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Bro. Otis Fisher
Twelfth chapter of the Book of Romans. Paul is speaking. He says,.
I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. The word beseech means to beg or to request earnestly.
So Paul requests earnestly that by the mercies of God, or therefore, just a minute, back up to the conjunction, therefore, indicating something that is past and connecting it to some reason in the future.
Therefore, because you are justified, because you are sanctified and glorified, that you present, present to whom, Greg, by the mercies of God. David, the word mercy means what, literally? As man thinks of it, it means unmerited favor.
Okay. The word means favor, and if it's a favor, it's unmerited. And this is from God. Because of who you are, because of what you are, and because of what has occurred in your life, where to present unto the Lord means to place a person or a thing at one's disposal, our bodies, that you present your bodies.
Now, this is the human part of you. Bodies means that which casts a shadow as distinguished from the shadow itself. That you present your bodies. Fred, when are we to do this? Always, really. All right.
Virgil, are we to do it while we're asleep? I suppose so, if we're doing it always. If we can do it, yes. Go to sleep with that thought, wake up with that thought. Now, a body's a living sacrifice. Why do you suppose it was mentioned to be a living sacrifice?
In the Old Testament days, they did the dead sacrifices and stuff. Anyone want to comment on those? The old sacrifice, in fact, until this time in history, all sacrifices meant they were dead. The animals were dead.
They killed them, slaughtered them.
Is it because we have eternal life and we would always feel like that?
That's right, and he's talking about the fact that we have eternal life. Now, we are to take this body, which is not eternal, and make it to be a living sacrifice. Isn't that what Jesus did on the cross?
Yes, yes. But the question is demanded, how do you do this? How do you present your body a living sacrifice? Now, by the grammar of the sentence, it would mean right now, while we are alive in this body, and the body is alive, that's when we are to present it as a living sacrifice.
Well, to say the words is fine, but we need to know how. Who can offer a suggestion, at least at one point?
Isn't when we just turn our bodies over to God when we're saved, then we do it daily?
When we just give up our life?
That's true, but... We need to turn away from our old ways, and that's what we're trying to do, to be a living sacrifice, to turn our life from the old self to the new self, and we accept Christ. That's true, I want to go deeper than that, I want to know how.
Well, Jesus said, whosoever loves his life shall lose it, whosoever hates his life shall gain life, and the word is, in the Greek, really means self. So it really says, whosoever loves self-life shall lose it, and so I think what this is talking about is the old man, the selfish part of your life has to be crucified daily, sacrificed, so that you don't live for yourself.
That's all true. That doesn't really help me understand, though, how am I going to do this?
Well, our mind, our head is part of our body, and we're to keep our minds clear and clean.
Now you're beginning to get to it. See, I don't think you can do it to yourself. What you have to do is turn yourself over to God, and let him use you, so he does it for you. That's true, but I wanted to understand each little part now.
First, what? What he just said gave me a picture in my mind. You know, an animal cannot sacrifice itself. That's right. So someone else always does the sacrificing, so like Brother Clarence said, the Lord hasn't played his part in this, obviously, but go ahead, I know you're going to get to something more practical.
Well, that's all true. Let's see if we can break it down even more. Our eyes should not look at anything evil. Guard what you look at, that at which you look.
And our ears should listen to filth.
Our tongues should utter nothing evil. The most powerful muscle in the body is our tongue, and the hardest to control. And as Clarence pointed out, none of these things can you do by yourself, because if you try to do it by yourself, it's the old flesh doing it, and it will not respond.
The ear is not to listen to anything evil, as Paul was telling us.
Or an adultery of some sort. Job did that. So the covenant he made was to God that he would not look upon those things with his eyes. All right.
We need to make the covenant, but I want us to get it down really to the bottom. How do I implement the covenant? You guard what your eye looks at. You guard what your ear listens to. What your tongue speaks.
Just to stop doing something is fine. But since man is forever doing something, Burge, there's never been a time in your life that you were not busy doing something. Even while you're asleep, you're busy sleeping.
