Living Sacrifice — Glenn Meldrum

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The Call to Live Romans 12

I'm gonna look at a very Simple section of scripture turn with me to Romans 12. I know you know it. I know you've read it. You may have it memorized. I'm gonna bring something out that hopefully is very simple, but yet very powerful.

Fastest growing religion in the world is and not in the world. Let me let me clarify the fastest religion in America is Islam. Fast growing religion is Islam even after 9-eleven. People are flocking to it.

I mean they're flocking to it from supposed Christian Backgrounds they're flocking to it. And they're flocking to it for reason because the the church is so full of so much compromise. They see no absolutes within the church, and here's Islam giving absolutes and not an unstable world in a world That is that is very unsafe.

Here is a religion That's trying to say here are absolutes that you can live by though. They are an error though it is lie though it is deception. They are gaining. Because people want something to put their life upon that that they feel has some form of Solidity some form of power and strength, and they want some reason and so they look to that.

It's an unfortunate thing, but it's what's going on. When the church grabs hold of the truth. Something's gonna really take place, and we've not changed our world because we've not grabbed hold of it.

I remember a statement Leonard Ravenhill once made where he ended up saying one of these days. Some simple soul will grab hold of the book of God. Read it believe it and live it and the rest of us will be ashamed.

We don't take our cities because we don't believe it well. Maybe we kind of believe it, but not enough to live it. I mean not enough for it to affect every dimension of our life every fiber of our being we live it to a point of Convenience rather than to the aspect and to the extent of what the Word of God tells us.

We're going to look at a very simple section of Scripture here very powerful section. I guarantee you if we as believers lived it. Your city would not be the same your city would not be the same much less if the Christians across this nation lived it our Country would be radically transformed.

There is power in God's Word. There is power in the reality of Christianity. It is not a weak defeated religion. It is not something that is that does not have the ability to deliver from the power and the love of sin.

It is more than powerful if God possesses more than enough power to make us the men and women of God that he wants us to Be the problem does not lie in the bosom of God. Problem lies in our bosoms. And that's where we need to go.

That's what we need to look at Romans 12. Let's just look at the first two verses here. Therefore I urge you brothers in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices. Holy and pleasing to God.

This is your spiritual act of worship or as the King James puts it your reasonable service. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world. But be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and to prove what God's will is his good pleasing and perfect will you know?

The Living Sacrifice as a Perpetual Surrender

There's an idea that we have to look at here just in the very beginning of living sacrifices. The very concept of living sacrifice that it's a never-ending process. That is not a one-time event as an animal sacrifice where that animal is killed and slain.

It's dead and that's it or even of the sacrifice of Christ where he died and he died once and for all never to die again. The very concept of a living sacrifice is that it is a perpetual never-ending process.

It's not a one-time event that we do at an altar of repentance and we say jeez forgive me come into my life. And that's it. It is a never-ending process and the reason why it's a never-ending process because the need is never-ending.

I Know the majority of you in this room. We're at one time seniors in high school and now a lot of you are seniors in life. And I guarantee you things are very different from when you were senior in high school.

I mean your bodies are different your minds different your experience different your life is different. Everything's different because between being a senior in high school and a senior in life. There's a whole lot of things that take place and all along that journey all along that path there is things of pain sorrow joy successes failures every Event that goes in our life brings us to the point of change.

We are in this place of constant change because we live in a world of constant change because our bodies are changing our Relationships are changing everything's changing around us. We may not like that change, but it's what happens.

It is a reality. It is a fact. And because of this this reality of change that that never Ceases to take place on this fallen world because that goes on constantly in our life. We are consistently faced with the necessity of surrender.

Consistently faced with the necessity of being a living sacrifice through each struggle each joy each success each failure. No matter what it is that we face. We are constantly confronted. What will I do with this?

How will I respond will I give into this situation and let it destroy me or it calls me to be bitter or angry or? Will I yield to Christ and overcome and be triumphant to what will I do? Will I submit to Christ or will I submit to the lust of my own flesh or the pride of my own life or the desires?

That I have my own selfish ambitions, or will I submit to the ambitions of Christ? What will I do in each of these situations it will take place till our dying day. Finally when we walked in pearly gates, we won't have to make those decisions anymore.

