Spiritual Gifts - The Solution To Self, Part 1

God Centered Theology

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Daily Bites Of God's Word - Part 2 - Psalm 119:2

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I want to talk to you this morning, the solution itself, this is part one. We're going to go through Romans chapter 12, and this is in conjunction with the

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Spiritual Gifts series, and this is very necessary to set up what is to come later.

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It's one thing to understand what the Spiritual Gifts are, which we're going through that on Wednesday nights, and I think we went through the

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Gift of Faith and the Gift of Giving last Wednesday, and I think this week we're going to do Encouragement and probably Help, Serve, Service, something like that.

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Looks like we're going to get through about two of them apiece on Wednesday night. But it's one thing to understand and to know what they are, and even for that matter what yours are, and what your combination is, and this is certainly a journey that can take a small amount of time, or it may take you a long amount of time as you serve

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God, but more importantly than that is to understand the scriptural basis behind why they're important, what their purpose is, and sort of some of the overarching themes and why they're so important.

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So last week I discussed the fact that the greatest barrier to a healthy church, and we actually discussed this some in Men's Sunday School this morning, so it was really cool to see some of what

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I'm preaching take root in some of the Sunday School classes as well, because it's always important that it doesn't just come from me.

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We have other leaders, other teachers in this church that need to grab on to it and also see that go out.

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But the greatest barrier to a healthy church is self. No other barrier, no other sin, no other thing can harm the unity and the overall growth of a church more than self.

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And so what I want to do, I proposed a problem last week, and over the next couple of weeks I'm going to propose the solution, and we're going to start this morning in Romans chapter 12 and verse 1.

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First I want to ask you, have you ever felt like no matter how much you do or how hard you try, you just can't seem to live a victorious

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Christian life? Does it seem that you have tried Bible studies, of which we're hoping to have a sign -up sheet for one next week?

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Shameless plug once again. But have you tried various Bible studies or prayer groups or maybe even tried different churches for that matter?

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Ever feel like despite what position you have in the church or how much you have done to support the church, you just can't seem to get past this nagging feeling down deep in your soul that you're not doing enough?

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Well the problem could lie in what your true motivation is. Is it self? Is self getting in the way?

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Well, sort of the questions you can ask yourself to sort of get to the bottom of it is to ask yourself, well why do you serve?

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Why do you come to church? Why do you teach that Sunday school class? Why do you help with the young people?

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Why do you come to youth group? Or why do you come and sing in the choir or run sound or computer or whatever or shoebox or any prayer shawl, any number of different things that we do, wild game stuff, keep filling in the blank.

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What are you looking to accomplish? Is your motivation self -centered? Or is it

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Christ -centered? We talked last week about the fact that the

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Church of Corinth, the church in which Paul's first and second

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Corinthians were written to, had many issues. They had factions.

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They had divisions. They were breaking themselves out and determining who they were based on who they followed.

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They had basically zero unity. They had a vast number of sin problems, everything from divorce to marital issues to,

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I was looking at something last night, it's just amazing to me in our day how much people just simply don't care about the unborn.

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You look at just our country. If you look at the statistics of how many babies are aborted every single minute, and then you see some people in our leadership celebrating when they block something that would protect them, and then you combine that with how much technology we have today in ultrasounds to prove exactly what is going on inside that mother's womb.

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Shame on us. But while the sin is different or may be different, it's no different really.

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They still had pagan religions in that day that would do child sacrifices. Is it really no different than what we're doing today?

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They're sacrificing. It may not be theirs. It may not be what is at the forefront of their thinking, but they're still sacrificing these unborn children on the altar of secular progressivism, which is a religion, despite their claims that it's not.

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This church had many issues. Instead of influencing the world around them, the world around them was influencing them.

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But just as we discussed in Sunday school, while there are some things in this world you can change, while there are some things in this world you can influence, there will also always be those things that you can't change or influence.

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So what can we do? What can the church do to be healthy but also be an influence?

