It is a privilege to be able
to minister the Word of God here with you today. And so I invite
you to take your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Romans.
I want to speak to you today from Romans chapter 12. And so
I trust you have your Bible with you and that it is open in front
of you and that you can follow along with me. You'll derive
so much more from this message as your own Bible is open in
your lap and you see with your own eyes into your own Bible
that is in your hands. The title of this message is
A Call to Commitment. And I want to begin by reading
two verses that will be our focus this morning as we look together
into the Word of God. It's a text with which I know
you're very familiar. If you've been a Christian any
length of time, you no doubt have heard this passage expounded. And it is a text of which we
need to come back to repeatedly again and again and to have set
before our hearts Romans 12, verse 1 and 2. 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. He was converted to Christ at
age 18. It was the result of watching
his older brother die. His older brother died with a
supernatural peace in his heart, something that he himself did
not possess. And this young man, 18 years
of age, was so impacted by the strong faith of his older brother
and the calm spirit with which he faced death, that he would
later reflect upon his own deathbed, that day, 11 years ago, I lost
my loved and loving brother and began to seek a brother who cannot
die. That elder brother is our Lord
and Savior, Jesus Christ. And through the traumatic experience
of watching his own flesh and blood brother tragically die
at an early age, Robert Murray McShane committed his life to
Jesus Christ. And that conversion launched
McShane into a life of ministry that would last only 11 years. McShane himself would die at
a very early age of 29. But those 11 years, though short
chronologically, were deep and full years. As McShane in the
19th century, this great Scottish preacher, lived a life of radical
commitment to Jesus Christ. and so completely dedicated himself
to the Lord that he was a mighty instrument in the hand of God
that brought about seasons of revival in the Church of Scotland. He was called by God into the
ministry and immediately ran to that which God had summoned
him to with unwavering resolve and total abandonment to Christ. Few young men have ever been
so wholeheartedly dedicated to Christ. McShane, in his journals,
would record this often quoted prayer, Lord, make me as holy
as a pardoned sinner can be. He would say, the greatest need
of my people is my personal holiness. It was McShane's godliness that
overshadowed even his giftedness. And he was mightily used by God
in those few years. He was a sickly young man and
was told by his doctors that he would die, that he needed
to live in a different climate to extend his years. McShane
got on a boat in Scotland and sailed to Israel for the arid
climate there in the Middle East, was told to rest. And McShane
so sold out to Jesus Christ that the time that he had there in
Israel, he spent evangelizing the Jews and preaching the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ and pushing himself for the cause
of Christ to the very extremities. He recovered somewhat, got on
a boat, returned to Scotland, and there resumed his pastorate.
And in a short time, McShane died. Before he died, he wrote
this in his journal, set not your heart on the flowers of
this world. For they all have a canker in
them. Prize the rose of Sharon, more
than all, for he changes not. Live nearer to Christ than anyone
else, so that when they are taken from you, you may have him to
lean on still. Robert Murray McShane died at
age 29 and literally burned himself out for the cause of the gospel
of Jesus Christ. He lived with such abandonment
to Christ that he held nothing back. He invested his entire
life with supreme devotion to Christ. He was like Jonathan
Edwards, who in one of his 70 resolutions said, that I be this
man in this generation who is most fully sold out to Christ. Though he had only 11 years in
his Christian life, the effect of one life sold out to Christ
was as though he lived 11 lifetimes. Far more important than how long
you live is the depth of your life, the fullness of your life. How committed you are to the
sovereign lordship of Jesus Christ. In this text, in Romans 12, 1
and 2, this is what God is beseeching us to do, to be sold out to Jesus
Christ, to surrender our lives entirely, even daily, to Jesus
Christ, to turn a deaf ear to the world, to live with abandonment
to the will of God for our lives. I want to ask you, How is it
with your soul this morning? For what are you living? What
consumes you? What preoccupies you? What dominates
your thoughts, your ambitions, your dreams, your aspirations,
your life? Better for you to die at age
29 and to be radically committed to Jesus Christ and to leave
it all for the Lord in this life in service for Him. and for you
to waste your life and live to 70 or to 80 years of age in mediocrity
for Christ. I want us to look at this text.
I want it to speak to our hearts yet again. And I want you to
note several headings with me as we work our way through this
text. I want you to follow, follow
me as we go through this text. I want God to speak to your heart
as His word is living and active and sharper than any two-edged
sword. I want you to know first the
motivation. Why should you live this way?
