Well, Paul says in verse 1, I
beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you
present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto
God, which is your reasonable service. Be not conformed to
this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,
that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect
will of God. Knowing that we're saved entirely
by the mercy of God, A to Z, by the mercy of God. Believer
knowing that, there's nothing more reasonable and that we present
our body, present ourselves entirely to live for Christ and His cause
and His brethren. That's just entirely reasonable. Entirely reasonable. Paul begins
here and he says, I, I beseech you. Now, Paul was a sinner like
you and me. He said over there in 1 Timothy,
he called himself the chief of sinners. He said, I am the chief
of sinners. And that's who God's gonna use
to preach the gospel to us. He's gonna use a sinner like
we are. And that's good because we need somebody who knows he's
not better than me. That's what I need. I need somebody
preaching to me that knows he's not better than I am. so he can
preach to me and get down on my level. Because we're both
sinners, we're both worms and we both know it. You're not going
to be proud and arrogant and use the law on me because he
knows neither one of us can keep it. We're both sinners, we both
need grace. and that's who God's using here.
But at the same time, and this goes to you who preach, and all
of us, it goes to all of us, because we're all witnesses for
Christ, but especially you who preach. Though we're sinners,
don't ever do things sinful so as to put a stumbling block before
those to whom you minister, including those in your own house. There will come a time if you
put a stumbling block before your wife, your children, there
will come a time when that's going to present a problem for
them. They can't hear you. So don't do that. Just don't
do it. Do whatever you got to do to
not put that... Lord said be so zealous against
sin that if your right eye offends you, pluck it out. because you don't want to put
a stumbling block before those that hear you. You don't want
to give them a reason to try to justify themselves using your
sin. You don't want to give them anything
so that they can't hear you. So though this is a sinner saying
this, at the same time, we don't want to sin so as to put a stumbling
block in one another's way. And he says here, I beseech you.
The word means I call you to my side. meekly, lowly, and I
make this appeal to you. And the point I'm making is that's
different than commanding. That's different than that legalistic
spirit that commands and is harsh with a brother or sister. Our
Lord didn't deal with you and me that way. Go over to Romans
chapter 2. Let's look at this. Our Lord
didn't deal with us that way when he called us and brought
us to repentance. Romans 2 and he was talking here to these
Pharisees who were judging Paul gave all that list of sins in
chapter 1 and then he begins chapter 2 by telling them, and
you're no different from them. You're no different from those
Gentiles that you judge. And he says right here, he says
verse 3, Thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them that
would do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape
the judgment of God? I can guarantee you this. And
I'll say this from the first person, so you can say it from
the first person. Anytime I look upon somebody
else and I judge them because I condemn them for their sin
and what they're doing, I can be certain of this, I do the
same thing. And you can too. You might say,
well, I don't commit that sin. I guarantee you, I guarantee
you, you're guilty. Now look here, or do you despise... He's saying, do you know you're
not going to escape the judgment of God? Or do you just despise
the riches of His goodness and His forbearance and His longsuffering,
not knowing that it's the goodness of God that leads thee to repentance? You see that? It's not this commanding
and whipping and driving and forcing But whereby God led us
to repentance, it's His goodness. It's beholding His mercy. That's
what melted our heart and brought us to repentance. You know, when
the Lord said, judge not that you be not judged, for with the
same judgment that you judge, you shall be judged. You know
what he's, one thing he's talking about there? You come at somebody,
somebody is in a fault, they've sinned, you come at them hard,
you come at them harshly, with harsh words and an overbearing
tone, you come at them that way, they're coming back at you that
way. I guarantee it. They're coming back at you the
same way. want to melt a heart, come with
long-suffering and love and mercy. That's how God brought us to
repentance. And then he says, he's writing
this back in Romans 12 now, he's writing this to brethren. This
is for the family of God, those chosen of God, redeemed by Christ
and born of God, regenerated by God who rest in Christ entirely. That's who this is for. Anybody
else that hears this is going to hear it and they're going
to think this is how they can be saved by doing this. This
is not how you can be saved. But the child of God hears this
and breadth and understand this is not how I'm gonna be saved.
