of his presence. We have great confidence that
he will. Because he said he would. He
said he would be here. And we believe and trust and
know he is here. I asked your prayers this morning
on me. We start to move into the practical
application of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I promise you, the more we
look into these practical things, the more we will not see our
success, but our failures. And this truly does bring us
into humility. These exhortations, as we're going to see, are just
reasonable. None of these things are unreasonable. Seeing what
great things, if we keep in light what great things God has done
for us, these things are the reasonable result. of his mercies. But the more I look at them,
the things I'm going to preach today, I find myself struggling. And any honest believer will
tell you that's the truth, that's the constant struggle we face. But it is a necessary one. It
is a necessary one. I pray that God would give us
grace not to just hear these things and be mindful and acknowledge
them, but rather not just think about them, but to do them. And
we confess that even these things that we have to do that are exhorted
to us are... I need the power of God, the
strength of the Spirit to do these things. I can't do these
things on my own. Self-determination is not sufficient. I believe self-determination,
I think it's necessary that we determine to do these things. How often have you determined
to do something and not been able? We're going
to find out that what Paul says at the end of 11, he says all
things are of him. All things are through him. All
things are to Him. And to Him be glory forever and
ever. So if we have any success in
these things, who receives the glory? Who receives the glory? God alone. So ask your prayers for me as
I desire to preach this to you. Pray for yourselves. I pray that
God would give you these words. They are His. They're His. And I pray that He would speak
to you through the message. We want
to remember those who are traveling. Rylan and Emma are traveling
and they'll be gone for a month. We're going to miss them. But
I spoke with Clay Curtis and they're only about 50 minutes
from Clay's church. So I think they're going to be
there this morning, as far as I know. And I'm excited for them. I'm excited for Clay, because
I know it's a joy to have our brethren come from faraway places. So pray for them. Pray for the success
of treatment For Jackson, her son, pray for that. It's good
to see some here that have been sick and going through great
troubles. But God has brought us here.
God did it. God did it. I'm thankful to see
everyone here. Let's go to him in prayer. Our
most gracious Father, we bow again. before your throne. We lift up our hearts with praise
and thanksgiving, Father, for the great and glorious mercies
that you have shed on us abundantly. I know our flesh tends to think
of the things that we have been forbidden to have, the things
that we have not been given. Father, the things we have been
given far exceed the things that have been withheld. If we would
know your love and mercy, we would know that those things
that are withheld from us are for our good. Give us grace to
trust your wisdom, trust your grace, your power, your love. Not as it's displayed in Providence,
but as it is displayed by the giving of your son, the dying
of our Lord. Help us this day to cast all
our care upon you, because you care for us. I beg you this hour, give us
the strength of body and mind May the word go forth in power
and demonstration of your spirit. Open the minds and hearts of
your people today. Open the hearts of this man.
And I should be able by your spirit to preach the word, truth,
and love. We pray for those who are sick,
those who are suffering in the body and mind, that you would
heal them, that you would touch their bodies, give them strength. Those that cannot be here because
of sickness, bring them to us again, please. I plead for mercies, tender mercies. And all of this we ask in the
name of Jesus. because of His blood and righteousness. We plead for these things. We
ask this in Jesus' name and for His sake. Amen. Alright, take
your Bibles and turn back with me to Romans chapter 11. Romans chapter 11. Our text will be found in chapter
12 and verse 1. I'm going to give it a running
start at this again. Let's read our text and then
we'll go back and run up to it. Paul says in chapter 12, verse
1, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
that you present your bodies a living sacrifice holy and acceptable
unto God, which is your reasonable service." Now the Apostle has
come to the end of what we call his doctrinal part. This is the Apostle's usual manner
of writing, is that he extends first the doctrine of God's grace,
of salvation by the grace of God. Then he turns to the application
of that gospel. And this is the point in which
he turns. He comes now to the pinnacle of the doctrine of God's
grace. He comes to the height of human
understanding and he exclaims all the depth of the wisdom and
knowledge of God. How unsearchable. are His judgments
and His ways past finding out. He's come to the end of all human
abilities. He's before stated that the salvation
of God is by the eternal purpose of God. This thing, we have salvation
by the eternal purpose of God, by divine wisdom. He chose a people that He would
save. And by divine wisdom, Jesus Christ
has come and accomplished that salvation. By His dying on the cross, what
no man would have thought, yet the wisdom of God purposed. This
is the way. By the death of His Son, He would
accomplish redemption. By the wisdom of God, He purposed
our conversion. that at the appointed time of
grace, the Spirit of God came to us. We were not looking for
Him. We were not searching for Him.
