Norbie, Donald: Consecration ~ Romans 12

Remember, Jacob had been about twenty years w- working with Laban, and, um, he drifted away from the Lord. Uh, he still knew the Lord. He'd had that meeting at Bethel where he came to really know the Lord and His grace, and, uh, there was this renewal of a relationship, we could say, with the Lord. And then he spent the twenty years there working with Laban. He became rich, had lots of flocks and herds, uh, but he kind of drifted away. He was busy with family. This can happen. He had his children being born, and it was a busy life. He was, uh, taking care of his flocks and herds. But while he was there, does- we don't read that he built an altar. We don't read that he really, uh, did much with the Lord. Then he's left the land, now he's coming back. The Lord tells him, go to Bethel. Go back to Bethel and, uh, renew your commitment to me. And so he goes to Bethel. The Lord says to him, get rid of your household idols, uh, clean up your, uh, house, your encampment. You're going to meet with God. We're going to renew our relationship with the Lord. And, uh, so we're going to look at Romans twelve where Paul basically pleads for the same thing. Uh, he's, uh, completed these wonderful chapters one through eleven, laying out the way of salvation and how it should affect our lives in many ways. And now we get to chapter twelve where he really gets very practical. And we're going to start reading Romans twelve and verse one. I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be 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. For I say through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are the body of Christ and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them. If prophecy or preaching, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith. Of ministry, let us use it in our ministry. He who le- teaches in teaching, he who exhorts in exhortation, he who gives with liberality, he who leads with diligence, he who shows mercy with cheerfulness. Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love and honor giving preference to one another. Not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer, distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality. Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion. Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. If it is possible, so much as it depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. Therefore, if your enemy's hungry, feed him. If he's thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Beautiful chapter. Now, as we begin, Paul refers back to his teaching in the past, uh, the previous verses, and he says, uh, I'm pleading with you now to make a decision based on all that God has done for you. He speaks here of, uh, pleading with us by the mercies of God. And so he says, the motivation for you living for God and being wholehearted for God should be gratitude as you think of all that God has done for you. That'd be good for us to think this morning. If we were not saved, and if you're here this morning and you're not saved, we'd be without God and without hope. You'd face death with no assurance of anything beyond. You'd go through life without the realization God's with you and loves you and cares for you. You'd be struggling with a conscience that was defiled. You'd be struggling with sin. Uh, you'd be without God and without hope. And if you think about this, you, you should say, thank God I'm saved. Thank God for that time when, uh, his grace appeared to me and I opened my heart to him, I repented, and I turned to the Lord Jesus, and I was saved. And we should have a tremendous sense of gratitude. And Paul says, I want you to think about this. Think about all God has done for you, and in view of that, now, what's going to be your response to God? How are you going to respond to him in view of what he's done for you? Is your attitude going to be, well, it's my life, I can do with it what I want to, and not going to let God or my faith in these things interfere with what I want to do. Or is your life now going to be motivated by a desire to please the Lord, who's done so much for you? And so he, uh, begins with that thought, remember now all these mercies, these blessings of God. And Paul says, I want to use that like a lever to, uh, get you moving to do what I'm asking you to do now. He pleads with us, which means he takes it, uh, very seriously. He's very concerned. Paul desperately wants you, if you're a believer, to do what he's asking us to do here. He says, I plead with you, beseech you, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. So he's asking us to, in a sense, act like a priest. We're going to come before God, and we're going to give him an offering. Now, what are we going to give him? On Old Testament days, they offered many times a- animal sacrifices, and they would, man would bring a lamb, he might bring a goat, he might bring a calf or a cow or a bull, and he would offer this to God, give it to God, be put on the altar. It would stand by the altar, first of all, and he'd cut its throat, and the blood would run out, and then it would be skinned and prepared and put on the altar. It was all to be offered up now to God. By doing this, the man was saying, I no longer control this. This is no longer my animal. I'm giving this completely to God. It belongs to God. Now, he says, we we don't offer