This transcript was generated automatically and may contain minor errors.

Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Sure good to see all of you here today. Thank you for very much for your attendance, but I know you didn't come from my appreciation. We are here to gather and understand better the way of which we can serve our God, and I appreciate the invitation that been extended to my sweetie and I to be with you from the elders here to come and to work on understanding better.

How we can better serve our God in a way that would please him and not please ourself. If you have come with that humble attitude, then you and I both will find ourselves understanding better what it is that God wants us to do, and I believe that will create within our minds the readiness to go out and be the person God wants us to be.

We have already talked about Romans 12:1-2. I want you to turn there with me again because we're gonna read this again. It may be repeated in other lessons, but this is gonna be the format, or I should say the the platform of which we're gonna embark upon our study as we talk about the idea of finding value and identity in a disoriented world.

We discussed the invitation in chapter 12 verse 1. We just talked about that invitation being extended by God and that voice of that invitation to be predominant. Then we talked about just a little bit ago about the mercies of God that motivate that invitation. Now we talk about something that is also found within the context of this, the matter of sacrifice.

I'm beseech you, therefore brethren, by the mercies of God to present your body as a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service, and be not fashioned according to this world. But be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

As I mentioned to you earlier, the idea of beginning of the year comes as a result of putting together promises and vows and means of resolution and transformation that we're all gonna make, or that at least we promise ourself that we're gonna make. And we begin on day one. We start week one. We end into the day, the day two, week two, day three, week three on down the line.

Sometimes those matters of transformation stick and definitely they make a lot of changes in our life for the good. And then there's some that whenever they're made, they just kind of fade in the distance. They sounded good. They were great when we made 'em, but then they just went away as if it never happened.

But yet we find ourself coming to the hairstylist and we ask them to say, we want you to do something with this. And we start pulling our hair and we start telling 'em, we want you to do something with this. Can you? Can you make some kind of transformation in me? Make some kind of changes. And then we go to the health coach and we say, can you do something about this?

Can you do something to get rid of whatever this is? Can you make it slimmer where there's not as much of it as there used to be. And then we go to the person maybe at the department store that are, we go and buy our clothes and we say, can you do something about this, about the clothes I'm wearing? I've had these for 40 years.

So we say , we need some kind of transformation. We need, and we didn't need, we need a new style. When it happens, when it happens that way, what do you, what is it that you're really asking this person to do about your health, your hair, or your clothes? You are going to have to present yourself to them.

You gotta present yourself to the hairstylist. You just don't pull off your hair and you give it to 'em and say, fix this. And then you come back the next day and put it back on. You're good. And you don't pull off the stomach and give it to 'em, and then you reattach it the next day. You don't do that with your clothes.

You have to present everything about you to them in order for them to make the transformation. And I think that's a very pointed thing that you're looking , here, in this case, you're looking at a situation we're talking about. Let's say , we're giving in no more to this, but we're gonna give it up.

We're gonna give it up. We're going from one condition to another, from giving in to giving up

in the. Mayan culture. There was a tendency, years and years ago to take an individual and to sacrifice an individual. And there was an instance where there was the chief of the tribe in a cartoon by a gentleman by the name of Ed Fisher, a cartoon , he put up this picture of this Mayan altar where there was a chief and a priest.

There were these two real well-built guards that were wrestling this young man, and there were several steps that led up to this altar. They were wrestling this guy and trying to bring him up here, and they were, he was just fighting him for all his worth. And there's a comment that the chief made, he said about this, the young people don't seem to believe in anything these days.

Now you can take that a lot of different directions yet when it comes down to it, and it is not just necessarily something related to young people, but it could be related to all of us. Do we really know what a sacrifice is? what do we believe about sacrifice? And I, I think I can give an hour or two on Sundays.

With all the other things that I've got happening in my life, I think I can manage to give up a little bit of that, or maybe just an hour or two, because if I don't have anything else to do, that's probably, maybe, maybe what I think I'll be able to do is when I retire, I'll be able to volunteer a little bit more.

