From Valley to Victory, Part 15

For more than 35 years, across six continents, and in 28 of the world's most spoken and understood languages, Leading the Way has effectively used media to share God's Word with those who need it most. Today, Dr. Yusef continues ministry with this series, From Valley to Victory, looking deeper into Paul's letter to the Romans. Now, before today's message, this quick reminder that Leading the Way is a listener-supported ministry made possible by your prayers and your generosity. When you support us, please share how you connect with Leading the Way. That information helps Dr. Yusef to be a good steward of all that God provides. So listen with me now as Dr. Michael Yusef begins today's challenging message. If I've heard it once, I've heard it a hundred times in the past 45 years in the ordained ministry.

And I've heard it in a variety of ways, but the problem is the same. Why don't I seem to be able to have victory in my life? Why I don't seem to be able to live the Christian life in joy and victorious and in a sense of achievement or accomplishment for the Lord? Why? Why I don't feel contented and joyful? Why do I feel frustrated in my spiritual walk?

I can tell you why. The bottom line is they all have one thing in common, and that is a faulty view of worship. What is worship? The word comes from the Latin origin. When we get it into the English language, the original word is worth-ship.

That's where it comes from, worth-ship. So the question is, what is God worth to you? What is God worth to me? Romans chapter 12 gives us a picture of what is true worship is all about. At the heart of worship is not what we can get out of it, but what we can give to it.

That is really the bottom line, and that's where the confusion comes from. Worship is not getting, but it is giving. Here in Romans chapter 12 verses 1 to 8, Paul gives us the only way for true joy, for contentment, for satisfaction, for victory in the Christian life.

Please listen to me. Worship is not getting high on some emotional high, and then it wears off and then you're back in the dumps in worse condition. Now, verse 1, therefore I urge you in the view of the mercies of God to offer your bodies as living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual worship.

Remember the principle of therefore? In fact, here tells us what it is for, the mercies of God. Therefore, in view of the mercies of God, in view of what you saw in the last message from Romans chapter 11, particularly verse 33, oh the depth of the riches of the wisdom of God, the incredible mercy of God.

Now that he had shown mercy both to Jews and Gentiles to believe in Jesus, those branches that already grafted in the Gentiles or the branches were natural to Jews. Now that he shown mercy to all and because of that mercy, therefore it is your response, it's my response to this unbelievable, indescribable, unfathomable mercy of the grace of God. Therefore, this is your expression of gratitude and thanksgiving to the mercy of God. Therefore, this is your secret for contentment and joy and victory and satisfaction in God.

What is it? Offering God your spiritual worship. How do I offer God my body as a spiritual sacrifice? First of all, when Paul talking about offering our body, he's not talking about the bones and the flesh and the skin and the tissues. He's not talking about this physical body. No, he is referring to everything that we are, everything that you are.

That's what he's talking about. In the Old Testament, the sacrifice had to be killed. In the New Testament, the sacrifice has to be living. Oh, it's a lot harder to live with Jesus than to die for Jesus.

Did you know that? In the Old Testament, the sacrifice cost a portion of one's income. In the New Testament, you must be prepared to sacrifice everything. In the Old Testament, sacrifice had to be without blemish. In the New Testament, the sacrifice has to be complete and a total surrender. In the Old Testament, the sacrifice brought sweet smelling savor to the nostrils of God. In the New Testament, the sacrifice must be pleasing to the Lord. One of the sad things are that the very people who are running around from Bible conference to Bible conference and seminar to seminar, from church to church, looking for exciting experience, new experience, those are the very people who might be giving God the crumbs of their money. Who are giving God the crumbs of their time, not the first hour and the first fruit.

They're giving God the crumbs of their energy instead of the first burst of the energy. And that is why Paul is saying, I appeal to you. He really is saying, I beg you. I am pleading with you. I beg you. I urge you with every ounce of my being.

I'm asking, urging you. Please, please, please, please, please understand what worship is all about because it is a secret to your true and permanent lasting fulfillment. You know one thing I've noticed through the years is that the more God blesses us, the less we are willing to give of ourselves.

I've seen it too many times to doubt it. The more God blesses us, the more we'll want to hold on to his blessings and not depart from it and hand it back to him. If God puts a gun to your head and says give or else, what are you going to do? Be honest with me.

You're going to give, right? Why? Fear. Beloved, fear is not our faith. That is not our faith. It's some other religion. Our faith is not a faith of fear. It is a faith of an expression of gratitude and thanksgiving and praise and adoration and worship. Our faith is not legalism but thanksgiving. I appeal to you by the mercies of God to offer all of you as a living sacrifice pleasing to the Lord.