animal sacrifices anymore. They were just pictures of the Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God who was to come. He's come. No need to offer blood at sacrifice anymore. So as Christians, we say we don't need to do that. Paul says, I want you to offer something that's alive, not dead. Yourself, your body, yourself, all that you are as a person. He says, I want you to put it on the altar. In other words, give it to God. Give yourself to God. He pleads with us to do this. Now he says, uh, what should our body be like? Present your bodies, he says, holy, acceptable to God. So, uh, as we think of giving ourselves to God, we want to give our bodies as that which is holy and clean. I can't really come to God and say, God, now I want to give you myself, but I want to keep on drinking and carousing and, uh, living an immoral life and maybe doing drugs or whatever is my thing, but I want to give myself to you. God says, I'm sorry, I'm not interested in that kind of sacrifice. You need to get saved, first of all, you need to repent, you need to turn from that old way of life. Don't think you'll go to heaven by, uh, claiming the grace of God if you love sin and continue in sin. Jesus said, unless you repent, you'll perish. And so he says, uh, you're going to give yourself to God. That means you're saying, I want to give myself to you as a holy person. I want to go back to Exodus twelve. and we're going to read about, uh, what happened on the, uh, in connection with the Passover. You remember there were the, uh, various plagues, and then we come to this last plague, and, uh, the Lord says, you know, I'm going to go through the land of Egypt, and I'm going to judge this land because of their rebellion. And he says, uh, there's going to be a way for you to escape the judgment of God. And he gives that instruction here on what, uh, they're to do. In chapter twelve and verse three, he says, speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, on the tenth day of the m- this month, every man shall take for himself a lamb according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household. If the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the persons. According to each man's need, you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at eventide. They shall take some of the blood, put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses, uh, when they eat it. Then they shall eat of the flesh of the lamb that night, roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs you shall eat it. Now, what I want to notice especially is, what kind of lamb was it? He says, you go through the your flocks and you pick out the best. Pick out one without blemish. Look them over and be sure the lamb you have now is not crippled, it isn't, uh, sick. There's nothing wrong with it. This is what you're going to give to God. You're going to give to God the very best. And to make sure that it's good, he says, you're going to keep it up for four days. Yeah, you're going to keep it in a pen, you're going to watch it, you'll feed it and care for it. And during that time, if there's any, uh, defect, it should show up, and then you better get a different lamb, because I want a lamb that is perfect. And there's a beautiful picture of the Lord Jesus, who was a lamb without blemish, and who was kept up, in a sense, and watched for three and a half years. And during that time, his enemies watched him, his disciples lived with him. At the end of that time, his disciples said, he's done no sin. What a beautiful life, a perfect. He was the perfect lamb of God. And so that's the kind of lamb that, uh, God said I want for an offering. Now, Israel failed in many ways. Now I want to show in Malachi chapter one. This is your, the last book of your Old Testament. And, uh, notice there how the uh, the prophet condemns Israel for what they're doing. He says in verse eight of chapter one, when you offer the blind as a sacrifice, is it not evil? And when you offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? Offer it then to your governor. Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you favorably, says the Lord of hosts? So here the Lord is condemning them for what they're doing. You're worshiping me. But he says, you're giving to me that which isn't perfect. He go through your flock and you say, well, here's a lamb that's not much good. I couldn't sell it, probably. It's blind, it may be lame, it has some defect. I'll offer it to God. God says, well, you wouldn't even give that to a governor. You wouldn't give that to a human leader. You're going to give me that which is imperfect, which is crippled, which is blind, which has something wrong with it. God says, I'm not interested. I want the best. So in a sense, what he's saying to us is when we present our bodies to God, it should be that they're holy. We should have judged sin, we should have put sin away, we should have said, oh God, I want to be living a pure life for you, and I'm going to give my body, my life to you. And he says, that's the kind of offering the Lord is interested in. It's holy, acceptable to God. Now, we have a very loose idea about sin, and, uh, a lot of people think, well, you know, I can be a Christian. I can do a lot of these different things, and I'll still go to heaven. And, uh, they may even think of themselves as giving themselves to God. But God says, I'm interested in those who are