This is because I have been saved. This is reasonable because I
have been saved by mercy. Now I wanna look at three things
and I wanna show you first of all the motive and included with
that motive is the way we're gonna be able to do this. And
then secondly, I want to show you here what he says, the exhortation
he says, and then I want to show you what he says not to do. So
first of all, Paul makes this appeal by that which is the only
good and true motive for a believer. Right here he says, I beseech
you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God. I'm beseeching
you based on what God's done for you. What He's done for you. This is just reasonable because
of what He's done for you. And that's the motive from which
we do everything as believers. That's the motive from which
we do anything for God. It's not that we're trying to
get God to do something for us, or we're trying to earn something
from God, or indebt God to us. The motive is his mercy and what
he's done for us, what he's done for us. He says, therefore, by
the mercies of God. So he's referring back to what
he's been dealing with all the way through this book. Now, let
me just give you briefly what he's been talking about here.
He started out there in Romans 1 and he said, I'm not ashamed
of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, I'm a debtor. I'm a debtor to all men to preach
this gospel. Because he saw how God used this
gospel to save him. And he said, therefore, I'm not
ashamed of the gospel of Christ. I'm not ashamed to preach this
gospel. Because it is the power of God unto salvation. He'd experienced
God's mercy in bringing him the gospel and through that gospel
calling him to Christ. You say, well, Christ arrested
him on the road to Emmaus, but didn't he send a man to him?
He did arrest him on the road to Emmaus, but he sent a man
to him. He said, you go over there and you talk to Paul, and
you tell him what great things I've done in choosing him and
showing what he must suffer for my namesake. And he sent a man
to him, and he declared the gospel to him, and Christ called him
using the gospel and when Paul said in Galatians I certify you
to my gospel is not of men I neither received it from a man well brethren
you and I can say the same thing it wasn't a man that revealed
this to me it was God that revealed this to me and he did it by mercy
and so if you've received the mercy of God in sending you the
gospel, isn't it reasonable for you to give yourself wholly with
everything God's given to you so that you can send that gospel
forth to other sinners that need it? It's just reasonable, isn't
it? And he said there in Romans 3,
he told us how we're totally depraved. He said, there's no
flesh that can be justified by the law. There's none righteous,
no not one. There's none that seeketh after
God. We've all gone out of the way. We can't be justified by
the works of the law. By the works of the law is the
knowledge of sin. God gave the law not for us to
do something for God. God gave the law to do something
for us. To teach us that we're sinners. To shut our mouth and
make us see we need Christ. And then what mercy is this? He said the faith, the righteousness
of God is not manifest by our faithfulness. The righteousness
of God is manifest by the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ. You
want to see the righteousness of God? Look to Christ. You want
to see faithfulness and obedience and fidelity, which is true righteousness? Look to Christ. In a moment, I'm going to point
you to Christ, but I'm not just pointing you to Him as an example.
I'm pointing Him to you as an example in how He accomplished
His salvation. It's a big difference. When our
Lord walked this earth, He was faithful to the Father, He obeyed
the Father, and that's the righteousness by which we're saved. He accomplished
it. He said it's grace that God set
Him forth to be the propitiation for our sin, that He might justify
us freely by His grace. He's the mercy seat, brethren.
He's the place where God said, I'll have mercy on you, I'll
meet you in Christ. And when we behold Christ, we
see God just fulfilling His law, doing what's right, so that we
know God will always do right by us. And we see Him, the Justifier,
who did everything necessary to justify worthless sinners
like us. Do you receive that mercy? Has
He shown you Christ? Has He made you behold that He's
justified you and not yourself? Then this will be reasonable
then. This will be reasonable. And
then He showed us over there in Romans 4 how that Abraham
was saved entirely by grace apart from the law. I thought about
this Thursday night while I was preaching, actually. We talked
about how Abraham was saved by the promise of God, by the covenant
of God. And he was called into the body
of Christ, the kingdom of Christ. And he was the first one ever
called. This man was a Gentile. He wasn't a Jew. He was a Gentile,
called out of the Ur of Chaldea. The head of the Jews was a Gentile.
