let's open up our bibles to romans chapter 12. when i look at this room it becomes clear the absolute impotence of men of human speech so many needs so many you came here for so many different reasons how can they all be met in a sermon that is why preaching is one of the greatest acts of faith to believe that christ can take a few loaves and fishes and actually feed not just a multitude but a multitude with different needs and desires so we're cast tonight upon god not upon a preacher were cast upon god we need the holy spirit to work among us nothing will ever be accomplished in your life apart from the work of the holy spirit whether it be your conversion and regeneration your sanctification your strengthening your joy christ-like character everything comes down to this this person the holy spirit so let's read our text and then we're going to pray romans 12 1 therefore i urge you brethren by the mercies of god to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to god which is your spiritual service of worship and do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what the will of god is that which is good and acceptable and perfect let's pray father i praise you and i worship you i raise my heart to you and i ask you lord for the sake of christ and because of the great love with which you have loved us please encourage your people communicate truth to your people do a work father that cannot be done by any other means than the person in the work of the holy spirit father please strengthen transform build up make right a people for your son a people for your son these young people lord in jesus name amen therefore i urge you brethren by the mercies of god to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice paul is urging the romans to do something and he's urging you to do something it's not just the reception of knowledge it's not just a collection of doctrines it's not just wearing the right clothes or speaking the right speech it's not just marrying the right person or acting the right way something far deeper far deeper and far more costly he's urging them to do something he's pleading with them to do something i have little space little concern for preachers who only communicate information the purpose of information is transformation unto the glory of god and that requires urging the great pastor peter masters i read him one time saying this that if you have preached the gospel but you do not beg men to respond you have not preached the gospel and so paul has explained much in the book of romans and now he comes to this place where he is urging imploring begging people to respond appropriately he's doing the same thing to us 2000 years later through the written word of god and through the holy spirit through a fallible preacher not just to hear not just to understand but actually to rise up and walk to make important decisions and stand upon them he says therefore i urge you brethren by the mercies of god to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice to present your body to present your body every part of you you would think that he would say heart or that he might say mind to present your heart to god but what you have to understand is that in the hebrew mind there's no disconnect between the two things your heart functions as though it were the very control center of every aspect of your being if he has your heart he'll have your body if he has your body it's an indication he has your heart if he has your heart he'll have your your mind your thoughts if he has your heart he'll have your eyes and your ears and your mouth he'll have your hands he'll have your feet they will be set in motion with a great and holy passion to respond appropriately to the person and work of christ he's urging you to do what present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice now we'll talk about that in a moment but first let's look at something he's asking you to give away that which is most important to a reasonable being to lay down every aspect of who you are every part of your physical being every plan every desire to offer it as a sacrifice to god he's asking you to do to give the greatest thing you could possibly give i've said this many times that satan is a liar jesus says so but sometimes even though he is a liar he will say what is true and then of course twist that truth when job was tested first of all it was being tested by all those things that were around him but then satan said something that was right ah but touch his body touch his body the most precious thing to a man to a woman to a human being and that's what paul is saying here he's saying to present your body a living and holy sacrifice to god find the greatest thing you are the greatest thing you possess and offer it as a sacrifice to god your entire being paul is saying nothing less than what christ said when he said the greatest command is this you shall love the lord your god with all your heart soul mind and strength he is not using that terminology and in order to divide up the human psyche he's doing something very hebrew he's piling one term upon another in order to let you know that you're to love god with everything that you are nothing is left out because nothing is sacred now if you have believed in christ if you belong to christ every thing belongs to him and everything is holy whether it be something physical whether it be a thought whether it be a moment in time it belongs to god and we are to offer it to him it is the most precious thing we can do but then again is it what do i mean by that of course it is but let's think let's put it in its proper context you're young and strong you will soon be old and weak you may possess many talents death will take them from you you may have many resources on this planet death again will snatch them away you're