holy people. And so he says, be sure that you offer this sacrifice, your body, as being holy, as being clean. You cleaned up your act. You said, Lord, I'm putting sin away, and I want to be wholehearted for you. It was, uh, Jacob putting away his household gods, those things they'd brought from the Laban's country. And God says, I want you to be clean now as you come to me and give yourselves to me. Now he says it's your reasonable service. It's logical. It's where we get logic from. The most logical thing you can do is give yourself to God. Most logical thing you can do is be saved. Accept the Lord Jesus, get right with God, and then as a Christian, give yourself to God. If God is God, and he's the creator of all, and he saves you, the most logical thing you can do is then say, Lord, I want to live for you. I want to give myself to you. So he says, it's reasonable. I'm not asking you to do something unreasonable. This is the most reasonable thing you could do if Christ died for you, if he hung bleeding and dying on that cross for you. The least you can do is say, well, Lord, I want to give myself to you and live for you. And so he makes this plea to them to do that, and uh, this is an action that takes place, a decision that takes place in our lives. Maybe you've been saved for a while, and the truth comes home to your heart. You know, I've been living selfishly, and I just haven't been putting God first, and you make this decision, and you, you come before the Lord, and you say, Lord, today I want to give myself to you. I want to be wholehearted. I don't want to be a half-hearted Christian. I don't want to be a carnal Christian. I want to be a Christian who loves you and lives for you. A decision you make. Years ago, a young man came up to me at a camp in Minnesota, and, uh, after a meeting, and he said, Uncle Don, I've never given myself to the Lord. He said, I want to do that this afternoon. He was a high school kid, and he prayed just a simple prayer. We prayed together, and he gave himself to the Lord. That changed his whole life. Today he's a preacher and a teacher of God's word and living for God and useful to God, but he made that decision. I could have made a different decision. He could have decided, I want to live for the things of this world. I want to have a good profession. I want to just do well in this life. I'm just not interested in being too wholehearted for God. He could have made that decision, but he chose to offer himself to God. I just ask all of us here, have you done that? Has there been a time in your life when you got serious with God, and you said, oh God, I want to give myself to you without reservation. I want to put my body on the altar, so to speak, which means I'm giving it over to you. I'm giving my life over to you. If you do that, Paul says it's the most reasonable thing you can do, and it'll produce real happiness. Now, that's an action we take, but there's an ongoing process he talks about, and the, uh, the verb form is different. He says, don't be conformed, don't continually be conformed to the world. Now, when you conform, you're fitting in outwardly. Lot moved down, you remember the story, moved down close to Sodom, and then after a while, next time we read about him, he's living in the city, he's conforming, he's fitting in with the culture, ends up with his daughters marrying a couple of, uh, men of Sodom, and, uh, he's, he's fitting into the culture, he's conforming, but inwardly he never fit. Because you remember the New Testament says righteous Lot was grieved with the manner of life around him. You want to be a miserable Christian? Try to fit in with the world. Because down inside, if the Holy Spirit isn't dwelling you, you can't be happy. You don't really fit. You may try. You may try to go back to your old way of life. But if you're really saved, I can promise you you'll be unhappy, you'll be grieved like Lot was. Don't be conformed, he says. Don't fit in outwardly. You can't really fit in wholeheartedly with the world if you know the Lord. Don't do that. Don't be conformed. This is something goes on all through our life because the pressure of the world's on us. The world's always saying, come on, fit in. Do what we're doing. Don't be different. Whatever you do, don't be different. Get along. Fit in with the world around you. He says, don't do that. As a Christian, as a believer, if you give yourself to God, resist that temptation to fit in with your culture. You're going to be different. You belong to God. And he says, be transformed. Now, this is talking about something that takes place inwardly, not just an outward fitting in. Now we're going to be changed inwardly, so we think differently, so we have different goals, so we have different ambitions. So the whole thrust of our life is in a different direction, and this is because inwardly we see this is good, and this is right, and this is what I want. It's the good life, and it's the life that's going to please God. And so we're transformed, he says. Our mind has to be renewed, our thinking changed. And the Lord says, I want to do that. Now, how's he going to do it? Not by watching television eight hours a day. I can guarantee you that's not going to transform you. You'll end up conforming, probably, to the world. How is he going to do this? He says he does this by the Word of God. It's as we feed on the Word of God, it's as we think about the Word