And God made him a Jew by circumcising him in the heart. And he promised
him salvation in Christ the seed. We read this in Galatians 3 and
the Lord said, and the law which came 430 years after God made
that promise, God entered that covenant, the law that came 430
years, that can't change that covenant. It can't disannul it
and it can't add to it at all. If the law, if the promise is
by the law, if salvation is by the law, it's no more of promise. But it's of promise that it might
be by grace, brethren, that it might be to the praise and the
honor and the glory of God. But do you see, before he, when
he said the law that came in 430 years later, they couldn't
change that. That means the law and the nation of Israel and
everything that came with it. That didn't alter what God had
already done in Abraham. And so when all that's taken
out of the way and nailed to Christ's cross, it don't change
anything. He moved it out of the way, now
he's shown you, he's used it, and now he said, now, you're
saved by promise just like Abraham was. How did Abraham establish
the law if he didn't even have the law? Same way you and I do
it, through faith in Christ. That's the only way. That's mercy,
isn't it? That's why at the end of Romans
5, he said, where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Didn't it? Where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound, brethren. That like your sin has reigned
unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto
eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Talk about mercy. And so in Romans 6, we confess
in our baptism that we're raised with Christ to walk in newness
of life. Let's not just confess that with
our mouth. Let's walk it. That's what Paul's
saying here. Let's not just confess it with
our mouth. Let's walk it. Romans 7, we're married to Christ. Our old husband, the law, has
died in that Christ has fulfilled it fully so that, like as a husband
that's died, he has no more influence on his wife anymore. His wife
can be married to another. We can be married to another.
It's just for us to be married to Christ. And so now, just like
a husband produces fruit in his wife, all the fruit that's going
to be produced is by Christ our husband. He's producing it. You
see the mercy in that? What mercy? What mercy? Romans 8, there's therefore now
no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus who walk not
after the flesh but after the spirit. There's no condemnation
anymore, brethren. That means there's nothing we
can do to ever fall under the condemnation of our God. Nothing. You who were chosen by God, you
who were redeemed by Christ, you were born of His Spirit,
there's nothing you can do to come under the condemnation of
God ever, ever. Mercy, mercy. That's why he said there in Romans
11, look here. He said there in Romans 11 in
verse 30. He said, you Gentiles in time
past, you didn't believe God. Now what have you obtained? Mercy. Mercy. He said in verse 31, Even
so have these elect Jews now not believed. Why? That they
might be saved by mercy. What's the conclusion then? God
has concluded us all in unbelief. He shut us all up in unbelief. Why? That He might save us by
mercy. so he gets all the glory. Because
look down at the end there. For of him, verse 36, for of
him and through him and to him be all things to whom be glory
forever. Amen. I beseech you therefore,
brethren, by the mercies of God. And I'll tell you something else
this means. Not only does it mean that that's our motive,
but it also means everything he's going to beseech us to do
here, We're entirely depending upon the mercies of God to do
it. I'm beseeching you to do this by the mercies of God, by
His mercy making you successful in doing it, because otherwise
we won't be. So everything's of mercy, isn't it? Everything's
of God's mercy. And if God's created us anew,
brethren, you understand what I'm saying. You understand what
I'm saying. You already have heard Christ
and you've already, in your heart, been moved to say, this is reasonable. This is reasonable because of
His mercy. Now secondly, here's the response
in his people. Verse 1, I beseech you therefore
brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies
a living sacrifice. Now listen, When we read the
scriptures and we look at it and we say, well, I think that
means this. I think I see what that means.