It'll be done. It'll be a finished thing until that day. We have that constant necessity of surrender in our life. I'm going to want to look at three laws that govern what it means to be a living sacrifice.

And how these laws are to affect us. I don't care whether you're young or old. I don't care where you are in your life as a Christian or whether you're not a Christian. These are our spiritual laws of being a living sacrifice.

And if you want to be a Christian and the Christian you should be you'll have to look at these laws. Examine these laws and see whether you are living them out or not. These three laws that I'm going to touch on is surrender.

Singleness of mind and singleness of heart. And each of those are expressed in their own way within this section of Scripture and implied with the very idea of what it means. To be a living sacrifice.

Surrender from Independence to Christ

So let's begin with the concept of surrender. Surrender is a very difficult thing for us. We have a really hard time with it. It's a human problem not just you as an individual, but all of humanity has that problem with surrender.

Let me give you the illustration why an idea of why. From the moment that a little baby is conceived that little child right there is on a quest for independence. I mean, how long will it be before that little boy or girl?

Little boy, how long will it be for that little boy is grabbing the spoon from mama wanting to feed himself? And how long will it be for that baby's then starts running around the the floor and by the time it hits the terrible twos.

It is in everything and and you can't keep up with because that kid will have more energy than you ever dreamed of having at Your age. I mean, it's just the reality of it. Our child is on a quest for independence.

How long will it be before the first time that mama turns her head and that little boy is running down the street and she has To try and run frantically to find where this little boy went. I Mean and then it gets worse as time goes on because as they grow older they want independence.

They want to make their own decisions. They want their own stuff their own things their own ways and then they come to the teen years and then it can be real nightmares as they are really pushing the envelope the Parameters the borders of say I want freedom.

I want the say of my life. If things aren't very pleasant at home a child has this concept to say when I'm old enough I'll make my own mind up and then I'll be happy. I'll be happy when I finally can get out of the house and I don't have to listen to my mom or my father anymore I can do what I want.

This constant quest for independence and supposedly when they're 18, they're an adult. Supposedly they think that they've arrived that they've come to a point and now I can make my own decisions. We're on this quest for independence.

The problem is this problem that Paul tells about that whoever we submit ourselves to we become the slaves to whether in the sin. Which brings bondage or into righteousness which brings light? It's going to be one of the other and so if I yield myself to sin I actually become the slave of sin.

When I think myself going in a direction says I'm going to find freedom. I'm gonna do whatever I want to do then. I can find myself chained by the very things I thought would bring me liberty rather than the aspect of finding freedom.

I actually find bondage. Through a pursuit of sin or pursuit of rebellion or pursuit of lust or wants or cares. You see we're in this constant need of surrender. And then all of a sudden we come to a point and we begin to understand Christianity and Christianity is the total opposite of the world.

The natural man is in this constant quest for independence the Christian man the true Christian man is in a constant quest of Dependence the total opposite everything the world teaches us is totally against the reality of Christianity everything that nature teaches everything we just learn in this life is Contrary to it and here we as Christians have so many problems in our life because we continue to try to have that quest of Independence.

I want to do what I want to do because that's what I want to do. This is my desire. So I'm going to go after this is what I feel and so because I feel this I'm going to chase after this quest of Independence can creep into the church and govern people who claim to be Christians and cause them nothing.

But nightmares and disaster here again Paul brings out a reality that is very difficult for us. He says you're not your own you're bought with a price. You see you are not your own. You don't have a right over what's in your wallet.

You don't have a right over your home over your over your business life or anything in reality. You have no say if you are going to walk the walk of a true Christian. Now if you're going to somehow mingle the religion of this world and of our independent Ambitions and try and mingle it with Christianity.

Then maybe you think that you can but true Christianity is not like that because it begins with us becoming a living sacrifice. See that sacrifice has no say over. When that lamb was slain and put on the altar it couldn't after was on the altar say I'm going to get off.

Now we think we can do that as living sacrifice, but if we get off then we're no longer sacrificed. So there's only one place for a living sacrifice. It's on the altar. That's in reality to be dead to trespass and sin dead to the ambitions of our own life.

