act like the world.
I heard about a parade one time, and there was a marching band participating in this parade. Everybody was marching in sequence, in step, except for one band member and he was totally out of step with the rest of the band. When you looked closer at that guy that was out of step, you could notice that he had on a set of headphones, and he was listening to a totally different song. It really is true that when it comes to me and you and the world, we march out of step from the world. The world is goose-stepping in a certain pattern. And you and I, because we are in Christ Jesus, we are listening to a different song; a different tune and we have a different pace of life. The world points a finger at us and says, “You guys are weird. You are strange. You are peculiar.” We say, “Thank you very much.”
Notice what the Bible says about the world,
1 John 2:17 (ESV)
...the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
Here is the other side of it.
God wants to change the way you think
God wants to change the way you think
It says in verse 2, “…but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” It does not mean that you change yourself. It means God changes you, and then you start thinking differently. In fact, it says in 1 Corinthians 13:11 “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.”
Paul is saying, “Before I came to Christ, there was one way I thought, one way I acted, and it was like everybody else, like the world. Now that I became a man in Christ, everything is different. I think about things differently.”
Just as a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly, and just as a tadpole transforms into a frog, God wants to take every one of us and he wants to transforms us into a different kind of person who thinks differently and acts differently. Our invitation is to repent.
What does it mean to repent? In the Bible,
Repent means a change of attitude and action
Repent means a change of attitude and action
We start looking at things differently, and the things we used to like, we don’t like anymore.
When I was young, I developed a passion for the game of football. I was dazzled by Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, Michael Irvin, Jay Novacek, “Moose” Johnson and the rest of The Boys. After every Cowboys game, I’d grab my football and run outside. I just knew that I was going to be a football player when I grew up. Then something strange happened. I discovered NASA and space exploration and I forgot about a football career because space was just something bigger.
That is the story of the Christian life. Once you discover the life that Jesus has for you, you are going to say about your past, about the way the world does it, “Forget about that. I want to be the person Jesus wants me to be.”
I told you earlier that this idea of dedicating your body to God is a one-time transaction. There may be some of you in this room, who say, “I’ve never done that.” I want to give you a chance to do that right now. I would like for you to bow your heads, but I don’t really want you to close your eyes. I would like you to glance at this little contract I have prepared, because it may express what you want to do right now. I’m not going to force you to do this. We are not even going to check this; I am not giving it to you on paper so as to avoid others concerning themselves with your business. It is just between you and God.
Maybe you want to enter into a contract with God right now.
Contract between God and <Your Name> “I hereby surrender, once for all, my body (that means my mouth, my feet, my eyes, my hands, my arms), my soul and my spirit to God. I am totally available to God.”
Contract between God and <Your Name> “I hereby surrender, once for all, my body (that means my mouth, my feet, my eyes, my hands, my arms), my soul and my spirit to God. I am totally available to God.”
If that expresses your desire right now, maybe you want to use this next amount of time to say that to the Lord. We will have a moment of silence shortly. And if you do in fact surrender, God says,
“I hereby promise to transform you into a totally different person who will act, think and speak more like Jesus Christ every day. I further promise to meet all your needs and to supply all the resources necessary to accomplish my will.”
“I hereby promise to transform you into a totally different person who will act, think and speak more like Jesus Christ every day. I further promise to meet all your needs and to supply all the resources necessary to accomplish my will.”
For some of you today, that is what you need to do, to be the person God always intended you to be.