Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. God says, don't mock me that way.
This has to be sincere. He said, I urge you by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice. The word holy isn't really holy. As we think of holy, it means set apart. Hageas means to set apart. You need to be set apart.
We'll see in a moment from the world. You better be set apart. You better be set apart from the world. You better be set apart from sin.
You better be set to me. You better be holy. Don't just say, hey, I'm here for you and then there's nothing about me that's holy at all. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana.
Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again, he shows us how God's word meets our world. Happy New Year. Why do we say that? I mean, every year around this time, Happy New Year. We mark time that way. Every year, right this time, we mark time. And you'll notice that it's always optimistic. We're always thinking maybe next year will be happy. The truth is, it'll be a lot like last year.
Pretty much the same. But it's a time when we look forward with a sort of great expectation. And we realize the past is past.
Good old days are now good old days. And for us, often it's a time for resolutions. And we make all kinds of them. When you read all the top list of resolutions, it's amazing. By and large, more than almost any other resolution. Americans make resolutions every year not to be as fat as we were the year before.
And yet standing where I am, we look just like we did last year. So I don't know what the resolutions were or how they worked out. But this year, I have a resolution that I want to have for all of us. My resolution is one of the most important resolutions for your life.
And you can possibly imagine. My resolution for you and for me this year is that we are. All in. With Jesus Christ.
That we are all in. Now, I'm not talking about that we go to church once a week. I'm not talking about having daily devotions. I'm not talking about fasting during Lent. I'm not talking about keeping the Ten Commandments. I'm not talking about sharing your faith with your friends.
I'm not talking about volunteering for a ministry and I'm not talking about going on mission trips. Those are all good things, but that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is, are you all in when it comes to Jesus Christ? You see, the reality of my resolution is that it's not mine. It is not my resolution for you. It's God's resolution for you. He has this resolution for you to be all in to Jesus Christ and he reveals it through the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 12. So if you will open your Bibles to Romans chapter 12. We're simply going to look at the first two verses. These are clearly two of the most significant verses written in the entire Bible. In fact, there's probably nothing in your life that could change your life as much as these two verses if you're already a believer in Jesus Christ. That's the importance of these two verses.
And how I want to approach them today is I'm going to approach them with four questions. I'm going to have four questions for these two verses. Listen, as I read, Paul says, Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable, perfect. The first question I have as we look at these verses is.
Why should we be all in? You see, why should we be all in to Jesus Christ? Notice the first word is therefore. And you've heard me say this over all the years, when you see a therefore in the Bible, you always have to ask yourself, what's it there for?
You see, that's the point. It goes back and most of the commentators think it goes back to verse thirty six. And that is this doxology of Paul in Chapter 11, when he says, For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever.
Amen. And I'm sure it does go back to that to a degree. But my understanding of it is that this goes back to Romans one through 11.
This goes back all the way back. I want you to think back to everything that I've said so far. He said, that's what's so important here.
All that I have covered. He says, therefore, I urge you. What an interesting word, urge.
It's not what you think. The Greek word here is the word parakaleo. It's an interesting word. It's a general word for urging. It can be translated that way, but not normally. It means one who comes beside someone to help. That's literally what the word parakaleo means.
In fact, if you remember, when Jesus Christ was talking to his disciples, he said, when I leave, I'm going to send the Holy Spirit back to you. And guess what he called him? The parakaleo. The parakaleo.
The same word. The Holy Spirit will come and be beside you. And so Paul just says here, I urge you, he said.
To what? He says, first, I urge you, brethren. If you're not a believer in Jesus Christ, these verses won't help you at all. There's nothing you can do about it. This isn't a human will situation. I can't just will myself to do this. I have to be controlled and filled by the Spirit of God. He says, I urge you, brethren.
And now he gets to the point, why should we be all in? He said, by the mercies. Of God. By the mercies of God.