I'll be able to do a lot more than I'm, I'm doing right now since I'm working so much, and I'll do that. We, and we have all these specifics about what we're gonna offer. But then when we hear these stories about these individuals that would just remove themself from their jobs, however much it pays in a world in a United States standard, give up all that, sell their property and go off to Africa and preach the gospel.

We are so off by that. We are so in wonder of why they'll make such a sacrifice. Could, could you really do something like that? Is that really what a sacrifice is all about? Can we really picture the idea that there are missionaries out there that are so super dedicated? We just stand in awe of that.

Hurricanes happen in the state of Texas at times. Then when it happens, here comes Red Cross in and they think, well, I, I, I just, I'm just in awe of those Red Cross workers and they will stick with you almost 24 7. And they will bring this, and they'll bring that and they'll provide you this, and they'll encourage you with these words.

It's like we are so in awe because the sacrifice they made from wherever they were up in Tennessee where we're from or up in the Northeast or over in the northwest, they come all the way down to Texas and help us out in a circumstance which they're sacrificing so much of their time and they're giving so much of their life and they're exhausted.

So do we know what do idea of sacrifice is in our ma In our own mind? We think we understand what this idea of sacrifice is, but maybe we ought look at scripture and see what it says

in the days of the New Testament or in the days of the Old Testament, for that matter, when it came down to sacrifice.

Temple before you got anywhere close to the temple. You probably didn't sense it, but there was something going on because there was smoke up in the air. But then as you got closer to the temple, you began to smell the smell, and then the closer you got to the temple, you could smell the smell even stronger, the sacrifice that was given.

The value of the sacrifice. You don't know what the value was because the sacrifice, if it was you, the one that was sacrificing, you would. It was your animal. It was your animal, and you watched it grow. If it wasn't your animal, you would go buy one and then whatever amount of money you would spend for the sacrifice, you know what you do?

You head to the priest and they burn it up. You spend all that money. And burn it up. So the value of the sacrifice as well as the smell of the sacrifice for the Jew. This is real. This is real. And if you were to ask them what a sacrifice was, they could tell you. For us, when it comes down to eating meat, we don't know.

What sacrifice is, we just go to the market, to the store, buy shrink, wrap the chicken, the beef, the roast, whatever it is, and we go cook it. We have no idea what the sacrifice is all about. I don't know how many of you have ever rung a chicken's neck as they say, or shot a pig in between the eyes or a cow between its eyes to kill it, to barbecue it.

It would be your pig. It would be your cow. It would be your chicken. We've been to Romania several times and there's all these chickens wandering around. Invariably, we would have one of those chickens to eat for lunch or for supper that night. We'd enjoy the meal. I became to understand a little bit about sacrifice because that was their chicken and it wasn't mine.

It's easy to let somebody else give up. It's easy to watch somebody else, and we stand in awe and we stand in wonder and we're thinking, wow, I can't believe they would give their whatever for a sacrifice for me, for me. Hebrews 10 emphasizes this idea very, very well. We can't read and go through all this, but in the book of Hebrews 10, beginning in verse 1, you see these sacrifices that are offered by the people.

And then you notice in verse 4, it's impossible for the blood of bulls and goats that should take away sins. And then you go down a little bit further, he said in verse 8, sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices of sin thou would've not. Neither had pleasure therein.

Which are offered according to the law then, then has he said, lo, I come to do thy will. He takes away the first. They may establish the second by which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ? Once for all, and then we got a little bit better idea about what sacrifice is in Jesus Christ.

Sacrifice. Jesus, which we just talked about just a little bit ago in his body and his blood. That sacrifice, we know as for our sins, it, it is definitely according to scripture, is because of the will of God. All this has come about. If you were to read in this same text beginning in verse 5, wherefore when he come to the world, he said, sacrifice and offerings thou would not but a body.

This prepare for me. This was not just Jesus' time that he's given to God, coming out of heaven and giving it to mankind for just a few years and saying, okay, I've given all I can, I'm coming back to you.

I've been resented, I've been rebelled against, I've been mocked, I've been criticized, and I've had people that don't have any idea what I'm here for. So it's about time that I go back up to you. There's a matter by which sacrificing an offering that would is not but a body this thou prepared for me.