There are secondary motivations. There are primary. There is a
primary motivation. A secondary motivation would
be, well, I should live this way because mom and dad would
expect me to live this way. And you should honor your father
and your mother. But there is a primary motivation that surpasses
every other motivation. You should live this way because
of the sovereign grace of the Lord Jesus Christ that has been
demonstrated towards you. Notice how he begins this, verse
1, is, therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God. You see that word, urge? Paul
is giving us a strong word of exhortation. Paul is not a stoic. Paul is not just putting options
out in front of us and encouraging us with certain preferences.
You can take it, you can leave it. No, he is saying, I urge
you to live this way. And standing behind Paul is our
triune God. And this is the urging of God
upon our hearts and lives. God is very passionate about
this, as God is urging you and pleading with you to give your
life to Christ in total commitment and surrender to Him. This comes
with all of the passion and emotion of God Himself. Therefore, I
urge you, brethren, as directed to us as believers, Those of
us who have already committed our lives to the Lordship of
Christ. Those of us who are already on
board with the Lord. Those of us who have already
entered through the narrow gate. And we are on the narrow path
that is headed for life. We have already turned our back
to the world. We've burned our bridges behind
us. We are following with loyalty
and allegiance to Jesus Christ. I urge you therefore, brethren,
and here is the motivation, here is the appeal, by the mercies
of God. And the mercies of God here refer
to the entirety of the saving grace of God that has brought
about our eternal salvation. In reality, it is the summary
of Romans 1 through 11. By that little phrase, by the
mercies of God, Paul is putting his arms around the first 11
chapters of the book of Romans. He is saying, you need to consider
where you once were before you were in Christ. We were all under
the wrath of God. We were the object of His holy
wrath. We had sinned and fallen short
of the glory of God. There was the poison of ass under
our tongue. Our feet were quick to shed blood. We did not seek God. We went
astray from Him. We were in sin. That's where
we once were. And consider what the Lord did
for you. God demonstrated His love toward us in that while
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And God sent forth His
Son in the fullness of time, born of a woman, born under the
law, that He might redeem us who were under the law. And He
did for us what we could never do for ourselves. He bought us
with His own blood. And He has set us free. And consider
how your life has been changed. We once were slaves of sin and
ungodliness. And we have been redeemed and
set free. We have been resurrected in Christ.
And we now live a new life in Christ. Every one of us who are
truly in Christ, our lives have been changed. by the resurrection
power of the Lord Jesus Christ. And consider what we have become.
We have become sons of God and heirs of God and joint heirs
with Christ. We have been adopted into God's
family. And there is a full inheritance
that has already been entrusted to us. The Holy Spirit has been
granted to us. And there is coming the fullness
of our inheritance one day. And consider what God is now
doing in your life. For we know that God causes all
things to work together for our good. Those who are called according
to His purpose, those who love God. How God is taking every
circumstance, every trial, every event, both in the macro as well
as in the micro, and God is taking it all, and God is orchestrating
it all, and God is designing it all for His glory and for
your good. That is what God is doing in
your life this very moment. And Paul says, by the mercies
of God, I beseech you, I urge you to live in this way. I want to say to you, if that
does not motivate you, as we say in Alabama, if that doesn't ignite your heart,
then your wood is wet. Then nothing will excite your
heart. Nothing will motivate you of
any real lasting significance. As you look into your soul, as
you look into your heart this day, Are you truly motivated
by the mercies of God and the grace of God that has been demonstrated
to you in Christ Jesus? This should hit the beaches of
our hearts like a spiritual tsunami and overwhelm us and overshadow
us and flood our soul and fill us up to overflowing. With motivation to do what he
calls us to do. Now second, not only the motivation,
I want you to see the presentation. Paul now calls for decisive commitment
on our parts. He's not calling us to be saved.
That's already happened. But he is calling us to live
our spiritual lives in a particular way. And he says in verse 1,
I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, here it
is, to present your bodies. A living sacrifice, a living
and holy sacrifice. The entire picture here is of
the Old Testament sacrificial system. How a priest would take
a sacrifice and slay it and kill it and with his own hands he
would bring it to the altar. And he would place this dead
sacrifice upon the altar, and it would be offered up to God.
And it would become a sweet-smelling aroma that would ascend upward
to the throne of God. Of course, it was all symbolic
of the Lord Jesus Christ, who, as our great high priest, offered
up himself as the sacrificial lamb to be the atonement for
our sins. And there was the end of the
sacrificial system. And the veil in the temple was
rent top to bottom. And now we as believers constitute
a holy priesthood. And we all have access to God. And we can come before His throne
of grace. And as priests of God, with access
to God, we must never come with empty hands. Worshippers are
givers to God. And as we come to God, we are
to bring a sacrifice, not a sacrifice that would represent an atonement
for sin because Christ is the end of the law. We are to present ourselves as a living and holy
sacrifice to God. This is the worship that God
desires of us. He says, present your bodies.