That is your acceptable. That is your act of worship. You say, well, I can die for God. Yes, but living for God.

That's a slow death. Slow death to self, life for Christ in you. Wherever you go, there goes a living sacrifice. In the boardroom, there is a living sacrifice. In the factory floor, there is a living sacrifice. In the housework, there is a living sacrifice.

In paradigm, this is a living sacrifice. In serving, in giving, I'm a living sacrifice everywhere I go. Beloved, the motive of giving of self in spiritual worship must always be generated out of response to God's mercy.

Always. The object of giving is pleasing the Lord. Pleasing the Lord. Before I utter a word out of my mouth, I'll ask, are these words going to be pleasing to the Lord? Before I speak ill of someone or express ingratitude toward someone, I ask, is that going to be pleasing to the Lord? Before I allow bitterness to seep into my heart and begin to feel sorry for myself and selfishness, I ask, is this really pleasing to the Lord? Before I allow my feet to take me to places where I should not and must never, never, never go, I ask myself, is this living sacrifice, is this pleasing to the Lord?

That is what it's all about. Beloved, surrender is a total job. Therefore, I urge you, brethren, in the view of the mercy of God, to offer yourselves totally, completely as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual worship. Then immediately, the apostle Paul goes to speak about the spiritual gifts, which every believer has at least one. Some of you have more than one. Verse two, do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but rather be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

And then, and here I'm adding, this is a use of part, and only then, and then will you be able to discern the will of God. We live in a culture, oh, it grieves me, no end. With this conformity mentality, it's alive and well. I mean, you see it all over the place, conformity. Anybody tries to be different, immediately jump on him or her.

Beloved, listen to me, standing against the current of culture is a rarity these days. If there is a hip pastor, you know what I'm talking about? If a hip pastor gets up and he said, God is too big, there are many ways to God, other than through Jesus. Thousands of young pastors follow suit and stop preaching this stuff.

Tragedy, tragedy, tragedy. Another hip preacher says, we don't need to judge sin, we can baptize it into the church. Thousands of young pastors, within weeks, preaching the same falsehood. Make no mistake about it. Satan understand this powerful desire of conformity. He understands it very, very well, and he uses it to the hilt. He uses it to the hilt. Why?

Because Satan's goal is to destroy the church of Jesus Christ. Is this news to you? No. If you get one message from verse two, it's just one thing. I want it to be this. Dare to stand alone. Dare to be different from the masses. Dare to stand firm when everybody else is caving in. Dare to be a Daniel. Dare to be a Shadrach, Meshach or Abednego. Dare to say no when everybody else is saying yes. Dare to say no. That is not biblical. Dare to testify. Dare to stand courageously against the unbiblical church. Even if you have to walk out of that church, walk out.

Why? Because the transforming of your mind produces transforming of your will, and the transforming of your will is going to reveal the will of God to you. And you and the will of God will be one in and out in the same mind, the same mind as Christ Jesus. The word transform here that is used, the original word, is the word from which we get metamorphosis, where something is transformed from one form into another. It's like a change of the tadpole into a frog or a caterpillar into a butterfly. In fact, in this same word is used here. It's the same word used in the Gospels to describe what happened on the Mount of Transfiguration. You remember when Jesus took Peter and John and James and went up to the Mount of Transfiguration, and that's what the word means, transformation. The Lord's inward essence was allowed to shine through his body and is that his face radiated. That's what it means.

He was transformed. Look with me at verses three to eight. Here the apostle Paul gives us practical ways by which we can offer ourselves totally as a sacrifice to the Lord.

Please listen to me. We cannot offer ourselves totally to the Lord when we're sitting on our blessed assurance and doing nothing. Why? Because actively serving God brings honor to God.

And here's the sticky wicket as they say in England. None of us are exempted. None of us are exempted.

Why? Because none of us have been exempted from receiving the Holy Spirit with all the gifts that he brought to us. Here is the flow of true worship. It goes from self-denial and spiritual worship to self-surrender to the will of God. And it goes from self-surrender to selfless serving in the work of God. No exemption. Look at verse three. No exemption. Through the grace given to me, I say to everyone. You notice that?

How many? Every one of you. No exemption. From my personal observation, I have found that in a given church there are two extremes. Both are erroneous. Both are destructive to the church of Jesus Christ.

Listen to me very carefully please. Both are designed to make the church of Jesus Christ ineffective. One extreme is the person who thinks much highly of himself or herself than they ought. And they sort of look down their noses at the others. Yeah, they let them work. They're the workers. I'm the prince of the church.

I'm the princess of the church. I don't work. Look down their noses. They think the serving is beneath them. That's a bad extreme. The other bad extreme, equally bad, is the self-deprecating.