So just to say you must not do this, that's all right, but if you know what to use to replace it, it's even better. So if our hand is to do no evil, then it should do good. The hand should give alms. The hand should find ways in which to help others.
Our tongue should utter praise unto God. Everything you speak needs to be in reference to God, not to man. Our conversation with that stopped. Our ears are to listen to what, do you suppose? Okay. That edify and advise.
Right. Listen to God. Listen to the word. Be very careful. Eyes are not to look on evil, but to look on things of God. Everything you look at, use it somehow to teach you of God. Now, don't try to look at pornography and have that teach you of God.
Reasonable service. Reasonable service. Bill, what's the word reasonable mean? That which is related to whatever kind of debt that you owe. Here we're talking service. The service that would be reasonable would be that which is related to what you owe.
All right. Rational worship would be another good term. The rational worship unto God must be that that springs from a divine soul prompted by the Holy Spirit. You cannot worship God on your own. In fact, you can do nothing on your own except sin.
So even our worship is originated with God. Does anyone not understand that? Our prayers originate with Him. Our actions, everything in our life. Now, Greg, we're to use everything that comes in reference to that and not to self.
I noticed this past week, reading C .S. Lewis' book, Near Christianity, he had such a simple but profound explanation of just that relationship. He said it's kind of like when you were a child and you went to your father and said, can I have some money to buy you a birthday present?
And of course, the father gives the money to him and he's very grateful for the present that he got. But it was really the father buying it for himself. The difference in between is the child wanted to do this.
That's good. I like that. Wonderful.
More beautiful.
So it just points out that everything is from God. Right. It's what we do with it and what we want to do with it. Verse 2. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind that ye may prove what is good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Now, be not conformed. That's a good $7 .50 word. Fred, what's conformed mean? Well, it's like a cookie cutter. It cuts out a certain thing and forms you specifically to that. And we're not to be conformed to this world.
It should not have anything to do with the way we are formed, shape, act, do, believe, exist. We've got to be conformed to the way God wants us to be. All right. Go back to your 8th grade grammar. Conformed is what kind of a verb?
A verb? What kind of a verb? Oh, you said it. It's past tense. It's what? Past tense. It's past tense? Passive. Passive. What's that mean? Already done, completed. No, passive. Oh, it's something that's done to something.
All right. So be not conformed. Do not let the world system shake your life, because it sure will, if you're like water running downhill. Water running downhill does what? Seeks its own path. What? Seeks its own path.
Seeks the very easiest path. All right. It's a passive verb, compressed by the world system. You belong to that by which you are conformed, by the way. Then we come to another word, $8 word, transformed.
David, is this a passive, active, present, past, imperative, what? No, it's probably passive. Be transformed. All right. The conforming comes from without. To be transformed comes from within. The word for transformed in the Greek gives us metamorphosis.
Greg, what does metamorphi mean? It means many shapes or many forms. It's used mostly in changing from one form to another. Give me an example. Well, in the biological world, the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly.
All right. Where did the butterfly come? From the caterpillar. You mean it was inside? No, it was the same thing, just in a different form. All right. So transformed means to change from one form to another.
When Jesus was put into the grave after he had died on the cross, what sort of body did they put in? A dead. What? A dead. A dead body? A dead person. And was it a dead fleshly body? Yes. A human? What part was, or what type of body was resurrected?
Spiritual. Spiritual. Born again, holy, transformed body. Now, Bill, when Peter and John raced each other to get to the grave to look, and Peter went in, he found the grave closed as though there were a body in it, but there was no body.
Why were there not some fragments or ashes or something of the old body? Because all of the old body. Exactly. And that's what will. So, be transformed, metamorphied, to change into another form, to transfigure is another term, and this change comes from within, not on the outside.
Christ's appearance was changed and was very glorious. In fact, it was flashing, breathtaking, with divine brightness on the Mount of Transfiguration. Do you remember that picture? Who appeared with him, David?
Did Peter recognize Moses? Yes. Why? I don't know. He'd read about him. I guess he felt like he knew him from studying about him. Why did he call him Moses? He recognized him. Because that was the earthly name.
