I want to thank Brother Don and
Sister Shelby and this congregation for all that you've done in hosting
this conference. Brother Don has set an example
for me and for all pastors of being a faithful pastor, of what
it is to be not slothful in business, to be fervent in spirit serving
the Lord. Sister Shelby has been an example
of what it is to wait on your ministering. To minister where
God has put you in his body. And she's been a good example
to every pastor's wife of what it is to be a faithful pastor's
wife. in this congregation. You've been an example of what
it is to be given to hospitality, to love your brethren, to serve
in the cause of Christ. And you've been an example to
our congregation and to every congregation represented here.
And I think I speak for everybody when I say we Sincerely thank
you. We do thank you. I ask you brethren
to pray for me as I try to preach this message. I do not take lightly
preaching last at this conference. I have been asking God to give
me a word for you that would be a good ending to this conference. A word that would give us some
good solid direction after everything we've heard of God's mercies
this week that would send us home and send us back to our
congregations with some good solid direction. And after hearing of all these
mercies of God, that's my prayer is that he would plant this word
in our hearts and so we depart refreshed and strengthened and
full of zeal to serve our God. So I want to preach to you this
morning from Romans 12, chapter 1, and verse 2. I mean, Romans
12, verse 1 and verse 2. 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. And be not conformed
to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,
that you may prove, discern, approve, rejoice in what is that
good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And let me read just a little
bit more to show you. He's talking about in God's house,
whose house we are. He's talking about in the cause
of Christ. He's talking about as we send
forth the gospel and provide for one another, all the things
that need to be done as the church of God. He says, for I say through
the grace given unto me, to every man that's among you, Not to
think more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly. To think more highly than we
ought to think is to be drunk, be drunk with pride. But to be
sober, to think lowly, to think on low
things, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure
of faith, knowing it's God who's given us the measure. For as we have many members in
one body, and all members have not the same office. There's
what he's talking about, not thinking too highly of this office
or that office, or exalting one brother over another brother,
or ourselves over another brother, or our office and gifts over
another. He says we For many members in
one body, all members have not the same office, so we being
many are one body in Christ, every one members one of another. Having then gifts differing according
to the grace that's given to us, whether prophecy, let us
preach according to the proportion of faith, or ministry, God gives
some people gifts to minister to others, let us wait on our
ministering. Are he that teacheth? on teaching,
some of the older ladies teach the younger women and the younger
ladies and the older men are able to teach the younger men
and such as that. He says, or he that exhorteth
on exhortation, he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity,
he that ruleth with diligence, he that showeth mercy with cheerfulness,
let love be without hypocrisy. Let it be without dissimulation.
Abhor that which is evil and cleave, cleave to that which
is good. Be kindly affection one to another
with brotherly love. In honor, preferring one another. Preferring one another's honor
over our own honor. Not slothful in business. And
this business is what he's talking about right here at the end of
this verse. Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the
Lord. That's the business he's talking
about. Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant
in prayer, distributing to the necessity of saints, giving to
hospitality, bless them which persecute you, bless and curse
not. Rejoice with them that do rejoice,
and weep with them that weep. Be of the same mind one toward
another. Mind not high things, but condescend
to men of low estate. Or as the margin says, be contented
with mean things, with lowly things. Be not wise in your own conceits,
Be not wise in our own eyes, that's what he's saying. Don't think ourselves wiser. And you can read on the rest
there. I'm just gonna stop there, but I wanna focus mainly on verses
one and two. After hearing this week of all
these saving mercies of our God, that's what we've heard, the
saving mercies of our God, nothing is more reasonable for sinful
wretches like you and me. Nothing is more reasonable than
for us to present our bodies a living sacrifice to God. Now
notice here, it begins with the word I. Now who is our heavenly
father using to beseech us to do this? Who's he using here?
He's using the same man who said This is a faithful saying. Jesus
Christ is worthy of all acceptation. Jesus Christ came into the world
to save sinners of whom I am chief. That's who's saying this. Carnal man might hear this and
say, well, who are you to say this to me? You're a sinner.