Jesus offered all of himself to us by the will of God and God's mercy is the motive for the invitation to come to be with him. So therefore, the idea of transforming, I think is understandable a little bit more. When you look at the book of 2 Corinthians 11:2. I think there's a lot to be said for realizing when we're talking about giving up versus giving in.

For all of you that are fathers in this room that have a daughter, Is about to be given in marriage or those of you that, that are fathers that have already given up your daughter in marriage. You know what this is about? In 2 Corinthians 11:2, there's a reference that is made by the apostle only talks about this.

For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy for I espoused, espoused to you one husband that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ. I'm presenting you. And when you as a father, bring this girl down the aisle with you, your daughter on your arm, and then the person that's up there, the officiant, whoever that may be, say who?

Who gives this woman to be married to this man or who's giving her hand in marriage? Then you just don't cut her hand off and hand it to the boy. You take her hand. That's connected to every part of her and give it to this man. You're giving her up

so you kinda know what sacrifice is, don't you, dads about that. And when you think about what's going on here in the book of Romans 12, one of the greatest things about this idea of sacrifice is we are the people that when we talk about giving up, we're. Realizing and understanding this is not just at a temple.

We are the temple. According to 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, we are the temple of God. We are not our own anymore. We are giving up whatever it is we want it to be, and now we're giving. Ourself as a means of sacrifice for the God who wants to mold us and create us into who we should be.

Giving up foods that's highly saturated in fat for our own best interests of our health. We know what that's like, and some of you probably done that. When we talk about not buying a boat so that we can save money for the education of our children, we know what that sacrifice is like. Some of probably have done that,

but Paul's not writing this to say, okay, here's what I want you to know. You need to be a person that sacrifices what you want to be physically like your food, like your cars. All those things, then there may be some value to all that and putting that into place and where that's gonna be essential and necessary.

But he's not writing this to say, okay, here's what you need to do. Give up all your desserts physically for me, for you to be what you need to be. Give up all your money that you're doing for everything else to make sure you can educate your children. He's discussing an act of worship in Romans 12.

Some versions, Jesus, that matter in the last part of verse 1 by saying spiritual worship. Some say reasonable service. This is a matter of worship to the Jews. When they were understanding the idea of sacrifice, they understood this is worship. This is giving everything I've got to honor our God for him and not for me.

Therefore, when you talk about 1 Corinthians 6, Everybody that was a Jew understood you would bring your sacrifice to the temple. But then he transforms all of us to say, not temples as buildings anymore, temples as bodies, giving every bit of you, your voice and your hands, your feet.

Everything that goes with you is to be sacrificed. Some people can make those radical changes We talked about a while ago in our Bible class about Paul. They can do that, but if they don't do it flippantly, they don't do it without going through some kind of. Categories to say pros and cons, good or bad, all those things, and put that list down there and then determine which is a greater and say, okay, this is what I'm gonna do based upon all the categories I put 'em in.

This is an invitation to be transformed and to be sacrificing for God for all that you want you to be. Because your body, is it simple. He's wanting to take you and make you holy. Holy.

That's a beautiful picture and image that he could take something that has so many flaws to it. Error, mistakes, inequities, transgressions, unholy, and then he could transform it into something holy. Allow the spirit to dwell within me, the Holy Spirit to dwell within me. This is all part of the sacrifice.

Wonderful, fabulous. But is that what we wanna do? Because this idea of us being the ones who are gonna let God transform us is very much like Ians Chapter 3 talks about it is a pudding to death. Putting to death like a sacrifice would be. We would understand that. Notice this is the way it's stated in Colossians, the third chapter, this, this is marvelous.

When he begins to talk about all the things that were definitely problematic to the people at Colos say, with all the philosophies that were going around in chapter 2, talked about how it was that we could be raised with him. In a circumcision not made with hands. And then he talked about we are the people who do not need to work on trying to physically do everything we can to make sure that we have this worship Down in verse 20 to verse 22, but he says, if you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated on the right hand of God.

Set your mind on the things that are above none, on the things that are upon the earth. For you died. You died with. Him and your life. Oh, all of a sudden we got going from death to life. Your life is hit with Christ and God. So therefore, the sacrifice as a holy sacrifice, everything about you is now alive in Him.