going to lose your life you're going to lose it but are you going to lose it for something worthy you're going to sacrifice your life for something but is it noble one of the things in philosophy is that a rational being will always be driven by the highest motive are you driven by high motives are you giving your life for something that is worthwhile or for something less something temporal something passing something you cannot hold onto you've got to offer your life as a sacrifice to something i suppose living for nothing is offering yourself to that nothing but if you know christ you're called to give your life to him now here's a question we need a motive we need a motive need an engine we need something to drive us because every one of you if you are a believer you will say this yes i should give my life to christ i know i should give my life to christ even to some degree i know how to give my life to christ that's not my problem i wish preachers would stop talking about it it's not my problem what is your problem that which i want to do i seem unable to do i seem to lack the motivation the strength of will the power to do it well paul tells us what that power is because he tells them present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to god which is your spiritual service of worship he tells them how says by the mercies of god but this is key and every person i've ever studied in history this has been the key that set them apart from the herd when you look down through 2 000 years of christian history and you read those biographies marvelous biographies about men and women who are willing to live and die for christ you look at them and you see so many differences in personality in denominational affiliation even in some cases differences in doctrine but as i studied their lives i found certain things in common and above them all was this all of them were driven by the mercies of god you say well what are those mercies of god first of all they are mercies and they're not mercy that's very important paul wrote in greek but he was a jew he says mercies when a jew wants to say that there's a small body of water they say water when they want to say it's a large body of water they say waters when paul uses that word mercy he doesn't even know where to go with it i think sometimes he uses the word mercy and then throws it down with disgust because the word's just not big enough to describe what he's talking about the multi-faceted mercies of god where are they they're everywhere but if we were to point at one particular place where are they where is the greatest revelation of the mercies of god it is in the person and work of jesus christ and those saints who seem to have an ongoing fire an engine that persevered and persevered that drove them and drove them even to ruin their own health as robert murray mcshane said god's given me a message and a horse and i've killed the horse driven by what a vision of christ i would submit to you that any other motivation any motivation other than christ if set first is nothing more than idolatry our motivation is christ now i want you to look at the preposition therefore therefore i urge you brethren by the mercies of christ this is paul's dividing point in this epistle it's also paul's dividing point in ephesians here in the book of romans what has paul been doing this is the closest thing we have to a pauline systematic theology what is he doing first three chapters the radical depravity of the human race and its rightful condemnation without any hope whatsoever in itself and then at the end of three four and five what do we have christ christ the gospel the savior the elder brother the singular hero in the story of redemption jesus christ and then from there christ and the gospel applied in chapter six and chapter seven we get to chapter eight our victory our future glorification in the person of jesus christ then we get to 9 10 and 11. and what do we have the history of israel why would he throw that in there it's not so much he's not so much doing it be for eschatological reasons he's doing it to demonstrate the faithfulness of god he's saying everything i said about god in christ in chapter 8 is true and you can bank on it and then he goes 9 10 and 11 because god has always been faithful to his people it's about christ it's about christ it's about christ now this is where the difficulty in preaching comes in this is where preaching becomes an impossibility if i were to stop right now and you had any sins about you you would leave here angry angry at me because if i just leave you with this i've left you with a theology of glory big words but how can it help you how can it honestly help you okay it's all about christ so i go out it's all about christ what does that mean i need to look for christ what does that mean what does it mean there is both a natural and a supernatural aspect to this and the only way you're going to make any progress is if you're utterly desperate if you see no hope for yourself that something must change in your christian life that's the first time you begin to feel strength now let me explain to you years ago i was out in the pacific and uh was trying to surf was in peru there's a red flag day you don't go out in the water on a red flag day and so i was out there and i got very afraid very afraid i was caught in current i wasn't a good surfer i was scared i heard something behind me something sound it sounded like a sea lion then i got really afraid because they can be pretty angry sometimes i turned around and it wasn't it was a young man on a boogie board small surfboard his eyes were about this big around he was only about this big he was terrified he was drowning and i naturally just swam over to him i paddled my board over to him and right when i got ready to grab his ankle line