The self-deprecating person. Well, I'm just not worthy. I have nothing to offer.

I can't really do anything. Both are false perceptions and both designed to paralyze the church of Jesus Christ. Are you with me? So what's the answer? The answer to those two extremes given to us right here in the scripture. Verse 3, Paul says, the first answer, have an accurate self-perception. In verses 4 and 5, he said, have an adequate perception of others.

And thirdly, verses 6 to 8, he says, have an active service mentality. Adequate self-perception means that I'm neither inflated or deflated. I'm realistic about myself. How do I have an accurate perception of myself? By not keeping my eyes on somebody who's better than me or focusing my eyes on somebody who's worse off than me.

Why? Because you will always find somebody who's better than you. You will always find somebody who's in worse shape than you. If you focus on somebody whom you perceive better than you or has different gifts than you, you will experience false discouragement.

You will, I promise you. If you keep your eyes on somebody whom you perceive worse off than you are or have different gifts than you are, you will have an inflated self-importance. Both extremes are deadly. Both of these are wrong measurements. For accurate measurements of self is a relationship with Jesus Christ. It's keeping your eyes on Jesus. When your eyes are only on Jesus, you will have a sober judgment, meaning accurate perception.

Why? Because God does not give us all the same measures of faith. He gives some measures of faith to you and different from you and you and you and me. And when you operate faithfully on the measure of faith that he's given you, you will not be discouraged. You will not be discouraged. You will not be frustrated. You're not going to feel defeated. Transforming of the mind will help you to have an accurate perception of yourself.

Secondly, transforming of the mind is going to allow you to have an adequate perception of others, verses four and five. Imagine for a moment you're flying on a plane and all of a sudden the announcement comes and says, we have made a decision that we're going to switch roles. The pilots are going to serve the food and be flight attendants and the flight attendants are going to pilot the plane. Now I want you to imagine what a lousy service that will be. Don't worry about the plane crashing or imagine the horror of me trying to sing a solo every Sunday. I know you'll clear this place up before five minutes into the service.

No. Paul said, don't envy the gifts of others. Don't despise your own gift. Don't sit and wish you've had a different gift. Don't waste your life moping and moaning and complaining that your gift is not important.

Your gift is not significant. The God who knew you before the foundation of the earth, he knew you to give you the gift that he knows is perfect for you and not for somebody else, just for you. Get on with worshiping God, using your energy and exercising of the gift. Beloved, this is how seriously the Bible takes the discovering and the using of his spiritual gifts. Our transforming mind gives us accurate self perception. Our transforming mind will give us adequate perception of others.

Finally, thirdly, six to eight, our transforming mind will give us an active serving mentality. Beloved, the scripture tells us that when we become born again, the Holy Spirit comes in to dwell in us, but he doesn't come empty handed. Holy Spirit is very generous. He always comes carrying gifts, at least one gift.

For most of us, it's more than one. That's your spiritual birthday gift. The Holy Spirit brings it to you, hands it to you. The saddest part to me is the person who never ever opened the gift to know what it is. The next saddest portion to me is the person who opens the gift and says, oh, I don't like that. Put it on the shelf.

Operate without it. Meanwhile, the body of Christ is languishing. The body of Christ is suffering because of their absence.

Listen, to those who say, I get nothing out of church, to those who say, church doesn't do much for me. Think about the loss that others are experienced because of your absence. Think about that and think about it for a long time. Let me tell you this as I conclude. It's an illustration.

I don't want to take it too far. And when I tell you the story, you will understand the point of it. After World War II, there were a group of German students, Christian German students who volunteered to go to England and help repair a very well-known famous cathedral that was bombed by the Germans during the war. And they worked hard, they repaired and they've done all the things they could do. As the work progressed, they become concerned about the large statue of Jesus. See what I said, I'm not big on statues, but I'm telling you the story. There was a large statue of Jesus. It was depicted with his arms wide open and the inscription at the bottom of the statue says, come unto me. And they tried to repair those arms, they tried to repair those hands, they couldn't do it and they couldn't do it.

They experienced real difficulty in fixing it. After much debate, the leadership of that particular cathedral, that church, they've decided to keep the hands off of that statue and change the inscription. Christ has no hand but ours. See what I mean? Because the hand of my Jesus is too mighty to work. It's too powerful, it's not short.

But the point is the same. The question is, are you serving as the hands of Jesus? Are you serving as the hands of Jesus? I pray to God that this, not one person here would say, well, this is not really for me. It's for so-and-so. He really, or she really needs this. The apostle Paul left no one out.

He said everyone. Thank you for joining with listeners all around the world for this episode of Leading the Way Audio with Dr. Michael Yussa. Thank you for listening to Leading the Way.

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