We did not know Him. But He, in wisdom, came to us
and revealed what? Wisdom. He gave us wisdom. And
what's that wisdom? The wisdom is Christ. We see
Christ as the wisdom of God. How God can be just and justify
the ungodly, we know. that Christ is that wisdom. He's
that answer. And gave us the gift of faith
by which we received Christ. And so, now we say, oh the depth
of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His
ways? Did you search them out? Did
you find them out? Judgments are past finding out.
And we know this according to the apostles doctrine that we're
not alone. We're not alone. God has an elect
people. And He has purposed the very
means by which He would call His elect people. And we know
that the only means, the only means by which God uses to save
His people is the preaching of the gospel. What men of the world
called foolishness, we know something different. We know it is the
power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. And we know this, it is by the
mercy of God's people that God extends mercy to the rest of
His people that have not yet come. That's what He talks about
in the Jews. He says, you know, to the Gentiles,
He says, I know that the Gentiles, the Jews have been cast off and
you've been brought in. But this is God's intent, that
through your mercy they may obtain what? Mercy. And so this is what
happens is that believers obtain mercy, we become what? Merciful. We desire that others
obtain this same mercy. And how do we do that? By preaching. Declaring the gospel of Jesus
Christ. And I'm thankful for this. That
we're not alone. That there are yet others that
must come in. We're not all. There are others. Now how do I know there are others?
Well, Christ has not come back yet. When they're all brought
in, that's when He's coming. But as of yet, there are more. I know that because He's not
come. And Paul concludes this by, you know, knowing this, all
Israel is going to be saved. Every one that the Father chose,
Everyone that the son died for every one of them the spirit
of God will come to them and They will be saved How do
I know it because Jesus himself said that of all that the father
giveth me I shall lose? Nothing now how many will he
lose tell me is there any that he will lose I? He tells us in John 10 that all
his sheep, he said, I know my sheep and have known of mine
and they hear my voice and they follow me and I give unto them
eternal life and no man is able to pluck them out of my hand.
Well, who's going to pluck them out of his hand? I like that hymn, who shall stand
in thy presence and match omnipotence? pluck the sinner from thy right
hand." Who's going to do that? Who matches omnipotence? Who's
going to be able to separate us from the love of God that's
in Christ Jesus? Paul said, nobody. I'm persuaded,
nobody and nothing. Oh, the depths of the wisdom
and knowledge of God. Behold, all the elect. We know
this, that all the elect are by nature unbelief we just read
that in chapter 11 and verse 32 God had concluded all his
elect in what unbelief in that where you were you were concluded
this in unbelief for this purpose that through that he might have
mercy upon all that he might have mercy upon all. And so by this we clearly see
the whole purpose of God, even in the fall of man, is the glory
of God. The glory of God. How else would
God be able to display His hatred for sin had there not been a
fall? The fall was to show the holiness
of God. The fall was to show the glory
of God in saving sinners and showing mercy. And so God had purposed to show
mercy, even to us who are worthy of death. So, as we start into this practical
thing, the apostle says this, I beseech you, I beg you, you
that believe, brethren, You that have obtained the mercy of God,
you who were chosen of God, you who were redeemed of Christ,
you who are called to the Holy Spirit, you that have obtained
mercy, listen to me, you brethren, listen, I beg you because of
the mercies of God, present your bodies a living
sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto the Lord, which is your
reasonable service. Oh, the depths of the wisdom
of God in giving us life and faith to believe. And so what do we say? We say
with Paul, all things, look at that in the last verse of chapter
11, he says this, all things are of him. Is this true? You
believe that? that all things are of Him. All things that happen in time
and eternity are of Him. I know that's true. I know Him. He is sovereign, but especially
in this matter of election. All things are of Him. I was
chosen of Him. He was not chosen of me. I was
chosen of Him. He purposed my salvation, my
calling, and my eternal joy. All things are through Him. I
know my salvation is completely through the work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Completely. Absolutely. 100%.
All my righteousness, all my wisdom, all my sanctification,
all my redemption are through Him. That's it. He's all my salvation. And listen,
all things are to Him. All glory and praise and honor
for my salvation belongs completely and absolutely to God. You that
believe, is that not true with you? Do you not believe that?