i realized no no no no now i weighed about 2 30 at the time he probably weighed 130 pounds soaking wet i pulled my hand off his ankle his ankle line and i thought he'll kill me he'll kill me so i yelled at several other surfers that were on down and i said come come help and they came over they were expert surfers about six or seven of them i don't quite remember the number took them about 30 minutes to get him in and they were terrified now these surfers were young men and they were great athletes so now here's the question how is it that i i almost twice the size of this guy then there's seven other athletic young men terrified to get near him why because if he grabbed you he would drown you matter of fact he could dr he could drown a couple of men at one time now here's the question how how could a guy that small transform himself into someone who could take down someone like me and two others was it strength of will was that it was he disciplined was that it was only one thing need drove him he knew that if he did not grab a hold of somebody he knew if something didn't change he knew if somebody didn't grab a hold of him he was doomed he was doomed he was doomed so it wasn't strength of will that caused him to grab a hold of those other surfers it was need it was desperation it was fear it was weakness and that is what i have found in every man and woman of god that has ever been mightily used of god and that has gone on when everyone else has stopped it wasn't their strength it was looking in the mirror and knowing if i do not have christ i die or if i do not have christ more of christ something worse than death my life just continues on in this monotony monotony monotony never experiencing true joy in christ in god never having great confidence never being moved by a power greater than myself all those people that i've talked about that laid down their life it didn't happen because of their strength of will it happened because of desperation that's the first step the second step was this when everything else failed they went and looked for jesus not laws although the law is holy and good not a certain way of life or an ethic even though christianity has a certain way of life and an ethic that's not what they went for they went for him i must see the master i must have a greater view of christ and that's what paul's doing here in romans he is setting before them everything god has done for them in christ and he's saying now now that you've seen this how can you not lay down your life as a sacrifice to him to him to him i want to point out a text i learned this from d edmond hebert it's in first thessalonians chapter one paul is talking about his entrance into the the life of the thessalonians and he makes a remarkable statement here in verse 9 and 10.
he says for they themselves report about us what kind of a reception we had with you and how you turn to god from idols to serve a living and true god now in greek not always you have to be careful but it's consistent in paul word order is extremely important and i i want you to look at this word order here he says you turned to god from idols do you see that he didn't say you turned from idols to god but you turn to god from idols and i believe that the edmund hebert the greek scholar is right when he says this here's what's going on we read this passage and we think that the gentile world the pagan world was finished with their idols they were disappointed in their idols they had no longer any use for their pagan religions and their idols they were sick of them they were tired of them and they were looking all over for something else to take their place and they saw jesus the jesus paul preached hebert says that's what's that is not what is happening here and i agree with hebert they were like us they were content with all their idols even christians can be that way to some degree they were content with their nonchalant lack of devotion they were content in their christianity they were content in their apathy we could say about ourselves but with regard to these pagans they were totally fine with their temples their doctrine and their gods what changed paul walked into thessalonica and what did he do he gave them a course no he didn't he preached to them the crucified and risen savior and when they saw him when they saw him through the preaching of the gospels through the regenerating work of the holy spirit they looked at him and they saw their idols in light of him and they said no more these things are sick compared to him now what can we draw from that you your greatest need your greatest need and i can say this biblically i can say this also as one who participates in the same need our greatest need is a greater vision of god and primarily a greater vision of god in christ and above that a greater vision of god in christ through the gospel and if i want to take it another step further a greater vision of god in christ in the gospel in gethsemane and on the cross and in the tomb and on easter morning and then seated at the right hand of god that's what we need that's what we need we need it doctrinally many of you languish because of an ignorance of god and an ignorance of his son you may be saved truly saved but you have not pressed on to know the lord doctrinally but now i'm going to say something that also gets me in quite a bit of danger not just doctrinally experimentally we need to know him in his word and we need to know him in prayer i'm not talking about intercession i'm talking about seeking him seeking his face communion with him diving into both wells the well of the word the well of prayer with one great purpose to know christ to know christ to know him to know god to know god do you know one of the worst things you can ever say as a christian one of the worst things you can ever say as a