What's this? Verse 4, when Christ, who's our life shall be manifested, then shall you also with him be manifested in glory.

That's exactly what happened to Jesus when he died. He was raised and then he was exalted and ended up in the glory. We died with Christ. We're alive with him. Romans 6, three, and four, he who is our life shall be manifested then shall you also with him be manifested in glory. Wonderful picture.

This is our identity, our identity to be put to death. What a marvelous image this sacrifice really creates within our mind, and I think it's important for us to understand that when you go to the Book of John and you notice instance of Jesus, what's this all about? What was it all about? For Jesus to give himself.

In John the 12 chapter, you understand very clearly what he's after, and that is after for the glory of God. If you notice in verse 23 where he says, the hours come that the son of man should be glorified, oh, it's all about you, Jesus, except the grain of wheat fallen to the earth and die. It abides by itself alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

He that loves his life loses it. He hates his life and this world should keep it into life eternal. If any man served me, let him follow me. Where I am there he may be also, or excuse me, there shall also my servant be. If any man served me, him, will the father honor. Now is my so trouble. What do I say?

Father saved me from this hour, but for this hour did I come? Father, glorify thy name. So he's changed from glorifying. Son of man be glorifying, but the glory of the son is gonna be manifested in what God's gonna do in him. There came, therefore a voice out of heaven and said, I both glorified it and I'll glorify it again.

A living sacrifice that were asked to present

you, don't you? The Jew did not just take part of the animal and present it as a sacrifice. It was a whole thing. God's not asking you just to take your mouth because that's what's causing you the most problems. Don't worry about where your feet take you. Don't worry about what your hands touch and feel.

Just worry about your mouth because that's your most difficult problem. It's feet, it's hands, it's mouth. It's the whole body. Everything is to be presented. Everything is to be sacrificed, and that's exactly what Jesus did to glorify God. It's so important that we become to be the people who understand that Jesus knew.

Just like Paul knows this idea of dying is a daily thing. Back in the days of the Old Testament, when they were sacrificing, it was one animal that one animal sacrificed that one time. Oh yeah, they've come up with another animal at another time. But it was that one animal at that time died and that one animal at that time was sacrificed.

For us, like Paul talks about in the book of Romans 8, as he mentions the idea of all the things that will not separate us from Jesus. Notice what he says, and this is from the Old Testament, the book of Psalm, for TH's sake, we are killed all the day long. We are Canada's sheep before the slaughter.

We

and the, and the, and the psalmist was talking about himself. We do know that has a lot of references to Jesus, but that's also a picture of us. That's a picture of us sacrificing even in the book of 1 Corinthians 15. Notice the way he states it. This is Paul talking about his ministry and what he was doing in the book of one Corinthians chapter 1531.

I protest by that. Glory in you brethren, that I have in Christ Jesus, our Lord. I die daily. I'm doing this every day. This is an ongoing thing. Even in the book of 2 Corinthians 4. Talked about it so vividly. Well, we could spend a lot of time here, but Lord of verse 14, knowing that he that raised up, the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also in Jesus and shall present us with you.

For all things are, for your sakes, for the grace being multiplied through the many may cause, the Thanksgiving to abound under the glory of God. Every time we sacrifice, we're doing it for him. Verse 11, for we who died, were always delivered into death for Jesus' sake. That the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortar flesh.

We're living sacrifices all the time. We're we're doing this for the glory of God. We're transformed for this reason.

And I wonder

if we get up every morning and we ask ourself what kinda sacrifice we're gonna make today,

and then turn, walk out the door and say, what's this gonna be like every other day?

Not knowing what's gonna happen when you walk out that door and how you might have to present your body as a living sacrifice.

This is a great challenge for us,

and I think it's really important to know this is really a reasonable thing to ask.

For all that's been done for us by the sacrifice of Jesus, the Christ, the savior of giving himself a living body to die for me, the mercies of God allow me to be transformed. To be identified as one of his, one of his children, and it's very reasonable for him to ask of me to do this.

Oh, it's, it's just, it's beyond words that he would ask of me to do this.