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What is ultimately the solution to self? Well, I'm going to sum it all up for you, and then

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I'm going to explain it. I want to sum it all up for you by giving you a quote by one of my favorite

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Bible teachers, John MacArthur. He's out in California. And what he said about this subject, he said, the key to spiritual victory and true happiness is not in trying to get all we can from God, but in giving all that we are and all that we have to Him.

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I'll read that one more time. MacArthur says that the key to spiritual victory and true happiness is not in trying to get all we can from God, but in giving all that we are and all that we have to Him.

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Basically what he is saying is that if your focus is on self and what you can get, then you will not have victory.

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However, if your focus is on God and worshiping and serving

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Him and loving God's people, then you will not only have victory in your own life, but as we as a church seek to give

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God all that we are and all that we have, we will have a church that is not only healthy, but is thriving.

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If you have your Bibles, look with me, if you will. Romans chapter 12 this morning is where we're going to start.

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Now we're only going to look at one verse here in Romans chapter 12, but I'll have two other places we'll stop along the way, but this is our primary verse.

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It 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.

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Our supreme act as Christians, our supreme act as a church of worship is to offer ourselves as living sacrifices.

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In the Old Testament, they offered animal sacrifices for sin. They had certain types of animals and all different rules and laws as to what type and how you could offer it and so on and so forth, but the bottom line is they offered animal sacrifices.

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But it was, I mean when you really boil it down, it was just the blood of dead animals. You would bring them, offer them on the altar, they would be killed, their blood would be shed.

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It's just the blood of a dead animal. It was never meant to save. It was never meant to credit any righteousness of an eternal nature to anyone that would do it.

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It was only meant to simply point in faith towards the coming one that would be the ultimate sacrifice for sin.

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Notice he says, therefore I urge you brethren by the mercies of God, by the mercies of God, our very souls are given to God in our salvation.

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Because of the great grace and mercy of God and everything that he's done for us, we should desire with our whole heart to give him our very bodies every day that we live as a living sacrifice.

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Not an animal, not anything else, but our very bodies, our very selves.

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Notice he goes on and says, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, not just living, everybody in this room is living this morning, not just living, but holy.

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And not external holiness, not conformity. Now there is all obviously holiness is a certain level that will show up in the exterior, but God is far more concerned about your inward transformation, your inward holiness.

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If you are inwardly holy, you will be externally holy, not perfect.

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After all we are saved from the penalty of sin, not from the ability to sin.

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Perfection is not something we should be striving for, but we should be striving for continual ongoing sanctification or setting apart to God in holiness our very bodies, everything that we are.

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And we do this by daily dying to self, daily sacrificing or offering ourselves on the altar.

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But notice he says, which is your spiritual service of worship, your spiritual service of worship.

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By presenting our bodies as living and holy sacrifices, we are actually, watch this now, don't miss this, we are performing a priestly act of worship.

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How many of you have heard the terminology, whether in Christian circles or if you've heard a preacher say it, that as Christians we are a holy or royal priesthood, that we're all saints and priests.

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That's what we do. That's the point. We offer our bodies as living sacrifices daily because it is expected and commanded of us, in light of this verse, to perform this act of priestly worship under God.

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You don't need me to pray for you. You don't need me to do anything to cover or deal with your sin.

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You don't need me to do anything for you so that you can worship and serve God. You're all individually, as Christians, priests of God.

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You can perform your own acts of priestly worship. Now I serve a function, a

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God -ordained role in the preaching and the teaching of God's Word and in my own individual life.

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There are my own acts of priestly worship and self -sacrifice that I must do.

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But if I were gone tomorrow and all you have was yourselves and God, you'd still have a majority.

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You'd still have everything you needed. With the Supreme God of the universe and His revealed

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Word, you have everything you need to live the Christian life. Basically, you have everything you need to be a living sacrifice.

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I want to bring this out for you further. Turn with me and your Bibles to 1 Peter. 1

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Peter 2, we're going to look at the first nine verses quickly, 1

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Peter 2, and understand and unpack this idea that we are a royal priesthood, priests of God, saints of God.