christian it's this i'm just so worried and i'm just so confused because i don't know what god's doing you're on borderline blasphemy at that moment you've also revealed a lot about you just just jump over for a moment to the prophets look at daniel chapter 11. and then before we go there let's just apply this let's just look i know what it's like to be 30 31 not married serving christ some far away land where there's no way you're going to ever find a bride been there done that got the t-shirt i know what it's like but i want you to know and i'm not saying this at a who actually believes that nothing is impossible for god who actually believes nowadays that the more i shut my mouth and quit telling people my needs and the more i lock myself in a room and cry out to only god i will see his hand because the more you trust in the arm of the flesh the less you will see the power of god that's the rule that's the rule so when when all this started happening politically and the covet and everything else i heard people just saying i just don't know what god's doing i just don't know what god's doing i need to know what god's doing brother paul can you tell me what god is doing and i said well are you holding god hostage somehow are you telling him you refuse to have peace until he speaks forth and tells you and explains to you everything he's doing let me give you a parable i have a dear friend in peru we served together for years there couldn't have been anybody more faithful one time we were going across the desert in the back of a cattle truck and i couldn't drink the water and he ran like a kilometer and a half found a cactus cut it up and was sticking it in my mouth he would do anything to keep me alive he was faithful faithful if he walked in right now and said pablo david said paul give me the keys to your jeep i throw them the keys to my jeep and you say well why did you give him the keys to your jeep you don't know what he's going to do with your jeep and i say i don't have to know what he's going to do with my jeep why because i know who he is i know the caliber of person that he is now look at daniel look at chapter 11 verse 32 most likely talking about a time of of great trouble for israel many think it's it's the dealings of antiochus epiphanes a very wicked man and it says by smooth words he will turn to godlessness those who act wickedly toward the covenant but the people who know their god will display strength and take action not the people who know exactly what god's going to do or what god has decreed or what god has planned for the nation of israel or the united states or for you as a single person we're not strong because we know what god is going to do we're strong because we know who god is and whatever he does with our lives is going to be right it's going to be right even now after all these years something will pop up in my life and i'll say to myself that can't be right and then here it comes again when have you ever been right about it can't be right never never painful yes frightening absolutely but he's always been right he's always been right so the more i know him the more i know him what's going to happen the stronger and more confident i become in life well do you know what he's decreed no don't have to because i know whatever he decrees will be right because he is right now i want to go back to this we've been talking about motivation but i also want to talk about love this is so very important i shared this just a few days ago in another church in grand rapids i see people young people all the time old people everybody in between people i see them all lamenting the fact that they don't love god as they ought to and i hear preachers telling them they don't love god as they ought but what's the solution i mean what's the solution go to some wild acquire the fire conference and get all wound up like a little toy soldier for three days and then you just wind down again and you're more angry than you were before one more failed attempt at loving god what do we do i'm going to give you a physics lesson i'm on the platform i'm laying on my back i've got both hands on my belt and i'm pulling with all my might you walk over and say brother paul what what are you doing i said well isn't it obvious no i'm trying to get up you say to me well did you ever take physics in high school or college or anything like that why well because in order to get up that particular way you have to be acted on by an outside force someone firmly established outside of you with a strength greater than your mass must grab you by the belt and pick you up you can't do it to yourself guess what you can't make yourself love god more you can't no matter how many worship songs you listen to you're not going to be able to do it will you say then how do i do it i uh i've been married for it's getting close to 30 years i'm not the guy she married i've um old we were so young batman and robin that's who we were oh i'm in a homeschool convention i can't say that i'm sorry we were something in the jungles and the mountains and man she's a beauty now we're slower grayer i left her today at home and i was sad more sad than when i used to leave her 25 years ago to go to some weird dangerous place in the jungle now the moment i tell you that i love my wife more now than i did then i know what you're thinking because you're not really that but you're not very biblical you're thinking oh what a wonderful man he's such a wonderful man i mean do you hear the things he's saying he loves his wife now more than he did when they were young and married he loves her more now he's such a wonderful man maybe not at all well not maybe i can assure you i'm not i'm just a normal man you see when you see a man with an extraordinary love for his wife maybe the man's just normal maybe it's his wife who's