of God, as we make it a part of our lives, it changes our thinking, our values. We think we live differently, we're transformed from within. So the word of God's absolutely important. Talking to a man last night on the phone who professed to be saved in jail, and he's struggling now. He's not doing too well, but I said to him, are you reading the word and praying? And I was glad to hear him say, yes, I am every day. If he's doing that, he won't get too far away. The word of God. In his law, he meditates day and night, he tells us in Psalm one. So the word of God, as you take it in, as you meditate on it, as you, uh, memorize it, like we're memorizing, aren't we, Mark ten forty five. Jim was mentioning this last week. Uh, Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. And we think about that, and we think, well, wasn't that a wonderful life? Was that a beautiful life? And it moves us to, in our thinking, say, I want to live a servant life. I want to be like the Lord Jesus. The word of God is going to change us in our thinking, in our values and all. And, uh, so it's absolutely vital that we spend much time with the word of God. Now, I want to read Psalm one nineteen. We're going to read several verses here. And this is a beautiful psalm, a lengthy psalm, and it's all given over to praising the word of God, to, uh, emphasizing how important the word of God is. And the devil's concern is, if you're a Christian, to get you away from the word of God. Stop reading it, the devil would say. You're busy. Yeah, you can skip a day or two. First thing you know, you're going all week. There are many who profess to be Christians that don't crack a Bible open except on Sunday. They do then, because most churches, you don't carry a Bible. People say to you, why are you carrying a Bible? Don't you trust the preacher? You know, are you going to criticize him, or why do you carry your Bible? We emphasize carrying the Bible. We say, yeah, anything you hear taught here, question it. Look at the word of God and see if it's true. Now, Psalm one nineteen begins by saying, blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with a whole heart. They also do no iniquity, they walk in his ways. You've commanded us to keep your precepts diligently. Oh, that my ways were directed to keep your statutes. Then I would not be ashamed when I look into your commandments. I will praise you with uprightness of heart when I learn your righteous judgments. I will keep your statutes. Oh, do not forsake me utterly. How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to your word. With my whole heart I have sought you. Oh, let me not wander from your commandments. Your word I've hidden or laid up in my heart that I might not sin against you. And so it goes on, the whole psalm given over to praising the word of God and saying, this is so important. You want to live a life pleasing to God, you want to live the good life, you want to live a happy life, you want to live a life without regrets, saturate yourself with the word of God. Read it, memorize it, listen to it, hear teaching of it. Let your thinking be formed by the word of God. Tremendous emphasis on the scripture as vitally needed. And so that's when missionaries go into an area where they don't know how to read or write. They begin to teach them how to read so that they can read the scripture, and they become literate so they can read the word of God, because this is vital for our spiritual growth and progress, and he emphasizes that, how important the word of God is. How you doing with the word of God? Are you enjoying it? You know, the scripture says the word is sweeter than honey. It's good. Are you enjoying the word of God? Do you sit down at times and just not in a hurry, and not just saying, well, I- I got to read my chapter now, I better hurry up, and then I got to get on with life, but just to sit down at times and just meditate and think about it and just kind of soak in it. Like you might, if you're tired and feeling kind of stiff, crawl in a bathtub and just sit there and soak, you know, in a hot tub. If we could just at times just relax and soak in the word of God, enjoy it. Because the Word of God is so good, and the more you read, the more you'll enjoy it and delight in it. Reading the New Testament, especially when you're first saved, uh, don't start in the old. Read the New Testament, read the Gospels, get familiar with the word life of Jesus, get to know him and to appreciate him and to love him. He's a wonderful savior. So the word of God, you want to be transformed in your thinking. Your thinking is wrong. So many people now, their thinking is getting corrupted with pornography and, uh, violence and whatever. You get saved, you're going to have to get that mind cleaned up. You're going to have to re- get it renewed so that you're thinking right thoughts, and the word of God is vital in that whole process. So the emphasis there, renewing of your mind. Uh, and then he says, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Now, you know, I could say this to you. I can say, if you read the word and you obey the word and you give yourself to God, it'll be the best life. Well, you could say that's what he says. But the world's pretty, uh, interesting out here, and the pleasures of sin are attractive. But what Paul says here is, if you do this, you will test it for yourself, and you will find out, yes, this is the