Generally, what you first think it means is what it means. So
don't try to explain it away. Don't try to spiritualize it
and try to mean something it don't mean. You know what this
means? This means give yourself entirely to Christ. That's what it means. That means
we're to give our bodies, our entire being, our members, everything
we are to Christ entirely. Entirely. A living sacrifice. A complete sacrifice. Now, we're
looking at the mercies of God as our motive, so let's consider
this. What did Christ give to save
us from our sins? What kind of sacrifice did He
make? There came a time Because God the Father and God the Son
entered into covenant before this world was made to save a
people that God had chosen by His grace, there came a time
when God the Father said, it's time now to present your body
a living sacrifice. And the Lord Jesus Christ, who
is God, who didn't owe you anything, He says down there at the end
of that page, he says if your enemy, if you got an enemy and
he's hungry, feed him. If he's thirsty, give him drink.
You know, an enemy is somebody that's treating you evil. He's
speaking mean to you and he's doing mean things to you. What
does he say, do? Don't recompense evil for evil.
Is that what Christ did to us? We cursed His name. We hated
Him. We despised Him with every bit
of our being. We gave ourselves a living sacrifice
to hate Him and despise Him and reject Him. And yet, what'd He
do? He gave Himself a sacrifice to
save us. He came down from Heaven's glory,
this One who is equal with God, He came down to this cursed place
where we dwell. This One who is God, He came
down and made Himself of no reputation and took the form of a servant.
I love that picture we saw in that psalm Thursday night where
you got a king, you know, you just can't picture a king coming
down, taking off his crown, taking off all his royal apparel, making
himself of no reputation and going in amongst his servants
and blending in with them just in the common dress that they
were in and looking just like them. so that he could obey his
own law? So that he could go then and
put himself under the guilt of his own law to be executed by
his own law so that his people could live? There is no earthly
king in this world that would ever do that. That is what Christ
our king did. That is why he is the great king.
That's what he did. The scripture says Christ loved
us and has given himself for us. Don't let that just go over
your head or just in one ear and out the other. You really
think about that. Christ gave himself for us. We're here this morning because
we're gonna observe the Lord's table. And what did he say when
he gave that piece of bread, that broken piece of bread? He
said, this is my body broken for you. When he calls us to give our
bodies a living sacrifice, more than likely, we're not gonna
have to break our bodies for him. Somehow, Some have, some
have been martyred for him. But more than likely, you and
I in this day and time are not going to have our bodies broken
for him. But he broke his body for us. He sure did. He gave his body to be broken
for us. He gave his blood. You go down sometime and you
give blood. You don't give it all. You ever just sit there and say,
well, just keep on pulling it out. Don't stop, because there's
none left. He did. To shed, to die in the room instead
of his people, to answer for our sins and to satisfy justice
and put it away, he shed his blood unto death. And you say, well his wasn't
a living sacrifice. I beg your pardon, it was a living
sacrifice. that what he was suffering on
the cross, I probably sound like a broke record, I've said this
so many times, but what he suffered on the cross was the living death
of hell. Hell is not just, you're going
to be separated from your body and not feel anything anymore
and obliterated, that's not it. Hell's going to be a living hell.
A constant living understanding of everything that you could
have had and knowing you've been separated from it and can never
have it again. You know what the worst pain
there is, is? Is unfulfilled wants. That's the worst pain there is.
To want something so bad and not be able to have it. That's
what hell's gonna be forever. Knowing what you could have had
and you can't have it. And our Lord gave himself on
that cross and he knows more fully than any of us know what
he had with the Father. And God the Father forsook him
on that cross and he couldn't have what he wanted. He couldn't
have communion with the Father. And yet, this one who is perfect,
his sacrifice was a holy sacrifice. He never stopped looking to the
Father. He never stopped looking to the
Father and trusting the mercies of God to justify him. He said, you'll justify me. When
this is all said and done, you'll justify me. He gave himself. And so he says
to you and me, give your life a ransom for many just like he
gave his life a ransom for many. Don't expect to be ministered
to. Christ didn't come to be ministered to. Let us minister. Let us look for reasons to minister
to others rather than look for reasons to be ministered to.