Do you not see that, that all the glory belongs to Him? That
you get absolutely no glory for that, whatsoever. You know what,
I'm happy about that. I am totally, I'm content with
that. That He is all my salvation,
to whom be glory forever and ever and ever be glory. If you read Ephesians chapter
1, You read that every part of salvation is for this purpose,
to the praise of the glory of His grace. Read that. He said
He chose us to the praise of the glory of His grace. We were
redeemed to the praise of the glory of His grace. We were called
according to the praise of the glory of His grace. And we are
going to be received into heaven, and what are we going to do there?
We are going to praise the glory of His grace. That's what we'll
do. Someone was talking to me about,
a lady was talking about heaven, and she just can't wait to get
there, and she can't wait to see her mom, and talk to her
mom, and you know, it's like they want to go fishing with
their grandpa when they get to heaven. Or that they want to
visit with their relatives that had passed, and talk about what
they did back here on earth. That's not what's going to happen
in heaven. That's not what's going to take place there. If
that's what you think heaven is, you're not going to be happy
there. Because heaven is a constant,
continual worship of the Lord Jesus Christ, constantly. He
is the center of heaven. And everyone there, only, daily,
constantly, forever, praises the glory of His grace. That's
what we'll do. We'll do it without ever getting
tired. Without ever having any thought that would interrupt
our worship. That's heaven. You know what would be hell for
the believer? Is not to have Him. I thought that is the worst thing
about hell. Is it not being able to have
Him, to have Christ? Christ is all. Christ is all
our hope, all our salvation. To Him be glory forever and ever. Now, go to your text. Come to
the pinnacle of this, the glories of God, the salvations of God.
Now, Paul says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies
of God. From this point on, the apostle
is going to give us many exhortations as to conduct, our conduct in
this world, how the believer is to live in this world. And
so, as I go through this, I'm going to be referring to this
because this is the motive by which everything we do, every
Responsibility and duty of the believer in this life is motivated
by the mercies of God. We do not do this for acceptance.
We do not do this so that we might be, you know, people do
things and they say, well I want to get closer to God. And so
they think that doing these things makes them closer. Or makes them
more acceptable to God. Now listen, your feelings are,
they vary. I mean, let the slightest wind
blow and you'll feel like you're so far from God that you don't
even know Him. And then other times you'll feel
like you are so close that you can't get nearer. But really,
what does your feelings have to do with your nearness to God? If you're in Christ, how much
nearer can you be? These things will not make you
nearer to God. They may make you feel better,
But truly, if you understand that you are saved by the mercies
of God, all of these things He tells us to do are just reasonable. They're not intended as to be
laws. Well, you're saved by grace,
now I'm going to put you back under a law. No. No, these are
things that are done out of love. Not out of legalistic bondage. And so that's what I want you
to get from this is that the mercies of God are the foundation
of all that we do in service to God. Paul says because of
the mercies of God. What do you do? Present your
bodies a living sacrifice. Now that's I got off my notes,
I just wanted to make sure you understand that this is the foundation
of all that he says following this. And I want to start by asking
a question, how rich are his mercies? How rich are his mercies? Not only has he given mercies
in the past, and he has. But consider His mercies daily. How many mercies does He give
us daily? Perpetual mercies, continual
mercies. How about forgiveness? How rich
is that mercy? Not just forgiveness in the past,
but constant, perpetual forgiveness. How many sins have you committed
that you didn't even know you committed and can't confess because
you didn't know it? And yet what? Mercy. Forgiveness. Constant. I like
that, He cleanseth us. That means He did cleanse, He
is cleansing, and He's going to cleanse us. From what? All
our sins. That's mercy, isn't it? It's
continual mercy, perpetual mercy. Think about His perpetual mercy
of help. Scripture says He is a present
help. I'm glad He helped me before,
but you know what I need now? I need a present help. I need
help now. And then when He helps me now,
you know what I need? I need help now. And this is
the mercies. They're perpetual. They're constant. And so Paul is reminding us by
the mercies of God. Cast all your care upon Him.