That's my reason. I urge you, he said, brethren, by the mercies. Of God. Interesting. He spent 11 chapters telling us what the mercies of God are.
That's Romans. I know you realize this, but you realize that everything that's good in your life is because of what God's done for you. Every single thing. Everything in your life is because of what God's done for you. Everything that's going to happen to you in the future.
Your destiny is because of what God's done for you. And you're not deserving of any of it. It wasn't like God said, wow, that's a really impressive person.
I've got to. There are no impressive people. He says that in Romans. There's none who seeks God.
All sin and fall short of the glory of God. He said, there are none of you. But I'm going to give you all these things. He said, I love you so much. I'll send my son for you.
He loves you so much. Go to the cross for you. He said, I'm going to I'm going to bestow my grace on you. The unmerited favor of God getting what I don't deserve. I'm going to bestow my mercy on you.
I'm not going to get what I do deserve. He said, no, I'm going to forgive you. I'm going to reconcile you a sinner to me, a holy God. He said, I am going to set your destiny will give you the surety of heaven.
These are all the mercies of God. Everything in our life that we have as a believer is because it was a gift that God gave us. He said, that's the reason, by the way, we should be all in. You see, when you understand and come to a comprehension of what God has done for you, you should be all in.
That's his point. He said, the better you comprehend how much God has done for you, the more committed you should be to God. This is a growing thing.
It's not a one time thing. I'm more aware of what God has done for me now than I was 30 years ago, 20 years ago, 10 years ago. You continue to understand this.
This is the basis of what God has done for us. He said, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God. The second question, what must I do to be all in? If I'm all in, what do you do?
What do you need for all in? You see, it's an interesting thing. So often Christians are so misguided with this. I need to attend more often.
I probably need to give more money. I need to do some other kind of ministry. None of that's true. Nobody's talking about here.
All in has nothing to do with your religious activities at all. He said, here's what I want from you to present your bodies. To present your bodies.
Wow. Now, the word body there means your life. It means everything you are.
He said, I want you to present your life. And that word present is an unusual word in the Greek language. Paul's revealing that he's a Pharisee here. The word is paraistemi. And what makes this word so important is, it's a technical term for when the priest in the Old Testament would make an offering to God. Whenever they translated the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek, called the Septuagint, whenever the priest would make an offering to God, this is the word that they used. This is the word paraistemi. He said, I want you to make an offering to God.
I want you to do this. Now, some of you, depending on your background, would think, yeah, but that's not a good analogy because, well, that was a priest in the Old Testament. So, I want you to hold your place here for just a moment and go with me by way of reminder to 1 Peter chapter 2. 1 Peter chapter 2. In verse 5, Peter's trying to fire up the people that he's writing to.
And he does a wonderful thing here. He wants to tell you who you are. He wants you and I to have some sense of, what does it mean? I'm not just a believer in Jesus Christ.
There's something more to it than that. And so, here's what Peter writes. He says in verse 5, you also, that's all of us, as living stones are being built up to a spiritual house. He says, you're all living stones. You're all being built into the body of Christ. All of us together.
That's a nice thing. But notice the next thing he says. For a holy priesthood. Now, he's not talking about Levites. He's talking about you.
And he's talking about me. You're being built up for a holy priesthood. What do priests do? Next phrase. To offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. That's what Peter said. Now, we know from Romans 12, what is that spiritual sacrifice?
It's you. But he's not done. Look at verse 9. Peter says this. But you are a chosen race. A royal priesthood. A holy nation. A people for God's own possession.
So that you can proclaim the excellency of him who has called you out of the darkness and into his marvelous light. Peter says here, you're a royal priest. You see, you're not even a Levitical priest. You're a Melchizedekian priest. Melchizedek is the king priest of the Old Testament.
There's only one of them. And he shows up. Remember in the book of Genesis. He's the king of Salem or Jerusalem. But he's also a priest.