In other words, give yourself supremely to Christ, to God. When he says bodies, it is to
represent the totality of who we are and what we are. from
the top of our head to the bottom of our feet. We are to be entirely
sold out to Jesus Christ. We are to give him our minds,
what we think about, our thoughts, our dreams, our ambitions, our
secret life, our private thoughts. We are to give Him our eyes,
what we look upon, what we see, what we gaze upon. We are to
give Him our ears, what we listen to, what we hear throughout the
day. We are to give Him our mouths, what we say, what we speak, what
we communicate, what we share. We are to give Him our hands,
what we do, what we lay hold of. We are to give Him our feet,
where we go, what we pursue, the path and the direction that
we go. This is God's design for every one of us here today. That we be continually and always
coming before God and presenting all that I am and all that I
have to all that he is. He says we're to be a living
sacrifice. In the Old Testament, there were
dead sacrifices that were presented to God. And now in the New Testament,
we are to present our bodies as a living, holy sacrifice. That is to say we are to live
for God. We are to live for Christ. We
are to be alive unto God. We are to truly live for the
things of God and for the things of His kingdom. This is that
for which we have been made. And we are to be a holy sacrifice. We are to be set apart from the
things of this world. And we are to be totally given
to God. And we cannot have one foot in
the church and one foot in the world or one foot in Christ and
dabble with having, being a part of the things of the world. No,
we are to be totally given to God while we are in this world. In the Old Testament, in the
book of Malachi, the priests were bringing their sacrifices
to God. And they were bringing to God
The defective animals, the blind, the lame, the leftovers. After they kept for themselves
the healthiest of the sacrifices that they might sell them in
the marketplace and have more money. And God speaks in the
book of Malachi and God says, no, you give those leftover defective
sacrifices to your own fathers. You give them to yourselves.
You bring to me the best of your sacrifice. That is what Paul is calling
for here. That you give to God the best
hours of your day. You give to God the first fruit
of what He puts into your hands. That you give to God the very
best that you have to offer Him. And in reality, it is the entirety
of your entire life. This is the presentation, and
he says it is acceptable to God. Later in verse 2, the word acceptable
will be repeated, and that will be acceptable to us. But in verse
1, it is acceptable to God. The only way for you to live
your Christian life in a manner by which it is acceptable to
God is for you to be sold out, surrendered, and radically committed
to Jesus Christ. Let me simplify it. If you please
God, it does not matter whom you displease. And if you displease
God, it does not matter whom you please. All that matters is, is my life
acceptable to God? This is the presentation that
every one of us here must make. And so I want to ask you the
question, right now, this moment, this day, is your life presented
to God, totally sold out to Jesus Christ? Those of you who are
believers, those of you who are in Christ, Does our practice match our position? That is what Paul is calling
for here. You're saying none of us is free to pursue our own
agenda, to pursue our own plans, to pursue our own dreams and
aspirations, that we have one agenda item in our lives. And it is to present our bodies
a living and holy sacrifice to God. He tells us at the end of
verse two that we will come to realize the will of God. But
we must first present ourselves to Him. Is your life, metaphorically
speaking, is your life on the altar this moment? Are you a
living sacrifice? Are you living for God? Are you
living for Christ? Is He the supreme passion and
desire of your life? Are you a holy sacrifice? Are
you pursuing holiness? Are you pursuing godliness, motivated
by the mercies of God? This is incumbent upon every
one of us here today. I want you to note third, the
calculation. Please note how verse one continues. He concludes verse one by saying,
which is your spiritual service of worship. What he is saying
here is you need to carefully think this through. This word for spiritual, Logizomai
is the word which comes into our English language as logic
or logical or logarithms. And what Paul is saying is every
one of us needs to do the math on this. This is the most rational,
logical presentation of your life you need to make based upon
what God has done for you in your life. And what he is saying
is for you to live for the world, for you to live for yourself,
for you to live for somebody else is totally irrational. It is illogical. It is insane
for us to live for anyone else. When I was in college, I was
a finance major and I took many accounting classes. And we had
the T-square and there was profits and losses. There were assets.