You got care? Anybody care? You got worries? You got troubles? Listen to this
mercy. Put them on Him. Why? He careth for you. He careth
for you. So now we consider His mercy. But what do such mercies produce? When we contemplate the mercies
of God, the mercies of the giving of His Son, the mercies of His
Spirit, the mercies of His constant presence, when you renew your
mind constantly concerning these things, what does that produce? When we think of the mercy of
God in salvation, by free and unmerited favor, does this promote
wickedness? Does it promote sin? Does it
cause us to desire to serve God less? Are we who are saved by grace,
by the mercy of God, moved to sin more? Because that's what
religion tells you. If you believe salvation is by
grace, completely 100% by the grace of God, then you're promoting
sin. Now listen, that is exactly what
free will religion tells me. They said, man, if I preach that,
my congregation would go off and just, you know, sin like
the devil. They say, man, if you're free
from the law, if you don't teach people that they're under the
law, these people are going to go out and commit all kinds of
wickedness. So does being free from the law
by the righteousness and death of Christ promote wickedness?
Is that what we're doing? Go to Romans 5. Now the apostle
handled this, and I don't want to re-go over this completely,
but You know, the answer of the apostle is what? God forbid. Look at that in chapter 6 and
verse 1. What shall we say then? Shall
we continue in sin that grace may abound? Because where grace,
where sin abounded, listen, grace did much more abound. So the question is going to be,
shall we sin more that grace may abound more? Is that how
you feel, believers? When you think of the mercies
of God, and what God has done for you, does that move you to
go and commit evil? Seeing we are free from the guilt
of sin and the power of sin. What does that mean, power of
sin? You're free from the power of sin. Does that mean that you're
not going to sin anymore? You've got so much power over
sin that you could just, at your will, just not sin. That's not
what it means. It means you're free from the
power of sin which was death. The power sin had over you was
death. You know what? You're free from
that. You're no longer under sin's penalty. Therefore, you're
no longer under its condemning power. That's what he's saying. Seeing we have a new nature. You that believe, you have a
new nature that cannot sin. This is what it is to be born
again of the Spirit of God. It is to be given a new heart,
or a new nature, which includes a new mind, a new heart, a new
will, a new desire, and this nature is without sin. Now, how do I know that? Well,
1 John chapter 5, John tells us this. 1 John chapter 5, And verse 18,
it says, We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not. But he that is begotten of God
keepeth himself, and the wicked one toucheth him not. Now, is
that your experience? Do you feel like that's your
experience? That you don't sin anymore? What in the world is
John talking about? He tells us in the first chapter,
he says, if we sin, we have an advocate. When you sin, confess
your sins. And he is faithful and just to
forgive us. So what is he talking about? He's the same thing as
Paul is talking about. We are now children of two natures.
We are now children of a child of Adam by nature. We have the
flesh. But now then we have been given
a new nature that cannot sin. Whosoever is born of God, what? Sinneth not. And this is the point of the
text. It is because of God's mercies, it is because of God's
mercies, we who were slaves to sin are now servants of God. Because of the new nature we
have been given, that nature is constantly, perpetually desirous
only to serve the living God. Are you a believer in Christ? If you're a believer in Christ
by the grace of God, by the mercies of God, how then should you conduct
yourself? Seeing you have a new nature
that desires to serve God, how will the believer conduct himself?
Will he see he's saved by grace and be moved to wickedness? No. That's not the desire of one
who believes in Christ. Because of the mercies of God,
because of the great mercies of God, because of His great
love, His great power and grace, because of His great offering
for our sins, and because He lives in us, because we are made
free from the guilt and power of sin, what then do we owe Him? You that believe, what do you
owe Him? Do we not owe everything to Him? The truth is we owe everything
to Him. When we were saved, surely by grace we gave Him our hearts.
Surely by grace, when we believed on Him, All of our heart was
set to love and serve Him. Our hearts were set to praise
Him alone. Our minds, when we believed by
the grace and mercy of God, when we believed, we learned the Gospel in our
minds. We received it. We heard it. We with our hearts received it,
and with our minds, it occupies our mind, doesn't it? The Gospel
of Christ occupies our mind daily, constantly. And so in our minds, we set out
to know Him. I like that when the Apostle
Paul said this, that I might know Him. You know, that's really
comforting to me. If anybody knew Him, Paul knew
Him, and yet Paul said, you know what, I want to know Him. Paul said, I've not yet attained.