Abraham paid tithes to him. He said, yeah, that's who you are. You're a royal priest. You're a Melchizedekian.
And the reason is you and I are in Melchizedek. In Christ is what he is saying. Now back to Romans. I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God to present, to offer your lives as a living.
What does that tell us? God no longer accepts dead sacrifices. There's no more dead sacrifices. You don't kill an animal, and then God says, there it goes. He said, I'm not asking you to die. I'm asking you to live. You're going to offer yourself as a living sacrifice. And as I said before, many years ago, I'm not exactly sure who it was.
I'm really not that sure. So let me just say this. But I remember an old radio commentator saying, and the problem with living sacrifices is they keep climbing off the altar. You get up, you get down. You get up, you get down.
You get up, you get down. And there's some truth to that. But he says, look, I want your life. I want you to be a living sacrifice. But it's more than that. This isn't mental assent. This isn't this idea that you can say today, hey, God, I'm all in. There, I've done it.
We're fixed. God says, don't mock me that way. This has to be sincere. He said, I urge you by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice.
The word holy isn't really holy as we think of holy. It means set apart. Hagias means to set apart. You need to be set apart. We'll see in a moment from the world. You better be set apart. You better be set apart from the world. You better be set apart from sin. You better be set to me. You better be holy.
Don't just say, hey, I'm here for you. And then there's nothing about me that's holy at all. Again, hold your place there and go with me to Malachi, last book of the Old Testament, chapter one.
I just want to illustrate this. Malachi chapter one and verse six. And here you sort of get the heart of God. God says this.
God is speaking. He said, a son honors his father and a servant his master. Then if I'm your father, where's my honor?
If I'm a master, where's my respect? He says, says the Lord of hosts to you, O priest who despise my name. And he said, you'll say, how have we despised your name? We're going through the motions.
We're doing it. God says, you are presenting defiled food on my altar. And you say, how have we defiled? He said, how have we defiled you? In that you say the table of the Lord is to be despised.
They're saying, what do you mean? We're going through the religious rituals. He said, when you present it the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? When you present the lame and sick, is it not evil?
Why not offer to your governor? Would he be pleased with you? Or would he receive you kindly, says the Lord of hosts? You will not, he said, and treat the Lord's favor in this. Remember anything about the sacrifices of the Old Testament? They had to be the best you had.
They had to be without blemish. He said, by this time, you notice what they're giving the Lord. Blind sheep, lame sheep. He doesn't care. Just give it to him.
He'll be fine. We'll keep the good sheep for ourselves. God says, that's evil. The sacrifice that you make, the offering you make has to have some sense of holiness to it. And in Romans 12, he said, it's you. It's a living sacrifice, but there has to be a sense that I'm set apart to God.
I'm all in. Back to Romans. I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God.
That's a really interesting phrase, isn't it? So often in our Christian walk, whatever we do as Christians, we think we're OK as long as it's acceptable to us. If it's acceptable to us, we're fine with it. I've done my thing.
You know, that will never matter. It has to be acceptable to God. He said, whenever you live your life, it's for me. I'm the one who's going to judge, not you.
So whenever you and I are complacent or we think, oh, I've done enough, I think, be very careful with that. Is that acceptable to God or not? He said, which is your spiritual service of worship.
Now, that's a really bad translation. Notice it says, which is your spiritual service of worship. The word spiritual there is not the word spiritual.
It's regrettable to me that it was put in the New Testament. The word spiritual is pneumatos, pneum, spirit. Hagias pneumatos, the Holy Spirit. But this isn't that word at all. This is the word logikos. Logikos is the word you and I get the English word logic. It's logic. Notice it means reasonable. It means keeping in the nature of a thing. He says, which is your logical service of worship.
You see, being all into God from God's point of view, isn't this logical? First, let's talk about what I did for you. What have I done for you? Everything. What have I given you?