Now, it doesn't mean that Moses still had the earthly body, but it means that Peter was still in the earthly body, and that's the only thing he could recognize. All right. The transfiguration of Christ was a glimpse of our new body.
Do you want to go back and study that passage? Then he says, do all of this that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God, that you may prove. Where is it? Study to show thyself.
Is that 2 Peter 2 .15? 2 Timothy 2 .15? Study to show thyself approved unto God. What does that verse mean, study to show thyself approved?
That means to study to see that God is right. His will is for you and you. As you study, you will see His will working in you. So you're proving that He is right in everything He does.
It doesn't mean to prove to God that you're who you claim you are?
No. It's to prove what He is doing is right in you.
Why wouldn't it be to prove to God?
I don't think we need to prove to God anything. He already knows.
Well, it says here, so that he may prove what is good.
You prove to yourself that what God is doing in you is good. Exactly.
Now why is that so important, Greg? Why is it necessary, or why are we reminded so often to prove to ourselves? I think it's so that we can grow and strengthen ourselves to walk closer to Him. All right.
I think like God hates sin, Satan will be always there to lead you to doubt if there is any room for doubt. That's right. Now, wouldn't you hate to, or at least it would disturb you, if you found out that you had been following the wrong, quote, truth?
That's why you need to study. That's why you need to be in the Spirit. That's why you need to learn to be sensitive to the presence of the Holy Spirit in us. It's so that even though you might hear a statement for the very first time, the indwelling Holy Spirit will cause in your mind the thought that there's something wrong here, or that's right, and maybe you've never heard it before.
But the Spirit will prick your consciousness to the point that you want to go find out. Have any of you ever heard a statement for the first time and you immediately thought that's not quite right? You've never done that?
Well, hold your hand up at half. All right. I can see your hands. All right. Brother Otis? Yes? Doesn't this also make you so totally aware that you have difficulty believing that anyone could be an agnostic?
Because everywhere you look, you see God. Everywhere. You wake up in the morning, you see the birds singing, the flowers growing, whatever. You see an evidence that that has to be God. It just could not happen without there being a God.
So that makes you all the more aware when something does not fit that definition, and you have to then understand that that is the devil's work over on the other side. The very fact you woke up proves there's God.
Well, I understand that, but I'm saying that... Yes, what you said is exactly right. Let me point out again, it's been some time since I have, in our everyday life, going to school and working, we have to understand something before we can believe it.
And the scripture is just the other way around. You must believe before you can ever understand it. So don't go off trying to understand the scripture until you believe it,.
Because it won't work. But then you believe it, and that's when he shows it, it comes up everywhere. It starts coming out of the woodwork, it starts coming out of the pages. And once you say, well, you know, I believe this.
And then all of a sudden you wonder why you've never seen it before. That's right.
Our niece in the state of Washington, I can remember, and her husband, he can't understand all of this. But she said, and their windshield had a little crack in it, and the sun was just shining so that on one phase of it, it glistened.
And she was telling her husband, Steve, that she can see God in everything, even in that crack in the windshield. He nearly stopped and put her out.
Because she believed there was a God, so God revealed himself everywhere.
Fr. Ogles, this is all backed up in Ephesians 1 .18. It reinforces everything we're learning right now. Could I read that? Sure. Ephesians 1 .18, The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his apparition in his saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to others who believe according to the working of his mighty power.
That's great.
That's exactly right. You see how the Bible interprets itself. All right. Renewing of your mind. This is done by the indwelling Holy Spirit as we yield to him. He controls our mental process. And then we begin to take on the metamorphosis.
And as this happens, we will stop doing that which we should not do. Go to Galatians 5 .16, please. Verge, have you got that? Yes, sir. Make me hear it. 5 .16? Yes. I say then, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not feel the lust of the flesh.
All right. Now, we've all had people make the statement to us or in our presence, well, I just don't know what I ought to do, concerning some problem in their life. And that's true lots of times. Let me give you a hint.