Well, neither have I. I want to know Him. I want to
learn of Him. I want to know more of His love,
more of His grace. The Apostle in 2 Corinthians
10 said, take every thought captive. every thought captive. To what? The truth of God's Word. Now
when he's talking about that, he's not talking about taking
the thought of adultery captive, or taking the thought of this
sin captive. Surely those thoughts must be
put down. There's no doubt about it. What
he's talking about is the Word of God, the truth of God's Word. When anything in opposition stands
to our mind against the Word of God, take that captive and
throw it away. Catch it down. How do you do
that? You can only do that by the Word of God. So we're giving
our hearts to God. We give our minds to the service
of God. Look at that text. Go back. And
I want you to see that it's not just your heart and mind that
must be given. The Apostle says, by the mercies
of God present your, not your mind and heart, that surely is
there. We do present our minds and our
hearts. But he says what? Your bodies. Your bodies. Not only do we submit
the inward parts, but also the outward parts. The outward parts. Now we know that many false professors
took this to extremes. When they said, prevent your
bodies of living sacrifice, what they did is in order to keep
from sin, they'd whip themselves. They'd say, I'm presenting my
body, and he'd just take a whip and beat himself, and thinking
that could keep him from sin. He took it to the extreme to
keep them from adultery or stealing, but listen, if they had not yet been
born again in the Spirit of God, all those sacrifices they made
against their body is not going to help. And we know that the
heart and soul are necessarily for salvation. We must believe
with the heart. We must understand the gospel
in the mind. But more than that, we must also
give our bodies to the service of Christ. Our bodies. Our life. Our life. There are many who profess to
be a subject of Christ. And they say, why? I believe
in my heart. I acknowledge the gospel with
my mind. You just watch them. What do they do with their bodies? They profess to believe in their
heart, but they spend their, they use their own selves, their
bodies for the pleasures of the world. The pleasures of the flesh. I'm not talking about just evil
pleasures. I'm talking about good pleasures.
They give themselves to their work, they give themselves to
their families, they give their bodies to all of these other
things and they say, yeah, with their mind and heart they're
worshipping God. You can't separate your heart and mind from your
body, can you? These are men who would say,
let us sin, grace. may abound. But see, God requires
for the believer not just the surrender of his
heart and mind, but also his body. Now why? Because Christ
bought you body, soul, and spirit. You that believe, you are completely
owned by the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know what? Because of
the mercies of God, you're happy about it. This is not a horrible
thing. To the lost man, that's a horrible
thing. You mean I've got to surrender
everything? To the believer, what are you
actually surrendering? That's not His already. He's
bought us. Body, soul and spirit. Let us
who are believers never forget that are outward actions and
deeds in the body, though they're not of any merit. When we offer ourselves to God,
we who believe do not add that to the merit of Christ in any
way. If I offer my body and become
a martyr for the things of Christ, That simply adds nothing to my
righteousness. It adds nothing to my redemption.
It adds nothing to the work of Jesus Christ. Nothing whatsoever.
But even though it doesn't add to the things of Christ, yet
we, by our outward actions, our outward actions are of great
importance to the believer's life and service to God. They're
important. They're not unimportant. The Apostle here exhorts us to
not just present our bodies as a token. Now that's one thing
you can do. You can say, OK, I'll present
my body to Jesus Christ and then do nothing. It's a token. It's a token offering. It doesn't really have any meaning
or value. So when we're talking about presenting
our bodies a living sacrifice. And that doesn't have anything
to do with us, you know, like false religion, they got people
blowing themselves up for God. They say, look, I'm presenting
my body as sacrifice, and they blow themselves up. That's not
what he's talking about. What he's talking about is this,
presenting your bodies, let's say this word, a living sacrifice. That means this, of the mercies
of God, every believer is to present all his whole self to
the service of God daily. This sacrifice is not a one-time
deal. It is a constant sacrifice, a
constant perpetual sacrifice. And again, this is where false
religion gets it wrong, is that they take these things and then