And so it comes to a point of surrender. God calls us to this place as Oswald Chambers referred to it of reckless abandonment. I like the term reckless abandonment. I mean It's a wonderful term that the man used and and I use it often because it speaks of what our Christianity is supposed to be.

Let me give you an illustration of what reckless abandonment would be. God goes to you and says I'm calling you to be a missionary to Lumbum Bashi reckless abandonment says. When? I'm out of here God.

Do you know what we do as Americans? Well, I don't know. Is that gonna work in my retirement package or is this gonna be is it gonna be good for me? Will I find the right man on the field out there? I mean we have all the arguments of why not to do it.

Because we approach it all from a selfish ambition from self-wants rather than the aspect of saying God you've called me. I will go. But you see that's what Christianity is all about. It's not about the aspect of arguing with the Creator God.

It's the aspect of surrendering to Mark 835 tells us for whoever wants to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses life for me. And for the gospel will save it life only comes to death. It's the only way it's the idea of surrender.

Self-Preservation Versus Missionary Sacrifice

Versus self-preservation. We have this thing within us in the natural to preserve our lives. That's what it is. I mean we are in this thing that we want to preserve life at no no matter what the cost will be.

Somebody attacks us and we'll fight because we want to preserve our life. No matter what is we have this thing within us. I mean when you look at the the tenacity that can be in the human spirit when pain and suffering comes in our person we'll fight against odds that are are insurmountable because of this desire self-preservation and Then Christ tells us if you want to gain your life, you have to lose it.

Everything works against that desire self-preservation. Everything works against it then say God you mean I have to lay my life down for you. It doesn't make sense. I'm reading a book right now on on a man named John Patton a missionary that a pioneer missionary that went to the South Seas and Phenomenal man phenomenal man.

I mean this aspect of being on an island with cannibals and dealing with the cannibals and all the things that were not and this constant surrender to the will of God and the constant threat of death at a Never-ending basis of people constantly trying to kill him and yet stay Wanting to minister the gospel to him to them because of his love of Christ and his love of the people.

You only have that happen when a man is already dead in Christ. Not when he's alive in trespass and sin not when he's alive in the lust of the flesh but things like that only happen when men and women come to point to be dead to their old nature when they come to a Point to to be willing to lose their life.

And so what happens. God takes men like that. Turns the world upside down. You see we're not turning the world upside down because we don't have such men today. I That we are to be the salt of the earth and He says if the salt loses saltiness.

What good is it in in in one of the other accounts and one of the other Gospels? It says it's good for nothing but to be trampled down underfoot. It's not even good for the manure pile because it'll ruin the manure to be fertilizer.

It's good for nothing. It's becomes useless and so much of the American Church is useless to a perishing world because we are so consumed with our own Wants and our own cares being our weekend warriors to have as much fun as we can Claim to be Christian in the midst of it.

But yet here's this Christ who did not go and and endeavor to be a weekend warrior. He came to die for humanity. His ambition was not the pursuit of pleasure. But was the pursuit of a father's will and he saw a greater thing in the pursuit of his father's will than what it was in the pursuit of pleasure.

Jesus even told us that in the last days we would be lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God and that's that's America. We are in the pursuit of pleasure. We are in the pursuit of Wanting our own stuff our own things our own time our own everything.

And then you know, we wonder why our kids go astray. Wonder why our kids don't walk with God. Because all they saw in our lives was a pursuit of pleasure. We get to church when we could work it in if it was convenient.

If it wasn't convenient I'd rather be out doing something else rather be at the beach at the lake. I'd rather be out golfing. I'd rather be one place or another and so we have all the excuses of why we're not because.

We've not come to the point of surrender to lose our life to gain it. And you know. We fight we strive we war to to try and own to try and have to have have significance and purpose and and here it's in The whole aspect of surrender, but yet we fight that surrender tooth and nail.

We fight it. We fight it with everything we have. The idea of surrender means that fulfillment comes in our life only through surrender. I was created to know my creator. I was created for that sole purpose not for the pursuit of pleasure not for the gain of material.