Ephesians 1, every blessing in the heavenly places. I've given it all. I've forgiven your sin. I'm patient with you. I'm kind to you. I go and prepare a place for you.
I give you everything. Wouldn't it be logical then that you would be all in with me? Wouldn't that be logical? You see, it makes sense. God said, I'm not asking you to do something that makes no sense at all.
This makes a great deal of sense. He said, it's your spiritual service of worship. The word worship there is the word latria.
Latria can be translated service. If I were paraphrasing, I'd say it this way. Are you a child of God? And if you nod your head yes, then I'm telling you, act like one. You're a child of God. You act like a child of God. That's what God's saying here. You say you're a child of God, then act like a child of God. He said, that's the whole point of this, isn't it?
It's only logical that you would. And it's not only all that God did for us in the past, because he's done everything for us. But he's done everything for our present. Jesus said, I'm not going to leave you alone. I'm going to send the Holy Spirit to you. The Holy Spirit's now not going to be in the temple in Jerusalem.
He's going to be in you. You're now the temple of God. The Holy Spirit will teach you my truths.
The Holy Spirit will convict you of your sin. And the Holy Spirit will empower you to live your life. So I even provide for everything you need now. All I need for you is to present yourself as a living and holy sacrifice. See, I need you to say, I'm all in. You say, that's what I need from you. That's the part that's yours. I'll do the rest of this. So why should we be all in? Because of what he's done for us.
What must I do? I need to offer myself. Third question, how do we know if we're all in? Is there any way of knowing if you're all in?
Yes. First, verse 2. He says in verse 2 two things, first a negative and then a positive. And do not be conformed to this world. Do not be conformed to this world.
That's the first negative. It's an interesting word. That word there, conformed, is the word suke matizo.
We get the word scheme from it. It means don't be put into the world's pattern. J.B. Phillips, the great Greek scholar, wrote a paraphrase of the New Testament when he came to this verse, said, don't let the world squeeze you into its mold.
Don't let that happen. Unfortunately, it has happened in just enormous numbers. If you read George Barna or anyone like that has taken surveys of an evangelical Christian in America today, he comes to conclusions that are shocking.
And he says, when you look at the life of Christians today, evangelical Christians, and you look at the life of the unsaved, they're identical. Everything they do, we do. We divorce at their rate. We abuse our children. We do everything they do. We live for money just like they do. Our values are their values. You see, he said, don't let that happen. Don't let the world squeeze you into its mold because it will.
You see, those are extremely important things to us, not to allow that to happen. The word world there is not the word cosmos, which is normally the word for the organized world. It's the word einon.
And einon means the age. It means the spirit of the age that you and I live in, the value of the spirit of the age. In 2 Timothy chapter 3, the apostle Paul, writing to Timothy, said, look, Timothy, we're in the last days. And you know what it's going to be like in the last days? He said, I'll tell you what it's going to be like. Men are going to be lovers of themselves. They'll be narcissists. He said, they'll be lovers of money. They'll be materialists. And they'll be lovers of pleasure.
They'll be hedonists. That's sort of a description of our culture. You see, that's a description of the culture in which we live. You see, it's all about us. I mean, just think of the amount of books written in the last 50 years. You look out for number one, that's you.
Whitney Houston, the greatest love of all is the love of me. It's the greatest. That's what our culture teaches. And we end up embracing it. Our culture teaches us that, look, there's nothing better than more. Nothing better than more. You need more. You need more stuff.
You need more. That's how we measure how good we are as people. That's how much do we get. That doesn't come from the word of God. That comes from our culture. How many times have we heard in our culture, if it feels good, do it.
I mean, come on. That's the world squeezing you into its mold. That's why the first thing he said, look, if you're all in for God, you don't allow the world to squeeze you into that mold. And if the world has squeezed you into that mold, I can tell you this, you're not all into God.
That's the point. You're all in. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.
At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station, by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word, 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org.
That's fbcnola.org. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word. .
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