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Literally, in the Greek, it means His holy ones, His set -apart ones, those that have repented of their sin, placed their faith in Christ, and believed on the name of the

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Lord Jesus. That is what we are. And 1 Peter brings this out. He says, Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit, this is verse 1 of chapter 2, and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the

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Word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.

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This is not a shameless plug. And even if you don't do the Bible study, it's okay. There are various other ways to do it.

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You can do your own personal Bible study. You do Bible study in a Sunday school. We do a Bible study here in the preaching of the

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Word. We have Bible studies that occur in all varieties of ways. The women's group had a Bible study.

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There are varieties of ways to do it. But understand, by it, by the

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Word of God, by the pure milk of the Word is how we grow. So whether we do anything else as a church, whether it's a

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Valentine's thing next week, which I'm really looking forward to. It sounds really cool. I really enjoyed all the

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Christmas stuff. I'm really looking forward to the Wild Game dinner, because I got here just past when

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I think when that one happened last year. So I missed it. So I'm going to come really hungry that night. And I'm sure

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I'm going to need, I don't know, I don't know if I should just trust what's put in front of me, or if I should just, or if I should investigate.

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Pat's saying just trust and eat. Okay, well I'm going to take what Pat says on that one. But whether we do anything like that at all, my friends, if there is no preaching, teaching of the

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Word of God, if there is no individual study of the Word of God, if there are no group study of the Word of God, if there is no desire for the

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Word of God at Calvary Baptist Church, we might as well go ahead and leave right now, shut the doors, because they will be shut at some point.

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Every single church that denies the Word of God dies.

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So the picture from the beginning, it won't be self on that tombstone, it will be whatever the name of that church is.

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Thankfully, we don't have that problem here. I've said, well the main thing I say about this church is some of the most generous people and loving people

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I've ever met in my life. But second to that, I see a desire for the Word of God. There are people in our church that like to teach, that have good teachers.

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We have that. So as they were saying, I keep throwing in Sunday School here. I just happen to be in that Sunday School.

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It's on my mind, so y 'all just work with me here. But they said the comment in Sunday School, a lot of times the best thing you can do is take what's existing and build on it.

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So take what we have and make it stronger and help it grow. And you do it by the Word of God.

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Verse 4, coming to Him as to a living stone, which is built on the

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Word of God. He's been rejected by men, but His choice and precious in the sight of God. My friends, you are precious in the sight of God.

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I've spoke often about mental issues, depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive order, which

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Lord knows I'm seeing it some in Hannah. We just had this discussion the other day, and we were going over all the things

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I see in her and me. And then Gina says, well she's got this of me. I'm like, I wouldn't wish none of it on her.

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Poor thing. She's already doing some of the similar things that I do that are pattern -based.

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If she's singing a song or she's doing something, she has to finish it. If you try to interrupt her, it's a bad day.

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So it's like, I like, it's just, you know, when

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I grew up, you used to have no faith you could overcome that. Ah, baloney. These things are real. And I've told you often, if you have issues or you need trouble, you should talk to you.

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Come find me because believe me, I know what it's like. But the point is, sometimes these things can make you feel unworthy.

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They can make you feel like you're an outcast, not special, not included.

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This verse says otherwise. God knows everything about you. And he still put this in his inspired scripture to let you know that you are precious in the sight of God, not outcast, not excluded, precious.

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And he proved it when he died for us, when he died for you and he died for me. You also, as living stones are being built up as a spiritual house.

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Here we go for a holy priesthood. And what does this holy priesthood do?

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To offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

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Well, let's unpack this. Holy priesthood, offering up spiritual sacrifices, which

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Romans chapter 12 verse one tells us is the offering of our bodies as living sacrifices daily, which is our spiritual service of worship to God, because this is what is acceptable to God as worship and is because of what

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Jesus Christ did on the cross. We are living stones.