It's you that are spiritual will hear this and say, who better
for God to use to exhort me to this than a sinner like me. Who better for God to use than
somebody who knows that in my flesh dwells no good thing? And
yet, who knows at the same time, you're complete in Christ. And he says there, I beseech
you. I call you to my side. I make this appeal to you. He
doesn't threaten, he doesn't use scare tactics. He says, I
beseech you. It's the goodness of God that
leads sinners to repentance. If God was to mark our iniquities,
there's not any of us that could stand before him. But there's
forgiveness with God that he might be feared. It's the goodness
of God that leads to repentance. I beseech you. And who's the
you to whom he speaks here? He says, brethren. Brethren. Now, if you're just finding yourself
believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, I say to you, cast all your care
on him. Come to him asking mercy, begging
mercy, and you will find mercy. He will save you. He will receive
you. and you will find mercy. And
confess him before men and believers' baptism, and unite with his people
under the gospel, and give yourself entirely to live for Christ. So this is for the family of
God. This is for you that have been born of God, you that are
brothers and sisters in Christ, children of God, you that have
experienced mercy. I just want to show you three
things here from this. First of all, how does Paul make
this appeal to us? How does he make this appeal
to us? He does it by the great motive. He does it by the great
constraint, right here. I beseech you, therefore, brethren,
by the mercies of God. By the mercies of God. With God,
Motive is the important thing. The motive of the heart is the
important thing. If you had two people do the
exact same thing and one has the motive in his heart of trying
to make God accept him and to earn acceptance with God. God
sees the heart and God will reject that. You have another person
does the exact same thing, but his motive is he sees what great,
great mercies God has shown him and how it's by mercy alone that
he's been saved, that he's been robed in Christ's righteousness
and he's accepted of God. And he does what he does out
of a heart of gratitude and thankfulness because he wants to do something
for God that loved himself. God sees that heart and he rejoices
and delights in it. Motive is everything. And so
Paul says, for this great motive, I beseech you therefore, brethren,
by the mercies of God. And we could go through Romans,
we could review everything Paul wrote up to this point, but Paul
sums it up in the last few verses of Romans 11. Back up in verse
32, he says, God hath concluded them all in unbelief. Just before this, he said, you
who are Gentiles, you who are God's elect Gentiles, you were
sometimes in unbelief, but God had mercy on you. And he said,
now these elect Jews are in unbelief, God's gonna have mercy on them.
And he says, God has concluded them all. He's saying, God's
concluded you and me, us all, all God's elect in unbelief. He shut us up in unbelief, why? That he might save us all by
mercy. that he might have mercy on all.
And he says at the end there in verse 36, for of him, the
source of all mercy, and through him, the worker and the one who
applies all mercy, and to him are all things to whom be glory
forever, amen. That's the reason God saved for
mercy, so we give him all the glory and all the praise for
his mercy. And so he says, I beseech you
therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God. We've heard the mercies
of God this week. I tried to just jot down a simple
statement about each message I heard. We started out and we
heard about God's saving mercies in sending forth the Lord Jesus,
his son, who ran the race set before him. He endured the shame,
of the cross, he adored the cross, despising the shame, he endured
the contradiction of sinners against himself, and by running
that race as the representative head of his people, he's the
author and the finisher of faith. We saw Psalm 115.1, not unto
us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory for
thy mercy and for thy truth's sake. We saw God's mercy in giving
us that rare and precious gift of unity with brethren. Don't you love the fact that
you have brothers and sisters in this world? Brothers and sisters
in whom Christ dwells that are so one with Christ that he says,
what you do to them, you've done to me. Unity with brethren. And then we saw his mercy in
bearing our sins and bearing the the being wounded for our
sin, being wounded for our transgressions, and the great mercy of knowing
that with his stripes, we're healed. We're healed. Completely, totally healed. And then we saw the mercy in
him making us a new creation so that we glory only in the
Lord Jesus Christ. We've been brought to know that
the world in Christ crucified, the world's crucified to us and
we're crucified to the world. We're his new creation. Brother
Gene just preached to us the mercies of God who teaches us
not to glory in our wisdom, not to glory in our might, not to
glory in our riches. We have nothing to glory in.
The glory that you know the Lord. Glory that you know him who does
everything right in this world, who's saving his people and will
not lose one. It's his mercies that were not
consumed, brethren. We're saved by his mercy. His
compassions fail not. And so Paul says to us now, brethren,
if God's created us anew, if this thing is more than just
a system of theology to us, if he's put his love in our hearts,
and made us to behold what sinners we are and what great, great,
great mercy by which he saved us. He says, let this be your
motive. Let this be our motive in everything
we do, brethren, that we've been saved by mercy. Mercy. And he's not through showering
us with mercy. They're going to keep coming
till the end. Well, that's the appeal, that's the motive, mercy.