There were liabilities. And you would add it up. What
all assets did we have going for us? What all liabilities
needed to be subtracted out? And Paul is saying you need to
make a T-square for your life. And you need to add up the assets
and the liabilities for committing your life to Christ. And Paul says when you add up
all of the mercies of God, and the favor and the grace of God
that has been bestowed upon you, it far outweighs the sacrifices,
the persecution, the opposition, the resistance that we would
feel on this side. We gain far more in Christ than
we are now called upon to face. That is what he is saying here.
He says you need to add it up and live your life in a calculated
way. I've said before, sin makes you
stupid. Sin in your life will always
lead you to make stupid decisions with your life. It is irrational
to ever sin, yet we do. because of indwelling sin, but
we often forget to add it up. James Montgomery Boyce, great
Bible teacher, gives five things we need to think through to add
it up, the calculation. One, what God has already done
for you. We need to think that through and put that on the asset
side. Second, what God is doing for you in your life this very
moment. Third, it is God's will for your
life to live this way. Fourth, God is worthy of your
total sacrifice, allegiance, and loyalty. Fifth, only spiritual
things will last. How illogical to live for the
temporal passing things of this world. That is the ultimate buy
high, sell low deal. That is wasting your life. That
is throwing your life away. Your life will be squandered
to live only for the things of this world. How we must live
for eternal things, for God's kingdom. Boyce says that it is the most
Intelligent spiritually speaking decision you will ever make in
your life to totally completely Give yourself to Jesus Christ
on an ongoing basis Have you done the math on this
have you really thought this through and Do you really want
to just pour your life like water into desert sand and for there
to be no eternal significance? Or do you not want your life to be lived for the fullest? If so, then you must present
your bodies a living and holy sacrifice to God. Notice fourth the insulation
at the beginning of verse 2 He says we've got to remain insulated
from the world Now this does not mean isolation It means insulation Too many Christians want to just
withdraw to a commune out in some placed by themselves. There's no holiness in a hole.
We are to be in the world, but not
of the world. We are to have our boat in the
water, but no water in the boat. But our boat is not to be on
dry land. Notice what he says in verse
2, and do not be conformed to this world. That implies that
we are out there penetrating this world. That we have no reverse
gear. We have only forward drive. And
that we are going into all of the world. We are rubbing shoulders
with the world. We are going into the highways
and the byways of this world. We are standing on the rooftops
of this world. And we are living in the midst
of this world. But he says we are not to be
conformed to this world. The word conformed, it's been
said, it means do not be squeezed into the mold. It's an imperative,
meaning this is a command. It's present tense. We are to
always be not being conformed. Do not be conformed to this world.
World here refers to this present evil age. It refers to this godless
age that is anti-God, anti-Christ, anti-truth, that is man-centered,
in which all things are from man, through man, and to man.
We are not to buy into the system, the world's values, the world's
priorities, the world's perspectives, the world's secular philosophies.
How does Psalm 1 begin? How blessed is the man who does
not stand in the path of sinners nor sit in the seat of scoffers.
And we are to be that tree that is rooted and grounded in the
Word of God. But we are to turn a deaf ear
to the worldly ideologies and the secular humanism and the
godless thinking of this world. As you watch television, as you
go on the internet, as you look at magazines, as you penetrate
the world, either the world is a mission field or you are the
mission field. Either you are influencing the
world or the world is influencing you. Are you becoming more like
the world or is the world becoming more influenced by Christ as
a result of your life? What Paul is saying is, do not
give in to the world. Do not let your guard down. Because
the world is never idle. And the devil is never asleep. And there are forces of hell
that are aggressive. And the temptations and snares
and schemes of the evil one is after us. This is the insulation that we
must have. And I trust that there is a protective
insulation around you. That there are things you will
not set your eyes on. There are things you will not
take into your ears. And he who would not fall down
ought not to walk in slippery places. I want you to notice fifth, the
transformation. There must be this inward positive
transformation in our lives. He says, but be transformed by
the renewing of your mind. This refers to a radical change
of heart and mind and soul being transformed into the image of
Christ, being conformed into Christ's likeness. This word
renew is a word from which we derive the English word metamorphosis.