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We are being built up not only individually, but to the extent that we operate in a God they love and operate in the unity of Christ.

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We build up the body of Christ by using our spiritual gifts, knowing what they are, developing them and then faithfully using them.

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And we're being built up to be a holy and a royal priesthood to God. Our spiritual sacrifices are acceptable because of Jesus Christ.

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What does this mean? It means that everything we are, everything that we have individually and as a church, everything that we do, we owe to Jesus Christ.

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Every bit of it. My friends, the very righteousness we possess now that we eternally possess is owed to Jesus Christ.

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My sin credited to him on the cross. His righteousness credited to me through my faith.

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It isn't mine. Any righteousness, the very righteousness that I will stand before God the

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Father one day and say, this is why you should let me into your kingdom, which will be perfectly accepted, will not even be my own righteousness.

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It'll be Christ's. But thank God for that because my righteousness is as filthy rags before God.

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You can't earn it. You will never get yourself to a point where you could stand before God and have any expectation that he would let you into his kingdom based on your own righteousness.

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It took God himself entering human flesh to present himself as a perfect, holy, and righteous sacrifice so that those that believe in him can have eternal life.

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Going back to Romans chapter 12 once again in verse 1, let's look at this phrase again.

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It says, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God.

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It says, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God. So let's key on on this part here for the next few moments. To present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God.

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This is exactly why we are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice because we're commanded in this verse.

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The verbs are present tense. They're imperative. They're a command. They're not a suggestion. He's saying, therefore,

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I urge you, brethren, to present yourselves. Why? Because God commands it through inspired scripture.

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It's not a suggestion. It's not something that we can choose to do if we feel like it. We're commanded to do it, and any day that we put self ahead of a living sacrifice that we're supposed to be, we're in sin.

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We're in error. Why should we do it?

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Why is this acceptable to God? Why? Well, because he gave us everything.

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God gave us his very own son, and his son gave us himself.

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The monogamous in Greek, the unique, the one and only son, the King James English, the only begotten son, the unique one and only son given by the

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Father to mankind, and the son in turn gives himself, holding nothing back.

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We are bought with a price. We are not our own. We belong to Christ. Jesus Christ gave us everything, everything to save us, and we should give him everything we are daily to worship and serve the one who has redeemed us.

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Now, we're at a pivot point here, and I want to bring this out so you'll understand it in reference to self. In light of everything that I've said so far, and in light of what's to come in the next few minutes,

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I want you to understand, and I want to ask this rhetorical question, have you noticed, or do you know what there isn't room for when you give

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Christ everything? What is there not any room for if you give

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Christ every single thing about you? Self. There's no room for it.

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There's no room for it. It doesn't even come into the picture. No room for it.

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Now, surely, and I know this to be true, this is not something that comes easily.

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Even at 35, I still have a long, I keep wanting to make myself 35. It's not

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April yet. At 34, I still have a long way to go.

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While our souls are saved, while we are perfectly redeemed, have perfect eternal life, which can, and you know, and this is just a sidebar.

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You hear a lot of this, you know, well, what if I could lose my salvation? Look, if it was up to us, yeah, you would.

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Let me just go ahead and help you out here. If it was up to you or me, if we could lose our salvation, you would.

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You just would. Thankfully, it's not. The cross is perfect. It was a perfect atonement, a perfect sacrifice, which has and bears fruit eternal rewards, not temporary.

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But we are saved, but even though we are saved and possess eternal life, we remain in unredeemed sinful bodies that are still susceptible to sin and are moving away from God and giving self room to operate.

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This is why sanctification, which is setting apart under God and why this daily sacrificing of self is so important.

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Crucify self every morning. Present your body as a living sacrifice to serve

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God. Walk in the righteousness of Christ. Yield ourselves daily to the

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Holy Spirit's control and in submission to his direction. Now for the last part of this sermon,

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I want to direct our attention to Hebrews. So turn with me, if you will, to Hebrews chapter 10. This is something that I've preached before here, but I want to bring it back into focus for this sermon to make a specific point.