And then secondly, look here, the reasonable response. This
is a reasonable response. He says, verse one, 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. He calls each of us who believe,
each of us who have been saved by mercy, he calls each of us
to make a complete and total sacrifice to God. He says our
bodies, present our bodies. Now this is not presenting them
to men or presenting them to the world, it's presenting them
to God. Our bodies, it means our entire
being, it means our bodily members, it means our soul, our spirit,
our heart, our mind, everything about us, entirely completely
lock, stock, and barrel. Now, is that reasonable? What
did the Lord Jesus give to save our souls? What did he give to
ransom us from the fall? Scripture says, Christ also hath
loved us and hath given himself for us. The Son of Man came not to be
ministered to, but to minister and to give his life. a ransom for many. Our Savior
gave his soul an offering for sin. He gave his back to the
smiters. He gave his face to them that
plucked off the head. He gave his body to be broken
for us. He shed his blood for the remission
of our sin. His entire self he gave to ransom
us from the fall. That means it's just reasonable. It's just reasonable to give
our entire being to serve in his cause. The love of Christ
constraineth us, Paul said, because we thus judge. We've been given
some discernment, and we judge this, that if one died for all,
then brethren, you're all dead. You're dead, the old man's crucified,
you're dead. He's buried, he's gone, he's
dead. And that he died for all that
they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto
him which died for them and rose again. Given his entire self,
he bought our entire self. giving his entire self, he bought
our entire self. Not only our spirit, but our
body and our members. What? Know you not that your
body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which
you have of God, and you are not your own. Well, I'm my own
man. Nobody's gonna tell me what to
do. Not if we're God's. We're His. He bought us. We're here. You're bought with
a price. What a precious price. Bought
with a price. Therefore, it's just reasonable. Glorify God in our body and in
our spirit, which are God's. They're God's. Go to Romans 6
there and look with me real quick. Romans 6, verse 11. Paul said... I love this, and I say this every
time I read this verse. Take as if out of our language
when we talk about what Christ accomplished. It's not as if
anything. Listen to this. Listen. Verse 11. Reckon, impute
ye also yourselves to be dead, indeed unto sin. It's a fact. It's done. Dead indeed unto sin,
but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Here's what's
reasonable. Let not sin, therefore, reign
in your mortal body. We're gonna sin. We're gonna
sin in this mortal body. We are going to sin. That's why
it's a mortal body. But God help me and forgive me. I don't want to let sin reign over
it. I don't want to be a slave to
it. Neither yield. Here, here, flesh,
you have the right of way. Either yield ourselves and our
members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. But yield ourselves,
our whole selves to God. As those that are alive from
the dead, as those walking in newness of life. And our members
as instruments of righteousness unto God. Our whole And then back in our text now,
he says this is a living sacrifice. We're not talking about dead
works here. Oh no, this is a living sacrifice. We read there the
rest of Romans. These are spiritual sacrifices
that were typified by those fake offerings, by those burnt offerings
in the Old Testament. That's what they were typified.
These are, and these are all things we do out of gratitude,
out of thanks to God for what he's done for us. That's what
these are. These are thank offerings to
God, spiritual sacrifices. Isaac wrote, Isaac Watts summed
it up in two of his hymns really well. He said, alas, and did
my savior bleed and did my sovereign die? Would he devote, would he
consecrate in entirety that sacred head for such a worm as I? And then in the last verse he
said, but drops of grief can ne'er repay the debt of love
I owe. Here, Lord, I give myself away. Tis all that I can do. And in another hymn that's familiar,
he said, were the whole realm of nature mine that were present
far too small. Love so amazing, so divine, demands
my soul, my life, my all. He's talking about in the house
of our Lord as the house of our Lord. He's talking about assembling
together and not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.
but sacrificing whatever we have to sacrifice to gather together
to hear Christ preached through his pastor and hear him exalted
in our midst. It's sending forth this gospel
so Christ is exalted in the gospel and in the hearts of lost sinners.