You remember I alluded to earlier the idea of Africa and how we are so. Overwhelmed and in all those people that would go as a missionary to those countries, like that place, there was a minister in the country of Africa, a native of that land,

who was approached about this idea of sacrifice and he was in the discussion with a man from America. About sacrifice and the man from America was asking him and talking to him about the sacrifice of all that he did to sacrifice himself, threats made on his life, everything you could ever imagine.

People wanting to kill him and hurt him, him and his family. He just keep, he just kept teaching. So the man from America asked him, said, I just, I, I just can't understand how you'd wanna keep sacrificing yourself the way you do. How do you do that? And the Native African preacher responded to him and says, I've not really made any sacrifice compared to the Jesus who sacrificed for me.

What I'm doing is like this text would say something that's reasonable. It is just as reasonable as going over to the book of second Peter, the second chapter, or excuse me, 1 Peter 2, and listening to the same phrase in the language, Greek language, in that text about giving babies milk. As it would be to stay what is stated in the book, Romans 12, of which he states this phrase at the end of verse 2, which is your spiritual service.

The same Greek phrase is found in regarding a reasonable service of which you would render to a baby milk.

And we just, in some cases just naturally do this because that's what biologically you would do for a baby.

Yet we have trouble. It challenges us

and it makes us kinda wi to think that we would have to be sacrificing and understanding this as reasonable service.

Yet we are the people who should be exactly what God asked of us to be. If you look at the book of Hebrews 12:28. Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Let us have grace whereby we may offer service well pleasing to God with reverence and all it's reasonable to do this.

Chapter 13, verse 15, how it is through him. Then let us offer up a sacrifice of praise to God continually. That is the fruit of lips, which make confession to his name. To do good and to communicate. Forget not for. With such sacrifices, God is well pleased. It's an ongoing, it's an ongoing thing. It's reasonable to ask of us, to be this kind of person for, as I mentioned to you while ago, in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, we are not our own anymore.

If being a Christian is what we want to be, if being transformed, Say from our sin is what we were looking for and asking of God to do for us through the blood of Jesus and our obedience, and by his grace and mercy that it's reasonable that we offer ourselves

with no limitation. With no limitation

according to what is stated in John 8. This is exactly what, please Jesus, please God by what Jesus did. And here is his mindset. In John 8:28, Jesus said, when you have lifted up, the son of man didn't show you no, that I'm he and that I do nothing of myself. I've given up. I've given up.

But as the father taught me, I speak these things, he that sent me is with me. He has not left me alone for, I do always the things that are pleasing to him,

beloved, that is the mindset of the person that sacrifices. For the identity of being transformed in a disoriented world, and that mindset is what we'll talk about more this evening when you talk about pleasing God. Hebrews 11:6 talks about faith being a very key thing that needs to be established in our life.

Four. Without faith, it is impossible to please him. For he that come to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

You will not, and I will not sacrifice anything if I do not believe if it is the good pleasure of God. His will that I am looking for to work with in my life, which we'll talk about tomorrow night. Lord willing, then I will be the one who will seek to have the faith in his invitation and by his mercies, say, Lord, I will lay my life at your feet.

I'm not gonna wrestle like these strong men did in my illustration. I'm not gonna wrestle and fight you on this. I'm going to find myself giving up everything for your sake. That way I could find myself being like Paul said. In Galatians 2:20, I'm crucified with Christ. It is no longer I that lived, but Christ lived with me.

I have died to what I wanted so that I can be transformed to live the way you want me to be.

There are people in this room that might just need to transform their life. If you do, will you believe and will you confess in Jesus? And will you change in repentance from where you are to where you should be? There are people here that will help you in that transformation, or excuse me, crossing over, being translated, I should say like Colossians 1 says, translated from darkness into light so that you can be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

If you've already done that before, yet you found yourself back in the old ways of the world again, and your life is not being transformed by the will of God, but you're following your own will or the voices of the trans culture. We ask of you to repent and we'll pray for you that the thoughts and intents of your heart be forgiven and you can move yourself back into.

Being the temple of God and allowing this spirit to live within you. Do what's right. While together we've seen this song.