Scripture says, the Son of Man came not to be ministered to,
but to minister, to serve, and to give His life a ransom for
many. And so, the love of Christ constraineth
us, because we thus judge, if one died, then all are dead.
Our old man is crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, we live
that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves,
but unto him which died for them and rose again. You know what?
You know what? donkey in the pasture does, he
lives unto himself. You know what the pig wallowing
in the mud does? He lives unto himself. God's
saying don't be like a brute beast. Don't live unto yourself. If we've been redeemed and called
and given life, God did it. to make us live under him. And
his people do. I'm not saying there's any chance
his people won't. His people do. That's James'
point about faith without works being dead. Where God's given
faith, there's going to be some works of faith. Because it's
God that works them. So there's no possibility they
won't be there. They're going to be there. He says, no you not, your body's
the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have
of God and you're not your own. You're bought with a price, therefore
glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. Is there any believer here that
feels like you've done that? Is there any believer here that
feels like you've done that, like you want to do that? Is there
any believer here that feels like you've done that, like you
ought to do that? Not a one. If you feel like you've done
that, there's a problem. I guarantee you that. But we
want to. And we don't see ourselves as
ever done, because we see all that Christ did for us, so we
don't see ourselves ever having done what we ought to do. A living sacrifice. The pictures of the thank offerings,
the burn offerings, the thank offerings in the Old Testament,
that's what they were. They were dead sacrifices, but
they were brought to thank God for what He had done for them.
That's what the purpose of those were. And he's talking here,
as we read that, we see he's talking about in the house of
the Lord, that is, in dealing with our brethren and sending
the gospel forth. He's talking about sacrificing
whatever we have to sacrifice not to forsake assembling together
in this place. And he's talking about sacrificing
whatever we have to do to send the gospel far and wide into
the world, to have it in this place and send it forth. He's
talking about sacrificing whatever we have to to serve our brethren
in need, whatever any of us have need of. He's talking about using
the gifts that God's given to us in the measure that he's given
them to us to serve Christ and minister to others. That's what
he's talking about. That's why Christ has saved us
and called us and left us here. If there was nothing else for
you to do and nothing else for me to do, Christ would have called
us home. That's what he'll do when he's done with us here and
we've done everything he purposed for us to do, he'll call us home.
But until then, he's left us here not to live unto ourselves,
but to live unto him. To live unto him. You say, well,
I got to work. Yeah, you got to work. We got
to work. But there's a difference between
the way the world works and the way the believer works. The world
is just ambitious for vain glory. To get a name, to get a position,
to get money, to get praise, to get awards, and so on and
so on. The believer is doing what they're
doing to serve Christ and to serve his people. That's it. That's it. So, it's a living
sacrifice. It's a living sacrifice. Alright,
let me read what we just read, or what we just sang from Isaac
Watts. Alas, and did my Savior bleed,
and did my Sovereign die? Would He devote that sacred head
for such a worm as I? He devoted Him, He gave His body
a living sacrifice. So He says, Drops of grief can
ne'er repay the debt of love I owe. It's more than just mourning
and being joyful at what He's done for us and rejoicing in
the doctrine and being thankful in the doctrine. Isaac Watts
said, Here Lord, I give myself away. That's all I can do. That's all I can do. He wrote,
love so amazing, so divine, demands. Doesn't it demand? Don't you
feel that way? This demands my soul, my life, my all. Demands
it. And he says here it's a holy
sacrifice. What's a holy sacrifice? How
can anything we do be holy? To be holy is to be chosen and
set apart and made pure, made holy, made acceptable with God
for God's holy use. Not for common use anymore, for
God's holy use. God the Father sanctified us
and made us holy when He chose us in Christ. He set us apart
from the rest of this world when He chose us in Christ and accepted
us in the beloved. Holy and without blame. Christ
Jesus, the Son of God, perfected forever, one offering He made,
He perfected forever them that are sanctified. He totally set
us apart as a justified people, totally set us apart as a consecrated
people, just for His use only. And the Spirit of God makes us
holy when He regenerates us and brings us to Christ and calls
us out of darkness into light. Makes us no more unfit for an
eternal inheritance, but makes us fit for an eternal inheritance. We're His, we're holy, we're
separated. And just like all the vessels
in the tabernacle, when God said they were holy, He meant don't