It's serving our brethren who are one with Christ. doing whatever
we can for them, whatever we need to sacrifice to help one
another. It's using all the gifts that
God has given to us. We're not using anything that
we came up with on our own. Everything we're talking about
here is the first and foremost God's gift to us. Every bit of
this, like David said, we're just giving you back, God, what
you gave to us. This is why Christ has saved
us and called us, brethren. It's not for us to live to ourselves. Don't, don't, and I, you know,
I'm preaching this to me, but I know you feel it, cause I feel
it too. Don't you find yourself sometimes just thinking, I'm just living for myself. Under the old covenant, and they
came to a temple. Under the new covenant, scripture
says, Christ has made us living stones and fitly framed us together,
and we're the temple in whom he abides. Under that old covenant,
they had to come to a priest. And he went in and he made the
offerings for them. Under this new everlasting covenant
of grace, by his precious blood, Christ has made you and I his
priests, his holy priesthood. And under that old covenant,
they offered up those dead sacrifices. Those sacrifices they offered
at Thanksgiving to God were dead sacrifices. They slew them and
they were dead. But under this new covenant of
grace, Christ has made us priests to offer up spiritual sacrifices,
living sacrifices. And we're that, first and foremost,
we're the living sacrifice. Spiritual sacrifices such as
the calves of our lips. Our bodily members to serve him
and our brethren. Temporal things he's given us
to serve him. Our jobs to serve him. I remember whenever the Lord
brought me to the place where I just wanted a job that made
a decent living so I could support the church. I mean, I remember
that just being, that's all I want anymore. That's what I want it for. I
don't want it just for me, I want it for his cause. I want it for my brethren. It's
using the house he's given us to entertain our brethren in
it. Using the table he's given to feed our brethren at it. And a sacrifice means things
have to be given up. A sacrifice means lusts of the
flesh have to be denied. But that's all that's being denied,
you know. It's lusts of our flesh. That's
it. The only reason anything about
a sacrifice, a spiritual sacrifice, is painful is because it cuts
against our sinful, selfish flesh. That's it. It's the only reason.
Inwardly, in the new man, it's full of rejoicing. There's nothing
painful about it. Whatever pain comes, it's the
flesh. Always the flesh. How do we all
present our bodies plural, as one living sacrifice, as a living
sacrifice. Each of us individually should
present, you should present your body a living sacrifice, but
we all together present our bodies one living sacrifice. How's that? Because he said there, verse
four, as we have many members in one body and all members have
not the same office, so we being many are one body in Christ,
and members one of another. We're all coming in Christ. And there's just one living sacrifice
in which we're accepted, and that's Christ. It's in him. And it's a holy sacrifice, he
says there. Now, holiness doesn't have to
be as difficult as people try to make it out to be. The Father
set us apart and made us holy when he chose us in Christ. Christ
Jesus set us apart and made us holy when he perfected forever
them that are sanctified. The spirit of God sets us apart
and makes us holy when he regenerates us and Christ is formed in us.
Here's the thing about a holy sacrifice. Remember those sacrifices
in the tabernacle? God called them a holy sacrifice.
What did he mean by that? He meant they weren't for common
use. They were for God's use only. There to be sacrificed
to Him only. And that's what He's done for
you and I. He separated us and made us holy
for God's use only. That's it. It's to set forth
Christ. It's to exalt Christ. It's to
bring sinners to Christ. Everything is for Christ, His
Son. We do nothing to draw attention
to us. We do all to draw attention to
Christ. Is that not holy and separate
from this world? That's holy and separate from
this world. We don't do anything to draw attention to us, we do
it to draw attention to Christ. We do everything knowing we're
being seen of men, but we don't do anything to be seen of men.
We won't be out of the way, invisible, so they, as we hold forth the
word of life, so they hear Christ exalted and behold Christ through
the spirit. And that's the only way men are
gonna behold your light and glorify your God, which is in, your Father,
which is in heaven. It's gonna be through the gospel,
the preaching of Christ and crucified as God gives them a new heart
and gives them light in their heart and makes them behold.
You didn't try to make them look at you. You preach Christ to
them. That's a light nobody else shine
to them. And they beheld Christ the light. And then it says here, this is
an acceptable sacrifice. Acceptable to God. Acceptable
to God. Now, listen to this from, you
can turn there if you want, 1 Peter 2, 5, but I'm gonna go quickly. But listen to this simple verse.
Now, it's everything I just told you. You also as lively stones
are built up a spiritual house. You're a holy priesthood to offer
up spiritual living sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. That's how. There we go again
with that. All these bodies presenting one
living sacrifice and it's acceptable. in Christ Jesus, by Christ Jesus
alone. Brethren, when that motive's
put in our hearts by God, when he puts this motive in our hearts,
when it's God who does it, so that it's God's mercies, it's
his love, it's what Christ has done in totally, completely,
thoroughly saving us from us, when he's done this for you,
and that motive is Christ's love, then Christ has made us everything
we do acceptable to God. You think? Don't that just make
you happy? I'm gonna go out and till my
garden today. God accepts it. It's acceptable
to God. I'm gonna, used to with the tilling
of the plowing of the wicked was an abomination to God. Now
God accepts it. Whatever it is you do, He accepts
it. He accepts it. This motive of
serving Him, being thankful to Him, wanting to do, I can't do
something for Christ personally, but I got all these brethren
right here that are, He abides in them and He said, you do it
to them, you've done it to me. I can do it for them. Now lastly,
to be and not to be. To be and not to be, and I'll
be quick here. Verse two, and be not conformed to this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove
what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Now
brethren, the devil, every lost sinner, and our flesh is doing
everything they can to make us be conformed to this world. The
devil, every lost sinner in this world, in our own flesh, will
do everything they can to make us be conformed to this world.