Dennis, just because you do not know what to do doesn't mean that you should do nothing. And as I said a little while ago to Verge, each of us is doing something all of the time. We're busy at something.
There's never been a time in your life that you were not occupied with something. So, since you might not know what to do, you do know what not to do. Right? That's not too hard, is it? So, just stop doing that which you know you should not do.
Now, since you're doing something all of the time, little by little, you will replace that that you should not do with that that you should do. Don't worry about what you should do. Just stop doing what you should not do.
And by the process of elimination, you'll grow closer to God. Does everyone understand that? Brother Lewis, don't you think, though, the more that we study and grow, the old things that we used to take for granted that we used to always do seem so far to us now.
Yes. And the more that we take the bad out and put the good in, there is no room for the bad. That's right. That's the purpose of studying. See, our profession is Christianity. We work at many different types of secular work to finance our business, which is Christianity.
The Lord's work in us is to cause us to grow, to be like him. And everything in our life is an event sent by God to cause us to come closer to him. It's our work to determine how this does cause me to grow spiritually.
Blessings, and I'll say it again, I don't know if anybody will ever believe me, but I believe me. Blessings are not physical. We've used the term wrongly all of our life. And I know you'll still cling to that.
And that's all right as long as you understand that the only true blessing from God is spiritual. Now, you may claim, well, the new church that I found, that was a tremendous blessing to me. Well, it is.
But how does that cause you to grow spiritually? That's the blessing. The spiritual growth out of whatever it is that you come across. New house, new car, new job. Such a blessing. I would that we could all use that term correctly because in using things as blessing, we water down the real meaning of the real blessing, which is spiritual.
So put that in your computer and remember it. Verse 3. For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
Now, David, from this scripture, it seems to me, and you just tell me right or wrong, it seems that every man should think of himself with a positive attitude. A very Christian. He's in his middle 80s.
He grew up without a formal education. He's taught himself. And he always is talking himself down. Now, I can understand that unless you've studied the word. And he really likes to study. But by the time you get to be 85, it's hard to change thoughts.
And he says, well, I'm not worth anything. He says, I don't have any education. I don't know how to speak correctly. I told him, that makes no difference whatsoever upon your salvation or your witness.
Because that's what the Lord's given you. But I've never been able to get him off of that. But just remember, you are something. You belong to Christ. He paid for you. The worth of the item purchased must be equal to the value of the medium of exchange.
I'd like for you to write that down. The worth of the item purchased must be equal in value to the medium of exchange. For example, you go to the store and buy a loaf of bread. Whatever it costs. It used to be a nickel.
Now it's probably a dollar or more. But you have to make the decision, is that loaf of bread equal in value to this dollar? And you usually decide yes. Now, I say all of that just to say this. We were purchased by our Lord.
He bought us. Fred, what was the medium of exchange? The human life. You could express it in another way. He shed his blood. His blood was equal in value to the worth of us. So don't ever think you're not something.
Because you are. You're a precious item bought, restored. That means that once you were his and then you become not his, and then by his death on the cross of his human body and the shedding of his blood, we became his again.
And it's not us, it's him? It's him.
We are to always think of ourselves, but never first. Whatever you do, never consider yourself to be nothing in the eyes of God, because you are. We're nothing in comparison with God. But to him we are precious.
We're a part of the product for which his son gave his life. We are a righteous person, not the body. Greg, there's no redemption plan for the body. But there is for that new life, because it is Christ.
But to think differently is an insult to God. Yes, absolutely. Criticizing something that he did. We are now a royal priesthood. Do you remember that? Yes. We have just as much right to be in heaven as the Lord does.
Why? Because we're in him. We're purchased by him. Paul made the statement that he was the worst sinner of all. But now I can do all things through the Lord Jesus Christ. He meant he used to be the worst sinner.
So never again say, I'm just a sinner saved by grace, because that's not true. You were a sinner, but you're not anymore. Now in Ephesians 4 -7, if you'd like to turn to that. Paul had just made the statement.