they try to add them to the work of Christ. That's blasphemy. Why? Because Christ has perfected
forever them that are sanctified. I was perfected long before I
was ever perfected. Long before I ever experienced
it, Christ perfected us. So all my works do not add anything
to Christ. But I'll tell you this, when
God comes to the sinner, there is surely something that changes
inside the sinner, inside the person that believes. Go to Titus
chapter 2. Look at verse 14. Let's go to
verse 13. He says, Looking for that blessed
hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus
Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from
all iniquity and purify unto Himself a peculiar people. Now
that's the mercies of God, isn't it? The mercies of God are in
view. Christ gave Himself for us. Now you keep that in view. Why? He gave himself for us to
redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar
people. Now notice the character of these
people. Look at this. Zealous for what? Good works. When God creates in us a new
nature, God's people are zealous for the service of God. We want
to serve. We want to daily consecrate ourselves
unto God. We are to offer this daily, constantly,
as a living sacrifice. devoted completely to the service
of God in every aspect of our life, for we are the temple of
God. Do you understand that? Paul
says this to us in 1 Corinthians 6 and verse 19. He says this,
you are, not you're going to be, not you
were, you are the temple of God. That means God resides in every
believer. By the Holy Spirit, God resides
in every believer. You are the temple of God. Therefore, we are to continually
cease from sin. Do you need that exhortation? Because I do. Why? Because I still have the old
nature of sin. I told you that God gave you
a new nature, and that nature desires to serve God, but there
is another nature pulling in the opposite direction constantly. Why do you think it's called
a sacrifice? Because it's necessary that you
sacrifice the flesh. It's necessary that you put off
the flesh. Now how often do you have to
do this? Let me just ask you this, when
you sat down here this morning, how often have you tried to put
off the flesh? This is part of presenting our
bodies a living sacrifice, that we are to serve God in every
capacity. And even though the flesh is
pulling in the opposite direction, it is the inward struggle constantly. The flesh lusteth against the
spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these two are
contrary one to another. You would present your bodies
constantly an offering, a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to
God. But what happens over here? pulling you in the opposite direction.
No, don't do that. Oh, that's too much. Don't be
too radical with this. I remember Don Fortner telling
a story about his conversion, and he had a friend, an older
man that he hung out with, and this guy, he consented to every
wicked thing that Don would do. Every wicked thing, he'd just,
oh, that's awesome, that's great, that's wonderful. When the Lord
saved Don, the only time this man ever gave him caution, he
said, man, I'm just going to give you one bit of advice, don't
take that too far. Now sin, he can take it as far
as he wants to, but this matter of serving Christ, he said, don't
take that too far. You know what Paul says, take
it to the extreme. Whatever God demands of you,
give it. Now why? Because of the mercies
of God. That's why you do it. Because of what He has given
you. Because of His mercies. We are
to give our bodies a living sacrifice. I'm fully aware that in my flesh
dwells no good thing. I'm fully aware of that. When I would do good, when I
would present my body a living sacrifice, what's there? Evil is present with me. And
how to do that which is good, I find not. Oh, wretched man that I am! Who is going to deliver me from
this rotting corpse? I would serve Him all the day
long, and yet I find the impossibility of it. Are we to give up? Are we to
cease? I know that's the temptation,
isn't it? Because of the struggle? Because of what God is saying,
give me everything? And the flesh is denying it constantly? We want to just say, what's the
purpose? Here's the reason why you should
do it. Because what we are giving unto God is holy and acceptable. I do not feel this in any measure
that my preaching is acceptable. But it is. It is. I do not dare claim that my love
to you is not without sin, because it's full of sin. And yet, It
is holy and acceptable. Now what makes your good works
holy and acceptable? Is it the work itself? Is it
you? It was because of the mercies
of God in Christ that it's acceptable. Because of this, you are in union
with Christ. That's why the offering of your
body is holy. and acceptable unto God. It's
holy and acceptable unto God. And so what is the exhortation
then constantly? Put off the old man and his deeds.