take this lamp stand here now and go to take it to your tent
and use it to light your tent. It ain't for that. It's for my
house. To be used in my house. And he's saying here, I've called
you and made you holy for my use, not to be used by this world
and for this world and just like every other sinner that he passed
by in this world. You get what mercy that God has
called us for His holy use. That's what it means when it
says He's made us kings and priests unto God. He's made it so now
we can offer up sacrifices to God. We don't have to have the
old tabernacle. We're the tabernacle. He's built
us up and fitly framed us together. We don't have to come to an earthly
priest anymore. He's made us priests and He's
opened the veil so we can go directly to God. and he's done it so we can offer
up spiritual sacrifices. Spiritual sacrifices. That does
mean things you can't see. That does mean your heart. That
does mean the calves of your lips rather than a literal calf
offering up thanks to God. But there are sometimes things
that can be seen too that are spiritual sacrifices. You know,
doing what you have to do to have a nice place to meet. That's
a spiritual sacrifice. You know, sometimes there are
things you can't see, sometimes there are things you can see.
But what makes them spiritual? Because they're of God the Holy
Spirit working in our heart, Christ producing this fruit in
us so that we're doing it for the motive of love and not anything
else. Not anything else. You are lively
stones built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood offered up
spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God. Why are they accepted?
By Jesus Christ. by Jesus Christ. Brethren, whatever
you and I do in the cause of Christ, from the motive of trying
to serve him and serve his people, in Christ Jesus, God accepts
it. It's not perfect. It's all full of sin and it's
all full of shortcomings. And if we tried to come to God
by it, to gain acceptance, he'd never receive it. But because
it's in Christ, and it's been worked in us by Christ, and it's,
he accepts it. It's acceptable to God. Now,
when we've done all this, brethren, he says, it's just reasonable
service. We're not to get puffed up and
think we've done something. It's just reasonable. Go to Luke
17. Luke 17, he says, which of you,
verse 7, which of you having a servant
plowing or feeding cattle will say unto him by and by when he's
come from the field, go and sit down to meet. Sometimes God changes
your service. Sometimes you're not out in the
field serving and feeding the cattle. Sometimes he gives you
something else to do. That doesn't mean the work's
over. He doesn't say, now, you did that job, so that's good
now, you finished that, now sit down and relax. No, he says,
look, will he not rather say unto him, make ready wherewith
I may sup and gird thyself and serve me till I've eaten and
drunken? And afterward, when all the work is finished, thou
shalt eat and drink. One day we're going to eat and
drink. He said, you're going to sit at my table in my kingdom and
I'm going to serve you. But until that day, we still
serve him. There's still something due for
us. Now look what he says. Does he thank that servant because
he did the things that were commanded him? I think not. So likewise ye, when you shall
have done all those things which are commanded you, say, we are
unprofitable servants. We've done that which was our
duty to do. You ever got stopped by a police
officer and he walked up to the door and said, I want to see
your driver's license and your registration, please. I'm going to award you
$100 because you were doing the speed limit. You ever have that
happen? You just did what you're supposed
to do. That's what he's talking about. Lastly, verse two, be
not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the
renewing of your mind that you may prove what's good and acceptable
and perfect will of God. Paul said if we live in the spirit,
we've been born of the spirit, let us walk in the spirit. Let us not be desirous of vainglory,
wanting to be seen as wise, wanting to be praised for being good
and better and all that, because that just provokes one another,
he said. And that's just envying one another. If we're not continually
walking in the Spirit, now listen carefully to this. If we're not
continually walking in the Spirit, and that means depending upon
the Spirit, that means seeking spiritual things, that means
feeding the inward man with the bread from heaven, then if we're
not doing that, then all we'll see in our day-to-day is the
carnal and the temporal. That's all we'll see in everything
we're doing in our day-to-day. We won't be equipped to deal
with one another, we won't be equipped to deal with the trials
that we're going to face, and we'll begin to conform to this
world without knowing it. Without knowing it. We may begin
doing what we're doing to support the gospel, to help our brethren,
but before long, cares and riches and lusts will deceive us and
we don't know it. To be deceived is to not know
it. The Lord said the cares of this
world, my kids gotta be in a good school, I want them to have nice
clothes, I won't have a decent vehicle,
it's not going to break down out on the highway. Cares. Just cares. And deceitfulness
of riches and the lust of other things.