Well, not for doing all kinds of supposed things that are fun. But in the end leaves me destitute. What will it matter? When I stand before God and I had all these toys. I had snowmobiles and ATVs and campers and this and that and stuff and I stand before and I'll be naked.

What will it matter how much I was consumed with sports and whether I knew the sports status. What will it matter? The only thing that'll matter when I stand before him is what I did for him whether I come and I lay sheaves at his Feet or I stand before being Nothing, but an absolute selfish individual that lived in absolute selfishness for the pursuit of all my selfish wants and cared nothing for anybody else.

But my own selfish desires. Do you hear what I'm saying if there's anything in your life. Anything that you look to to satisfy your life outside of Christ. It's an idol. It is a false God. It is a wicked thing that you've allowed to come into your life.

Because you think that thing is what will satisfy you and you are not out to get your fulfillment from Christ. But from other stuff other things other ways. Have you come to a point that you find the fulfillment in your life through Christ?

That's what you were created for if you have not found it. It's not the fault of the Creator. It is the fault of you. Now, of course the challenge comes down to be will you deal with that? Usefulness in the kingdom of God only comes through surrender.

I remember the statistic that came out of the Billy Graham Association. That says only five percent of all who claim to be born-again Christians have ever witnessed in their life. And then we wonder why our world is dying.

I was bringing out the aspect of of us being salt in this world. And what is salt to do? Salt is to be a preserver from decay and it's to be an enhancement of the food for us to be salt. I am to be preserver from moral and spiritual decay.

We may not want to accept the responsibility. But the reality is the abortion industry is a fault of the church the reality. That drugs run rampant in our streets is the fault of the church. The reason why there's bars and There's people filling them is because the church has failed to be the church if I am what I should be if the church is What it should be it should be preserving Society for moral and spiritual decay if our nation is is plunging in moral spiritual decay.

It is because the church has lost its ability to speak to a perishing world. Now we can go and say well things will get worse and worse and that's just a fatalistic viewpoint. That's not biblical. Yes, things will get worse, but it's gonna if it gets worse.

It's gonna be because the church falls asleep. Not because the church is alive every time in history when the church was alive. Society was transformed as a result of it. Not because they became political forces not because they went out after to change the laws of the land.

Because they went out after individual people and change individuals who changed the laws and who changed society. You see when we cease being what we should be when we cease being surrendered individuals we cease usefulness.

Do you know that the scribes and Pharisees were absolutely useless to the kingdom of God? And there may be some of you that are Pharisees because you are useless to the kingdom of God. Useless absolutely useless and why are you useless.

Because you have not surrendered your life. You went and says well, I prayed a little prayer. I'm a nice person. I read my Bible once in a while. I pray over dinner and Is that what a Christian is? We're told here that what a Christian is is a person who has given themselves as a living sacrifice 24 hours a day seven days a week every moment of every day of every second.

Everything that they are that they have yielded their wants their cares their hurts their ambitions their sorrows their everything. Because they are surrendered part of the issue of surrender. Brings us to the point that we allow The great powder to form us and shape us and some of us don't want that.

Let me let me be real honest here every single thing in your marriages. That is harmful to your marriage. Jesus wants to get out of your life because you are the problem your marital problems. Are you?

It's where it comes down to be your marital problems. Are you when you have marital problems? It's because your character is flawed. It's because you have attitudes you have bitterness as you have hurts you have insecurities you have fears.

You have all kinds of garbage. Now if you deal with them, then Jesus can can transform the character and he can make a character. That's beautiful. That's Christ's like that's glorious. But if we don't allow the great powder to lay his hands upon us.

Can I say I'm a surrendered individual my character should be more godly today than when it was a year ago. If it's not something's wrong. I Should be more in love with Jesus right now than when I was a year ago.

If not, something's wrong with my Christianity if my prayer life is not more vibrant today than what it was a year ago. Something is wrong in my pursuit of God. Because I am to be going from glory to glory to glory to glory in a never-ending process and that will actually go on for all eternity.

That's what he's called the church to. I won't surrender to God unless I'm a broken person. Let's just say your pursuit is wealth and you have all the wealth that you want. You think well satisfies. Why would you surrender your life to Christ?