It speaks of not the superficial external facade change, but the
inward radical spiritual progress in sanctification that must take
place on the inside. And would you please note the
emphasis upon the mind, but be transformed by the renewing of
your mind. Let me tell you how your life
works, from the mind to the heart to the will. Your mind controls
the affections and the affections control the will. And so what
is coming into your mind has an effect on your heart, and
what is in your heart governs and steers and directs the steps
that you take in life. And for the Word of God to be
coming into your mind sets you on one course, And for the filth
and the depravity of this world to be coming into your mind,
set your steps on a totally different path. He says you need to be
transformed from the inside by the renewing of your mind. Do
you sense that your mind is being elevated? Do you sense that your
mind is becoming more transcendent? Do you sense that your mind is
becoming more and more the mind of Christ? Do you see with a
Christian worldview? Do you size up the world around
you and the situations with a renewed mind? Do you have discernment? Do you have insight? Do you have
wisdom? It is the knowledge of the truth
that shapes our entire inner person. It is the engine under
the hood that is driving our lives. Notice finally, at the end of
verse 2, the realization. What is the result? What is the
bottom line? What is the outcome? What would
it look like if I was sold out to Christ, if I did Come to Christ
and say, oh Christ, here is my life. I have been living for
peripheral things. I have been living for temporal
things. I have been living for superficial things. I want to
live for eternity. I want to live for those things
that matter most in your kingdom. I want to live for time and eternity
for Christ. I want to transcend all of the
low valleys of this world. What would be the result if you
were to come to Christ this day and say, oh Christ, I present
to you from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet, every
inch, every ounce of me, I want to be sold out to you. And he gives us the result. He says, so that You may prove,
the word prove means to come to know by experience. You won't
just know this intellectually, you will come to live this. You
will come to be a part of the reality of this in your life.
It will happen in your life. So that you may prove what the
will of God is, the path that God has chosen for your life. God who is infinite wisdom, God
who knows perfectly what is best for your life, that you may prove
what the will of God is. Notice the three descriptives,
that which is good and acceptable and perfect. Listen, this isn't
like taking bad medicine in order to get well. This is the greatest
Blessing and satisfaction that could ever come to your life
is good, meaning it leads to spiritual good, moral good. It
leads to your good, God's glory, your good. You're settling for
second best in your life if you don't live this way. That which
is good and acceptable, meaning it will become acceptable to
you. You will find pleasure in doing God's will. You will be
thrilled to experience this. You won't be drug into this.
You will come running into this. Good and acceptable and perfect. That is to say, if you had a
thousand lives, and you could try to re-chart the course of
your life, and you could come up with every conceivable possible
alternative As you come to intersections in your life and you go one way
or the other, if you had a thousand lifetimes to try to rechart a
better plan and a better direction for your life, you could never
improve upon it one iota because what God has already chosen for
your life is absolutely, infinitely perfect. Any path you choose is imperfect. What God has chosen is complete,
it's whole, it's lacking in nothing. It is the very best life you
could possibly ever live. Every one of us, this moment, ought to respond to the truth
of these verses and come to the place where we humble ourselves
before God and say, God, I want to live for you. I want to be
sold out for you. I want to be surrendered to you. I want to be all in with you. I don't want side issues. I don't
want peripheral issues. I don't want secondary issues.
I want to live for what's primary. I want to live for what's eternal.
I want to live for what is highest. I want to live for what is perfect.
I want to live for what is best. And if that is the desire of
your heart, and it means that you would come to God in humility,
and that you would, with lowliness of mind, present your bodies
as a priest would present a sacrifice on the altar, and you would say,
God, take my mind, take my thoughts, take my time, take my strengths,
take my gifts, Take whatever time is left that I have to live
here upon the earth. Take my future, take my present.
Take everything that I am. Take all that I have. Take all
that I ever will be. And God, I give it all entirely
to you. All that I am and all that I
will ever be. Would you come to that place
today with God? When we came into the kingdom
of God, we surrendered to the lordship of Christ. Paul is not
talking about some second step. He is talking about that we acknowledge
our original commitment to live under the lordship of Christ. Only one life, and it soon will
be past. Only what's done for Christ will
last. He is no fool who will give what
he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. Give your life entirely
to Christ. and follow Him wherever He goes. Let us pray. Father, our desire here today
is not to play games with You. It's not to waste Your time nor
our time. We believe that You have ordained
that we would be in this place today. and that we would stand
before your word, and that we would be called out today to
live in a way that is acceptable and pleasing to you. I pray that there would be a
wave of sobriety that would sweep over our soul, that there would
be a sense for many of us here today that we would grow up,
that we would mature, that we would Step up to the next level
that we would reach out for Christ as never before And that we would
be willing to go anywhere at any time to pay any price to
go with anyone Lord I am sold out to you And Lord, I want to
go back to my dorm room and live for you. I want to go into the
classroom and live for you. I want to go into this community
and live for you. I want to be alone in the word
and be with you and pray to you and worship you. Lord, I am yours. Father, I pray that this would
be the true and earnest prayer of my brothers and sisters in
Christ here today. May you lead on. May we follow. In Christ's name, amen.