In the church, that's mainly what he's talking
about here. We're not gonna conform to the world in how we do things
in God's house. We're not, no. But we're not
gonna conform to him in our families. Conform to the world in our families.
We're not gonna conform to the world in our lives. And it's
so easy to start out making our bodies a living sacrifice to
God by God's grace, and determine, I'm gonna take this job, I'm
gonna go this way, because I wanna support the Lord's people, I
wanna support the preaching of the gospel, I wanna do this for
the Lord, and the motive's right. God's put it there, it's right.
And then the flesh comes in. You get a promotion. You get
a new title. or any number of things comes
along. You start seeing stuff that we
want, whatever. All these things come in. New
pressures. New reasons to be proud. And
before long, we don't even recognize there's been a change in us.
We don't even recognize it. We become high-minded. We're
thinking on high things. We're thinking proud things.
We're thinking we're something. And you can't do that without
thinking less of your brethren and less of Christ. It's an impossibility. We've been deceived in conforming
to this world. Listen to what, listen to this.
Christ said the cares of this world. He's not talking about
this flippant cares. He's talking about things we
have to do. But the cares of this world and
the deceitfulness of riches. and the lusts of other things
enter in, choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. Do we
not do this? If our children were to graduate
college and get a job and they're making six figures, oh, oh, the
Lord's been good. I'm so thankful for that. Oh,
that's good. You know how much God warns us
in scripture about the deceitfulness of riches. Lord, forgive me. Lord, I pray that you keep them.
Keep them. Don't let them be puffed up.
Don't let them be choked out by these riches and this prosperity. But be ye transformed like a
metamorphosis. Be transformed by the renewing
of your mind from the inside out that you may prove, that
you may discern, that you may try, test, and prove and approve
of. You have discernment. You can
recognize when your mind's renewed by the Spirit of God and your
mind's set on Christ, you can try, you can test and say, well,
I know that's the will of God. I see it. I see that's the will
of God. And I approve of this. God approves
of it, I approve of it. I want to do that. With that
good and acceptable and perfect will of God. You're sitting here
in this pew this week. You're hearing Christ exalted
and the Spirit's blessed the word within you. And our new
man's renewed and he's strengthened. And we discern and we approve
and we delight in God's will and what God would have us to
do. And at the same time, our old man is put off. Our flesh
is mortified. This has been done, it says be
ye. This is a passive thing in that
the spirit of God did it. He renewed us in the inward man.
He made us put off the old man because he set our focus on Christ. Isn't that how you found it to
be this week, sitting here? But when we set our mind on the
boat and on the waves, And on the career, and the bills, and
the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride
of life, we become high-minded. We become arrogant. We're just
drunkards. That's all we are. Drunk. See, everybody else's fault but
our own. So what does Paul tell us? What's
he saying? Be renewed in your mind. He's telling us what he said
in Colossians 3.1. If you be risen with Christ,
seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right
hand of God. Set, not your affections, plural,
your affection, singular. You want your whole entire being
of affection. Set it on things above, not on
things on this earth. For you're dead. You are dead.
You're dead. Why live for this dead flesh?
You're dead. And your life is hid with Christ
in God. And when Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then shall you appear with Him in glory. I want to end with this song
that Frances Havergill wrote and this is what she said. And
this is what Paul said, this is what it is to make our lives
a living sacrifice to God. She's saying, take my life and
let it be consecrated Lord to thee. Take my moments and my
days, let them flow in endless praise. Take my hands and let
them move at the impulse of thy love. Take my feet and let them
be swift and beautiful for thee. Take my voice and let me sing
always only for my king. Take my lips and let them be
filled with messages from thee. Take my silver and my gold, not
a mite would I withhold. Take my intellect and use every
power as thou shalt choose. Take my will and make it thine. It shall be no longer mine. Take
my heart, it's thine own. It shall be thy royal throne. Take my love, my lord, I pour
at thy feet its treasure store. Take myself and I will be ever,
only, all for thee. Amen. Thank you, brother. Thank
you.