best life. This is good and perfect and acceptable. This is for my good. This is the best kind of life I could live, possibly live. You'll experience it for yourself. You're going down to buy a car, the salesman may try to sell you on it, but it's when you get it out, you drive it, maybe if you own it, drive it for one hundred thousand miles, you say, okay, now I've tested it out, and what he said is true. It's a good car. Stood up well. You've proved it for yourself. He says here, if you live as you should for God, you give yourself to God, you come to the end of life, and you can say, it's true, that's the best life, I've experienced it, it's been true for me. You know, I can say that after being saved now, these many years, I can say I wouldn't li- want any different kind of life. If I could do it all over, I wouldn't say, you know, I'm sorry I made that choice, I'm sorry I decided to give myself to God, I'm sorry for the years that we've spent trying to serve him. No, not at all. If I could do it all over, I do make the same choices, maybe with some better choices as well. He says, you'll experience it. If you do this, you'll experience it's the best life, good and perfect and acceptable. Now, the rest of the chapter, he emphasizes, uh, uh, just some practical things, and, uh, he wants to emphasize the fact that we're all gifted. So he says, discover your gift. You're a Christian. Don't have the attitude, I'm not gifted. I have nothing I can do. All I'll do is go and sit on this chair and drop money in the offering, and that's what I, my gift is. No, the Lord says you're gifted. You're spiritually gifted. Find out your gift and use it. Whatever it is, be diligent in using it. And so he names the different things. If you have the gift of preaching, then preach, or gift of teaching, teach. Whatever it is, use your gift. This will be good for you, you'll be growing, and this will be a blessing to the Lord's people. So he exhorts us, use our various gifts. And then he gets down to the beginning of verse nine to the end of the chapter. There are a lot of practical things about being loving. The Christian life is a life of love. Paul says in Timothy, the goal of the commandment is love. God's desire for you as a person, if you're a Christian, is to become a loving person. And, uh, so he emphasizes that, let love be without hypocrisy, abhor what is evil, cling to what is good. And then he says, be kindly affectionate to one another. Here you get, it's the word Philadelphia. So you have the idea here of affection. Now, you can love your enemy, but you don't feel affectionate toward him. But this is talking about family love now, affection. The warmth and affection of God's love through you toward his family. And so he emphasizes being affectionate. Now, some cultures show affection more than others. You know, if you're in the south of Europe and in the Middle East, uh, there's a lot of hugging, there's kissing on each cheek, there's a lot of touching, and uh, men may walk down the road holding hands, and here we think, well, that's kind of weird, maybe they're homosexual. No, they would say it's a mark of affection. So that cultures vary, but he says, whatever your culture is, be affectionate, uh, to one another with brotherly love, and uh, show preference to one another, have this deep concern. He encourages us to be diligent, not to be lazy, uh, to uh, be fervent, to respect others. Just so many practical things here that he uh, emphasizes. He says, live a generous life, distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality, a life of love. And then he talks about being forgiving, blessing those who curse you, uh, showing compassion in every way. It's a wonderful thing to, uh, be part of God's family. We were at a funeral, uh, just the other day, and it's a, it's a man that I've done quite a bit of hiking with. Fine Christian brother. We have a lot in common. We both went in the Navy the same summer at the same place in San Diego, and so we've got a lot of things we share. He just lost his wife. It was a good marriage. Uh, they've been married, what, fifty six years or so? Long time. And uh, we were with him for the funeral. And uh, he's devastated. He's, he's, he's hurting. And he uh, he needs the love and affection of God's people, and we stood there and just hugged one another. He says, be affectionate to one another. As you go through life, there are pains, there are tragedies that come in life. It's a wonderful thing to be surrounded by God's people loving you and caring for you and supporting you and encouraging you. And so he, uh, finishes the chapter by saying, do not be overcome by evil, overcome evil with good. This kind of life, he says, all starts with you giving yourself to God. Not living selfishly, but choosing to give your life to him, to be used by him. To be a blessing to others. Not to live selfishly, to live a loving life, a life reaching out to the lost, and a life of love to God's people as well. What kind of life do you want to live? Have you given your body to the Lord? If you're not saved, the first thing you need to do is accept him. Accept him as your Lord and Savior. And then you need to, in gratitude, give yourself to him. He says you do that, you'll prove what is that good and acceptable, perfect will of God. You'll realize if you do this, now I'm living the good life, the best life I possibly can live in this, in this