I? Think that fulfillment is is through just the pursuit of pleasure and I bring out the pursuit of pleasure because Americans are consumed with the Pursuit of life. That's why we were not satisfied with a 27-inch television.

We have to have a 5-foot screen. I mean everything in our life is around pleasure. Marriages fall apart because the pursuit of pleasure. They say well, you're not meeting my needs anymore. I don't feel this love anymore.

So I'm gonna find somebody who's gonna meet my needs and what are those needs? I don't want to get in that direction, but they're nothing but selfishness and pride and arrogance. Lust of flesh lust of the eye and pride of life.

That's what they are down to the very core. Nothing, but sin is in the in the root of our divorce and in a society that now is revolves around divorce today. The church has a higher divorce rate than the world.

Atheists have a lower divorce rate than Christians do. Per capita atheists have a lower divorce rate than Christians. Scary, huh? Smith Wigglesworth made the statement. He says there is no way into the deep things of God except by a broken spirit.

There is no other way into the power of God. As we start desiring him and we start yearning for him. We start thirsting for him and we start longing for his presence and power in our life. There is something that's going to happen.

It's gonna be surrender. It's just what's gonna happen because we're gonna want to know him more because we want to know more. We're gonna want to wonder everything that gets in the way and what what hinders our relationship with God every single time 100 of the time.

It's sin. Every single time it's a it's sin in all of its various forms and all of its various names. Sin always separates from God always the Christian or the non-christian. It separates from God and as Christians if we want to draw near to him.

We got to deal with the sin issues in our life. And the reality is is there are many Christians and I refer to this today As a problem that is in the Pentecostal churches that we have a plague of Pentecostal Pharisee ism today where Christians don't see Themselves as sinners anymore, but you know, Jesus only came to seek and to save the lost.

He cannot save good people because good people don't see their need of a Savior. And you know when we see ourselves more needy. Do you know what that brings about? The more needy we see ourselves the more will cling to the cross the more will cling to the only Savior that there is.

But until we're broken, we're gonna keep looking. This is gonna make me happy a bigger house. That's what'll do it a bigger house another baby. Maybe another guy or another girl or maybe this thing or that thing when I have that big-screen TV I'll be happy then and it's the whole thing that we've come to point and not be broken.

But you know what happens in the midst of all that is we leave a we leave a trail of pain. And so surrender brings about another thing that I want to touch on just for a minute before I go on to the other points.

The surrender brings about repentance to surrender because repentance is an act of surrender. That's what it is I mean for a person to become a Christian they have to surrender to some extent of their life.

They have to have to be willing to say God forgive me come into my life be my Lord and Savior and more than just A an overarching forgive me. It must be a genuine act of repentance to say God, you know.

These are the sins of my life. Forgive me change me. But it's not a one-time event. We ultimately must live what I call a lifestyle of repentance what a lifestyle of repentance is. It's the idea that We are so in love with Christ that we don't want anything to hinder our relationship with him.

So at the slightest conviction at the slightest thing that we realize their sin will deal with it. We don't wait for major events major disasters in our life to take an evaluation. To look at our lives and to do a big type of repenting.

We live in it momentarily moment by moment because the need in your life is more than you understand. I guarantee you every single person in this room sins more. Well, maybe than jr. But it won't be long because the sin nature is in him.

But the reality is we sin more than we can even imagine every single day. Things that God just does not speak to us because we're not able to handle it yet. Because he doesn't want to get just to the external things.

He wants gets wants to get to the motives of the heart the very reason why we do what we do or don't do. What we do he wants to get to who we are literally. Man named SB Shaw made the statement says no man can rightly value the redemption of Christ who has not seen himself lost.

And undone and absolutely without hope outside of the cross. No Christian will understand the reality of salvation. Until they understand the reality of sin and being placing themselves at war with God through their sin.

That's what separated that sinner woman from the Pharisees. The Pharisees were not able to understand the reality of sin. The Pharisees thought themselves good that sinner woman knew she was a sinner and she ran past all the religion to fall at the feet of a Savior to know a Savior and to receive forgiveness from a Savior and only she walked away justified only she was able to look in them eyes that burned with fire and find those eyes of love and mercy.