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The Old Testament law required a person to bring an animal for an offering, right? They would bring it to the priest.

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The priest would lay it on the altar for them. The animal's blood would be shed, and it would be sacrificed for sin on behalf of that person.

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Notice that the person has nothing to do with this other than bringing the animal. And notice that it requires a man to perform this act, and it didn't solve the problem of sin.

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It merely covered it until the next time they would sin, and then they'd have to go through it and do it all over again.

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So look at Hebrews chapter 10 with me, and I'm going to skip through, and I'll let you know where I drop down.

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So beginning in verse 1, it says, For the law, since it is only a shadow of good things to come, and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually, year by year, day by day, week after week, over and over and over again, can never make perfect those who draw near.

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Otherwise would they have not ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have consciousness of sins?

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Notice in verse 3 it says, But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year.

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Why? For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

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They were never meant to. Notice in verse 5 it says,

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Therefore when he, speaking of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the coming one, the one that would offer the sacrifices, when he comes into the world, he says,

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Sacrifice and offering you have not desired, but body you have prepared for me.

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Skip down to verse 9. Then he said, Behold, I have come to you to do your will.

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He takes away the first in order to establish the second. Then in verse 10 it says, By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all.

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Sacrifices of dead animals are no longer accepted to God. Why? Because Jesus Christ, the

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Eternal God, the Son of God, the Lamb of God, the

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Redeemer, the Righteous One, the Eternal One, the Messiah, gave his very body, gave himself, gave everything that he is, everything that he had and died on the cross to make atonement, sacrifice, payment, ransom for sin for all those who will believe.

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We are now his children, his saints, his holy ones, his royal priesthood, the ones for whom he died and we are to offer ourselves as living sacrifices daily.

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Continuing on, verse 11, Every priest, every priest, looking to the

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Old Testament law, the Old Testament priest, every priest in that day stood daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins, merely cover them.

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But he, Jesus Christ, having offered one sacrifice, not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not 100, one sacrifice for all time, sat down at the right hand of God.

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Waiting from that time onward until his enemies be made a footstool at his feet, for by one offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

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And then finally look at verse 17 and 18 of this chapter. He then says, And their sins and their lawless deeds

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I will remember no more. Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.

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This is what is acceptable worship and spiritual service today.

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Not the offering of animals, not a priest doing anything for you, but you yourselves, myself, offering myself, you offering yourselves as living and holy sacrifices unto

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God each and every single day. As we are offering ourselves to God when we place our bodies on the altar, you know what there's no room for?

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Self. It's not there. There's no room for it. So I want to ask you a couple of questions before I close and we sing.

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Do you struggle in this area? Do you find yourself just with that nagging feeling

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I talked about at the beginning, feeling like you just aren't doing enough? Maybe you aren't having a victorious

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Christian life. Maybe you just, externally you look and you're like,

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I'm doing all the right things. I'm involved in all the right things, but I just don't feel right about it. Maybe it's in the motivation.

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Maybe it's down deep in why you're truly doing it. You ever been stood back and seen somebody that they're not really involved in much, but they have one of the most amazing testimonies.

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Maybe it's because the things they are involved in, they're doing it for the right reasons. The thing that will make

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Calvary Baptist Church healthier than anything else, the thing that will take us forward in a way that has never been seen before has absolutely nothing to do with me.

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Has absolutely nothing to do with any program that we have in this church. Has absolutely nothing to do with any

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Bible study, any little thing. It all starts, and all those things are important.

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Don't misunderstand. They're all important. But it starts with individual

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Christians waking up each and every single morning and saying, God, I give myself to you.

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Anything I wanted for me, anything I thought was important, I set it all aside, I sacrifice,

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I crucify self, and I give you everything that I am. Everything that I have is yours.

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You tell me what you would have me to do today, Lord, and whatever that is,

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I'll do it. For my life is mine, it is yours. You are the potter and I am the clay.