extraordinary and she draws out his affections even though his heart is is almost like a stone or a piece of clay but her virtue her beauty her godliness can even draw affections out of that clod of dirt when you see someone who loves god with you know it just seems like they're on fire and not just when they're preaching but i mean they're just going and going and going and going what do you automatically think oh what a wonderful person there you go again you're wrong again i've read all those biographies or a lot of them none of them were very wonderful then what was it they had a wonderful god that a beautiful god and the beauty the virtue and the wonder we could just go on and on and on of their god drew out their affections yeah but i thought i had a god like that you do well then what's the difference they see more they saw more of him than you do why let's go back to the guy in the ocean that's drowning they needed him they tried all kinds of different fountains in their life most of them and all of them were either dry cracked cisterns are polluted and left a stench on their lips they knew that he alone has life and the words of life he alone can animate the heart i mean if there's anyone who can draw out your affections it's got to be him i am i i knew that my mind years ago i knew that it was not exceptional i knew that i wouldn't be a renaissance man who would be able to just cover everything that's here i made a decision that i would try to read the whole bible all the time but that i would study one thing the cross of christ i would study one thing to seek the cross in the word to seek the cross in prayer the christ of the cross i get so angry at preaching and writing because he's so big and beautiful all these words are stupid he's beyond anything have you ever gone outside and seen a sunset or a sunrise and and you walk out and you call your wife or something you've got to see this it'll take your breath away it will take your breath away that's him i'm not i'm not trying to be pious it's really true he really is this way but listen to me young people this isn't this knowing hymn it could start this evening but it can't start and finish this evening it is a lifetime of tracking out who christ is just going back he says present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice a living sacrifice now where i'm from preachers are very common as saying that's the problem you know dead sacrifices stay on the altar living ones tend to want to crawl off that's not the point here the point is this is not only a matter of right knowledge this is a work of the holy spirit who regenerates us unto salvation but then it's it's also it's this continual relationship with the holy spirit do you know what's wrong with us many of us we've been robbed of our inheritance i will tell you that at the risk of being criticized for it we have been robbed of our inheritance when i read the puritans when i read the reformers when i read the early baptist in the early presbyterian the dutch reform guys the early guys that didn't have to deal with so many heretical movements about the holy spirit they could talk freely about the holy spirit and the fullness of the holy spirit and the power of the holy spirit they could talk freely about the manifest presence of christ in prayer they could talk about all the things we're afraid to talk about because of our inheritance had been robbed from us by all these false movements that borderline on blasphemy with regard to the holy spirit young person listen you can't live the christian life apart from the holy spirit you can't live the christian life just with bible study you need prayer and prayer is more it's so much more than intercession most of you many of you when you pray it's all about the intercession intercession you need to divide your prayer time in two different stages prayer with your boots on and prayer with your boots off prayer with your boots on is you interceding fighting down in the trenches crying out to god there's nothing fun about that and if that's all you do in prayer you'll never be a person who prays you need to pray with your boots off communion crying out constantly i will not back down on this you need to cry out constantly for greater and greater and greater manifestations of the power and life of the holy spirit in you to live a godly life unto god and that's what's lacking even people who have great knowledge cannot apply that knowledge even though they can write it on an examination they can not apply it because it's a work of the holy spirit it is more than material it is more than knowledge it is organic it is life it is power and you need to seek christ in the word of god but you need to seek christ on your knees never contrary to the word of god but on your knees to know him his life his power to know him to know him and then he says a holy sacrifice a holy sacrifice one of the greatest things that has helped me with regard to the holiness of god is realizing the relationship between holiness and love holiness and love now let me explain there is a kind we can make two divisions in holiness there is a kind of a a moral aspect of holiness then there is a magisterial aspect of holiness and you must understand the magisterial in order to understand the moral in its its in its most confined root holiness means comes from the idea of to cut and then to cut and to separate as though my wife when she's cutting vegetables like this and then after making several cuts then you see her take the blade and go like that and separate cut separate the idea is separation so when the bible says that god is holy first of all do not think of it in terms of moral don't even look at it first of all in terms of sinlessness look at it first of all in terms of separateness it's not that god is like us just bigger or