And when you put off the old man and his deeds, listen to
this, put on the new man. How do you do that? Well, how did you do it at the
beginning? Wasn't it by faith that you put off the old man
and put on the new? So how are we to live? How am
I to offer my body a living sacrifice? By faith. Constantly by faith
in what? The mercies of God. The mercies
of God. So we should daily, constantly
put off the deeds of this body. Surely, and listen, This is your
reasonable service. Now let me ask you this. If you
understand the mercies of God, isn't this presenting your body
reasonable? Isn't putting off lying reasonable? It's reasonable. Isn't putting
off hatred and loving just reasonable? Isn't putting off pride and abasing
yourself just reasonable? Isn't putting off the world and
setting your affections on Christ reasonable? Paul says, it is your reasonable
service. Isn't forgiveness of brethren
reasonable? I have encountered a lot of believers
having difficulty with this one and I don't, if you would look
at the mercies of God, you shouldn't have any problem with this at
all. Our Lord says, forgive, listen to how you forgive each
other, even as God, for Christ's sake, forgave you. Now how freely
was that? Matter of fact, that forgiveness
was preemptive. You were forgiven before you
actually committed the crime. Isn't it reasonable for us to
forgive one another the same way? I've had brethren that have hurt
other believers, they've hurt their feelings, they've really
damaged them, they've said evil things, and they've hurt their
reputation, and all this other stuff. And then they say, well,
man, I'm not going to allow them back in this church unless they
repent. In other words, unless they repent
to me. Is that reasonable? No. Because of the mercies of God,
how reasonable is it for you to forgive Him? And not only
forgive Him, preemptively forgive Him without any condition. Isn't this reasonable? Isn't it reasonable to forsake
the world to serve God? Let's just use the worship of
God as an example. This morning, you have desired
to be here to worship God, to hear His gospel. But that's just reasonable. If
you love Christ, if you love his gospel, then attending his
worship is just reasonable. It's just reasonable. And yet
I'm telling you, there are many in this day that don't believe
it's reasonable. Look at this in Hebrews. Hebrews
chapter 10. Go to Hebrews chapter 10. And this is again, just an illustration
of offering our bodies. I hear people say this. Well,
I was with you in mind and spirit. Wait, where was your body? I
can't see your mind and spirit. But I can see your body. Look
what Paul says about worship. He says in verse 23 of chapter
10, Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering,
for He is faithful that is promised. Behold the mercies of God. He
is faithful, constant, perpetually faithful. And, not only consider him, and
let us consider one another, to provoke one another to love
and good works. Isn't that reasonable, that we
should try to provoke one another, that we should encourage one
another, to what? Giving our bodies as a living
sacrifice, holding acceptable unto God, just reasonable service.
You and I shouldn't provoke this in one another. Notice how he
says it. How do we do that? Verse 25. How do you provoke one another
to love and service? Not forsaking the assembling
of yourselves together as the manner of some How can you provoke one another
to love when you're never there? Is that possible? And yet what? Because of this or because of
that? We say, well, you know, how is that presenting your body
a living sacrifice? I know people that won't move
to where the gospel is. They love it. They love to hear
the gospel. Many people are listening. They
love to hear the gospel. I don't doubt their sincerity
to love to hear the gospel. But obviously they don't love
it enough to move where it is. They don't want to sacrifice
what they would have to sacrifice to provoke the brethren to love. Now wouldn't that just be reasonable?
to give up the things of the world in order to encourage those
who are faithful. Wouldn't that be just reasonable? So presenting our bodies as a
sacrifice is very practical. It's very practical. But it's
not just an assent. It's not just a token speech.
This is something because of the mercies of God. And I'll
tell you, If you do it for any other reason, you won't last. If you forgive for some other
reason than the mercies of God, if you love for some other reason
than the mercies of God, if you present your bodies a sacrifice
in any measure other than the mercies of God, it will only
gender self-righteousness and pride. It will only gender sin. But we do it because of the mercies
of God. We present our bodies, ourselves,
lock, stock, and barrel, all of us. Everything we have, everything
we are, to what? As a sacrifice. Not for sin,
but because of Christ. We present our bodies a living
sacrifice. And listen, it's acceptable.
I mean, your worship this morning is acceptable to God because
of Christ, isn't it? It's acceptable. So don't be
discouraged because you can't achieve what you know to be the
perfection of it. I want to have that. And we strive
for that. But yet, when we fall short,
we should, by faith, understand it's acceptable. It's acceptable
because Christ made it so. I ask your prayers for the next
few weeks or months as we enter into these things because we're
going to get down to more specifics. Paul's going to get down to some
specific things. And you're going to find out
that all of these things we do are because of the mercies of
God. I pray God will bless this to
our hearts and cause us to constantly present ourselves before Him
as servants in everything we do in all our life. It's just reasonable. Isn't it? Is it reasonable? It is. Let's stand and be dismissed
in prayer. Our Holy Father, thank you for
this time that you've given us. I pray that you'd bless the message.
I beg you to pour it out by your spirit. Help us, Father, to do these
things, to present our bodies, our minds,
our souls, our hearts, and all we have for the honor and glory
of Christ, because of Your great mercies. I ask you to do this
in Jesus' name. I think you're an exceptional
preacher. Oh yeah, you guys are deceived. Oh, I love you. So glad to see
you.