But to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man, the measure of faith. In Ephesians 4 -7. Bill, you have that open? Are you working on it? Okay. Alright. But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
Alright, it's according to the measure of his gift. To every one of us there has been given this grace, this faith. But it is just for you. It fits just for you. Now, how does he know what portion to give to each one?
I know he knows, Dian. But how does he know what to give to you? To the Creator. He's the one that gave you that that you need faith for. And he's given you all of the faith you need to do what you're supposed to do.
He's equipped you with abilities, with interests, with a mind. He's equipped us with everything, but everybody's individually different. And he has given to each and every one individually the amount of faith, strength, to perform, to work, and to exercise your gift.
That's right. It starts with the saving grace. And then to each and every one there are abilities. So the measure portion deals with the abilities that he's given you. That's right. To give back on that worship.
That's right. Now, embodied within that is the fact you should never try to be what somebody else is. Because they get a lot of publicity and notoriety, and, oh, I want to do that. Don't dare try it. That old black man told me, he says, you be what you is, not what you ain't.
Because if you is what you ain't, you ain't what you is. Verse 4. For as we have many members in one body, and lots of trains coming down the track, Members have not the same office. He's comparing it to our body.
Have toes and fingers, but they're not the same. So we, be many, are one body in Christ. And every one members one of another. And I stress that. Try the best you can, or as much as your brother will allow you, be compatible with him.
Because you're all members of the same body. In fact, there are many bodies with one soul. And that's Christ. And as the members of our body differ, so do the members of his body. See, we're his body on earth.
One more. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us. For the prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith. If I am to please God, I must work within the boundaries of the gift and the ability that he has given me.
The same for each one of you. Don't try to be something you're not. Do not brag about your gift. At the same time, don't bury it either. The gift makes possible the good works. Without this gift of faith of Christ, we could do no good works.
Now Bill, why is it important for us to do good works? We do it because we need. We do it first of all because we love him. We do it second of all so we can grow, Fred. And if we don't do good works, we're doing bad works.
That's right. It's one or the other. There's no in between. And the good works will bring rewards. But we don't work for rewards. You remember...
It's spiritual, right? What? Again, it's spiritual. Yes. If not, I'll make her a cake and when I need a cake, she'll bring me one over later. I didn't hear the last...
That's probably better if you didn't. My husband always says, I like cakes.
Do you remember when Christ was speaking to the people and he said, in that day, you will say to me, I'm paraphrasing, that what do you mean we cannot be with you? We prophesied in your name. We prayed in your name.
We did miracles in your name. We did this, did that in your name. David, what will he tell them? That's apart from me, I never knew. All right. Now, the other side, he will say, enter in to your reward, whatever it is.
Whatever. Because you did these things unto me. The important phrase in the whole episode is this. They said, when did we do it? The other guys were named at times, David. They knew when they did it. But the she did not know when they did it.
What's that tell us? Not prideful. What's it tell us about us right now? God is working in us. Well, it tells us we won't always be aware when we're doing exactly what God wants us to do. I think we're hardly ever aware.
I think being prideful is such a way of life that sometimes you don't realize that you're doing it. That's right. It should become a way of life that it just flows. And we don't have to know. In fact, it's better if we don't.
We'll get prideful. We must stop here. Anything anyone needs to say? Brother Hopes, don't you think that when we talk about how important we are to God, and the parables were that the shepherd would leave for the 99 to go after the 1, that ought to tell us how important we are to God.
Absolutely. He would leave everybody just to go get one particular sheep. That's pretty important. See, he had already told them. Well, he tells the Heavenly Father that of all of those you've given me, I haven't lost any.
Of course, that parable, then go back and explain to them. But he will not. Matthew 1, 29. What? 21. 21. In the Greek it says, he shall save the people of him from the sins of them. That's an imperative, all-inclusive statement.
Anything else? I would like to refer to verse 5 again. So we being many are one body in Christ, and every one member is one of another. Is that not the universal church?
Is that to speak of all that are in Christ? Please don't speak of it as a universal church because there's another organization taking that phrase. Okay.
Of the real church, then. The real church.
The real church. And it is universal.