god is like the archangels just bigger the idea is god is not like us at all he is in a completely distinct category there is no god and country there's no god and king it's god the only time god belongs in a conjunctive relationship is when it is god the father and god the son and god the holy spirit any other time no he is in a category all to himself and it is the highest category infinitely above every other category that's the first thing you need to understand you must understand that all right then where do we go from here remember i think i mentioned this that one of the requirements of being a rational being is that you select the highest motivation for what you're doing you have a reason for what you're doing and that reason should be the highest for example if you see me in my pajamas standing out in the rain about a hundred meters from my house and you say brother paul why are you standing outside in the rain in your pajamas at three o'clock in the morning and i say i don't know that's irrational there's a problem but if you say why are you standing out here at three in the morning in your pajamas in the downpouring rain because my house is on fire that's rational so here's what you need to see god's love is tied to his rationale his his reason his omniscience his truth god recognizes that he is infinitely above all other categories god also recognizes that above all other beings he is deserving of love that he has the highest value god recognizes that he has the highest value above all beings and god recognizes he is most deserving of love and in that category you can say that above all things god loves himself and if it was any other way he would be irrational god is holy in that he is separated from all of his creation and his love is upon himself and rightly so now what does it mean for you to be holy it doesn't just mean you obey the rules what does it mean that you are holy it means that you recognize the same thing god recognizes you recognize that god is in a category all to himself infinitely above all categories god is the most worthy of esteem and god is the most worthy of love and god is the most worthy of me laying down my life as a sacrifice that's what it means to be holy and then everything that our brother said previously falls in line underneath that holiness begins with recognizing who god is and the greatest revelation of who god is is in the gospel of jesus christ the more you know the gospel you more the more you know who god is the more you know who god is if you are a believer you will recognize that he is infinitely above all other categories he is worthy of all esteem he is worthy of all your love and then everything else flows out of that how is a man holy how is a woman holy they recognize god's infinite worth above all other things they recognize that above all other beings god is deserving of love and so when they give themselves to god they are only doing the king james is wonderful here they are only doing that which is rational service reasonable service it is not reasonable to lay down your life for a man even if you lay down your life for a nation and make it strong for an entire generation wicked men will come behind you and destroy what you have built it's not reasonable there's only one true reason there's only one pure logic that is to lay down your life for him for god for christ but don't go out that door all wound up like a toy soldier go out there that door committed to seeking his face i'm going to end just by i would love to get to verse 2 but we're going on quite long but i have studied the scriptures since i was converted and that ranks above all books if you spend more time in other books you're in trouble this is the book this is the book but but i can i can actually tell you it's funny because uh dr biki asked me about if i knew about you know if i'd read anything i think this afternoon about ernie from ernie rising or whatever and i just didn't have time to answer him but i just it was i just kind of chuckled inside because he was where the journey began and what i'm trying to say is i have studied scripture but wisdom was not born with me wisdom will not die with me this book is is bigger than a thousand lifetimes of paul washer if the greatest scholars if if 70 let's be like the septuagint if 70 of the greatest scholars that ever lived all came together and studied this book for 200 years they wouldn't even scratch the surface so not only do i need to study the scriptures i need my brethren because theology is always to be done in the context of the church i need my brothers and sisters in christ i need people to talk to me about the bible not anybody but those who have a passion for christ and truly believe that the bible is the infallible inerrant word of god and so when i was a young man had read nothing but basically liberal people and modern people because of the seminary i went to and then in peru came across today's evangelism by ernest reisinger reddit struck me to the core i realized that what he as a matter of fact without being dramatic i remember just laying on my face after reading that book on this old dirty floor in peru thinking oh lord spare me and i promise i'll never preach the gospel the way i've preached it again and then it was ernie reisinger and then it went from there to spurgeon and then someone sent me uh the holiness of god from rc sprole and i remember putting that i had a little tv set about this big with one of those big cassette players at the bottom of it you old guys know what that's like and i remember sitting in this old plastic chair and i was sitting back it began then i found myself on the edge of my seat and then i found myself on my knees and then i watched that thing either looking at it or on my knees looking at it and on my knees i had never seen god as r.