The Scribes and Pharisees saw it one day when he cried warned of you scribes Pharisees and hypocrites. And he they saw his eyes burned with fire, but not the fire of passion. But the fire of wrath because they were enemies of Christ as Pharisees.

Repentance is a beautiful thing and I just want to take a minute more on this. We have this concept that repentance is this ugly thing. But in Romans 2 for it says the goodness of God the kindness of God leads us to repentance.

Not the the cruelty of God. God is good. I thank God that he did not leave this young punk in in the drug culture and all of his rebellion. I thank God that he pursued me when I didn't want anything to do with God.

I didn't want him in my life. I didn't want him at all. I want nothing to do with him. I want to live my rebellion now. I thank God that he convicted me and showed me the reality my sin and called me out of that life stuff.

Repentance is the love of God revealed. It is a God that goes to the Christian or non-christian. But let's look at it from a Christian standpoint. He goes to the Christian says child I want to come closer to you.

But there's sin in the way that bitterness you have against another individual it's separating us deal with it. That greed that lust that pursuit of pleasure that dominates your life keeps you out of the body of Christ.

Deal with it. And every time he convicts us be it a hundred times in a day. Every time it is the love of God revealed saying draw closer to me. We got to change our attitude about it. We've got to come to the point and Begin to start to say thank you God that you would convict me.

Thank you that you would somehow break in my life and show me my sin and not lead me to it. Thank you. Jesus. You'd love me so much. And you know what happens when we begin to understand repentance like that.

Then we repent. And you know what happens when we repent we draw near to God because we're told and in work. You know James has drawn near to God. He will draw near to you. I Mean, that's the reality of it.

If I draw near to him. He has promised that he'll draw near to me. Now let's look at the second point the second law that I want to touch on of of a living sacrifice. It's singleness of mind. I don't hear this even spoken of very much because it's not popular while I was in grad school my One of my professors was getting rid of some of his books and he told me that I could go in there and pick anything I wanted out of his out of this box and the majority of stuff I didn't wasn't even interested in but at the very bottom I found this this book that was a treasure and It was how to promote and conduct a successful revival by re Torrey and it was his first edition came out in 1903.

Singleness of Mind and Spiritual Purpose

One of the points that he brought out says for those who want to see a move of God. One of the things that he says is you must narrow your interests. Let's narrow your interests. Let me present it to you from an idea of a musician the truth of matter the majority musicians are very mediocre and The reason why the majority musicians are very mediocre is because they don't practice.

Those who become phenomenal musicians are musicians that have a purpose. They are driven. They are driven. They have a desire and that desire moves them to particular action. Mediocrity happens just from lack of desire.

Why are we mediocre Christians because we have lack of desire. We don't have anything moving us. Nothing. Nothing burning in our bones. Nothing compelling us to reach a perishing world. Nothing's exciting us.

We just go from day in to day out. Kind of what we do because that's what we've done because that's all we know and there's nothing moving it so we don't excel in our Christianity because we are not what we're just like the average musician that just goes and knows a few Chords and plays a little bit and I can get by and that's good enough.

You know Jesus made the statement in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6 22. He says the light of the body is the eye. If therefore thine eye be single Thy whole body shall be full of light. The idea of singleness of I is that that we have one focus in our life.

What is my focus? What is the thing that consumes me? What happens with the majority of Christians we have all these things. Well, Jesus just one of the many things up there in my life. Well, let's see.

It's job. I want I want more money and I want a bigger house and and you know, I want I want I want more toys. I need more toys because toys make me happy and so I want more toys and Jesus just one of the Homer Menagerie of gods that I have listed in my life and I have this duplicity of eyes.

I look at all these things because I think all these things and Jesus just part of it. Rather than the aspect that Jesus he will have no other gods before him and you know. You get into the Hebrew of the concept word where it tells us that God will have no other gods before him.

The very concept of it is is pretend. This is a throne room. Here's the throne of Christ seated right here and The concept of no other gods of form is that we enter into his throne room and there cannot be little gods anywhere.

Nowhere before him is there to be any God we have this concept. Well, so long as I have Jesus the first God I can have all these other little gods. And those little gods are okay, right and he says you'll have no gods before me.