They enter in and you know what they do? They choke the word. You can't hear it. You have no
desire to hear it. You have no desire to seek the
Lord. You have no desire to read the scripture. And so the word
becomes unfruitful, and we become unfruitful. Love not the world, neither the
things that are in the world. If any man loved the world, the
love of the Father is not in him. All that's in the world,
the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life,
that's not of the Father, that's of the world. and the world passes
away, and the lust thereof. But he that doeth the will of
God shall abide forever. But see, he says, be ye transformed
by the renewing of your mind that you may approve, that you
may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of
God. The problem is when we get in this state of not being spiritual,
not walking in the Spirit, we start feeding the old man. and
the old man gets stronger. And so we're in that state now
and we can't discern what's God's will. We can't approve of it
because we can't even test it and prove it. We don't know what
it is. We become blind. But when we hear Christ exalted,
when we're reading His Word, when we're seeking things above,
when the Spirit's blessing the Word within us so that our new
man's renewed and strengthened, then we discern. Then we approve. We delight in it. That's when
our old man's put off and our new man is strengthened. And then we can look at these
temporal things that happen in our life and the trial that comes
in our life and because we're in the spirit and walking in
the spirit, we can see the spiritual lesson from it while it's happening
and we'll get some benefit from it. Otherwise, there's nothing,
we haven't had any profit to us whatsoever. We're just living
like a beast. And the Lord said, when that
happens, if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you
be not consumed of one another. That's what will result, biting
and devouring one another. This I say then, walk in the
Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Oh, they
go to war against each other. He said, the flesh is going to
lust against the Spirit, and the Spirit is going to lust against
the flesh. These are contrary to one to the other. But he said
the Spirit is stronger and you're not going to be able to do the
things your flesh would do because the Spirit is going to keep them
from doing them. And so Christ said, take no thought
saying what shall we eat, what shall we drink, where shall we
be clothed, all these things the people of the world seek.
Your Heavenly Father knows you have need of those things. You
don't think if we needed something more, you know, we get to wanting
this and oh I got to have it, I need that, If we did, God would
give it to us. But seek ye first, all the time,
preeminently, at all times, the kingdom of God and His righteousness. These other things will be added
to you. They'll be given as you need them. Don't worry about
tomorrow. Don't be anxious. Don't be carried
away with those things. There's enough evil in this day
right here. You need God to get you through this day. So do I.
And so if we're risen with Christ, seek those things above. Seek
Christ above. Set your mind on Christ. We're
dead. Our life's there. That's where
we're going. So set your mind and your heart
on those things. I guarantee you, it'll help us
deal with each other better in every area of our life. My relationship
is your pastor and you sitting here in this pew, our relationship
would be better. Husbands and wives, brothers
and sisters, it'll be better. I guarantee you it'll be better.
Fathers and children, better. Your employee and servants, better. If we're seeking, imagine if
everybody was seeking Christ first all the time and we were
all walking in the spirit. Wouldn't the world, we'd be in
heaven, wouldn't we? That's what he's talking about.
I pray God bless that, amen.