WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.040 As I said, we're taking a break from Mark and we're going to look at this chapter over 00:00:04.040 --> 00:00:06.320 the next few Sunday mornings, God willing. 00:00:06.320 --> 00:00:08.000 It's not something we often do. 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:14.599 In fact, I can't remember the last time we ever preached on just a chapter over a significant 00:00:14.599 --> 00:00:16.760 number of weeks. 00:00:16.760 --> 00:00:18.600 But it's a really great... 00:00:18.600 --> 00:00:20.199 All the chapters are great. 00:00:20.199 --> 00:00:22.240 But it's a really great chapter. 00:00:22.240 --> 00:00:29.160 It's a fantastic summary of living out the Christian life, and it's very important. 00:00:29.160 --> 00:00:30.280 It's so good you could... 00:00:30.280 --> 00:00:32.679 I think over the summer you could probably memorise it. 00:00:32.679 --> 00:00:34.840 It'd be a great chapter to memorise. 00:00:34.840 --> 00:00:40.280 And then you could say, I've memorised a whole chapter of Scripture, and that's a great 00:00:40.280 --> 00:00:41.920 thing to do. 00:00:41.920 --> 00:00:47.840 And we're praying that God will use this powerfully for us to mould us further as Christians 00:00:47.840 --> 00:00:51.320 in His image to make us more like Him. 00:00:51.320 --> 00:00:54.679 And so do pray over the summer months, even if you're away, if you're at Kessok or if 00:00:54.679 --> 00:01:00.479 in holiday or whatever you are, pray that God will use it for St. Columba's, for our 00:01:00.479 --> 00:01:05.680 church family, for those who visit, but that we will have a kind of snowball effect of 00:01:05.680 --> 00:01:09.239 blessing as we go through this chapter together. 00:01:09.239 --> 00:01:15.280 And you know, we are going into some levels on charter territory moving forward. 00:01:15.280 --> 00:01:16.400 There are going to be big changes. 00:01:16.400 --> 00:01:19.000 We spoke about that on Wednesday evening. 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:24.240 And isn't it great to know that we can bed ourselves in the living God and in His truth 00:01:24.239 --> 00:01:26.599 and He's the unchanging one. 00:01:26.599 --> 00:01:28.759 So all our life's always changing. 00:01:28.759 --> 00:01:29.759 We're always changing. 00:01:29.759 --> 00:01:31.079 Things are always happening. 00:01:31.079 --> 00:01:35.000 But we bed ourselves in the great unchanging nature and character of God. 00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:40.519 And that will be what will bring blessing to St. Columba's in the days and weeks and 00:01:40.519 --> 00:01:42.239 months that lie ahead. 00:01:42.239 --> 00:01:48.000 So I want to look at four, you could do this in so many different ways and every way, we'll 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:52.759 only scratch the surface of this verse even of Scripture. 00:01:52.760 --> 00:01:57.560 We're going to highlight four truths that are very significant and very important, critical 00:01:57.560 --> 00:01:58.560 I think. 00:01:58.560 --> 00:02:03.160 They've always been critical, whether they were in 1st century Rome, this new church, 00:02:03.160 --> 00:02:08.480 this early church, this church that was facing difficulties in persecution and opposition, or 00:02:08.480 --> 00:02:14.120 whether it's 21st century in Edinburgh where nobody cares that we're meeting, the Christian 00:02:14.120 --> 00:02:19.640 church is irrelevant in the city where barriers and concerts and everything else will be more 00:02:19.639 --> 00:02:23.759 significant to the city around St. Columba's than the gospel. 00:02:23.759 --> 00:02:29.399 But nonetheless, as we've been singing and praying and considering, we come before the 00:02:29.399 --> 00:02:31.399 living God who never changes. 00:02:31.399 --> 00:02:34.759 The first thing, so I'm going to say four things. 00:02:34.759 --> 00:02:38.279 First thing, it matters what you believe. 00:02:38.279 --> 00:02:42.560 Second thing is, it matters that you believe with others. 00:02:42.560 --> 00:02:47.319 The third thing is your faith is as public as your body. 00:02:47.319 --> 00:02:50.319 And the fourth thing is true worship is all of life. 00:02:50.319 --> 00:02:55.919 Okay, so that's the four things we're going to look at briefly, I hope, this morning. 00:02:55.919 --> 00:02:59.439 First thing is therefore, it matters what you believe. 00:02:59.439 --> 00:03:04.199 And the significance of that comes from that word which in some translations comes first 00:03:04.199 --> 00:03:08.959 in the chapter and in this translation, it's the fifth word, it's the word therefore, it's 00:03:08.959 --> 00:03:09.959 a link word. 00:03:09.959 --> 00:03:13.400 I appeal to you, therefore brothers, it's a hinge word. 00:03:13.400 --> 00:03:18.840 And you see the word therefore, you know that it's a hinge word and that it's linking 00:03:18.840 --> 00:03:22.360 what has come before with what's going to come afterwards. 00:03:22.360 --> 00:03:27.159 It's like the button of a coat that brings both sides of the coat together and closes 00:03:27.159 --> 00:03:31.319 it beautifully in order and symmetry. 00:03:31.319 --> 00:03:36.879 And so Paul is saying, because of what I've been saying in the first eleven chapters of 00:03:36.879 --> 00:03:42.159 Romans, therefore this is the practical outworking of these truths. 00:03:42.159 --> 00:03:44.400 This cause and effect. 00:03:44.400 --> 00:03:49.439 He's saying this is, the first eleven chapters are all about truth and theology. 00:03:49.439 --> 00:03:56.639 And now he says, he's been teaching about Jesus and the gospel and the nature of salvation, 00:03:56.639 --> 00:04:03.280 meaty theology, chunky, meaty, tough theology about God and about the gospel and about the 00:04:03.280 --> 00:04:04.280 church. 00:04:04.280 --> 00:04:10.599 And he's saying, because of these things, therefore this is how you live. 00:04:10.599 --> 00:04:16.719 And he's making that inexorable link between what we believe and how we live. 00:04:16.719 --> 00:04:20.519 So it matters, he says, what we believe. 00:04:20.519 --> 00:04:22.719 And we don't have time, of course, to read the first eleven chapters. 00:04:22.719 --> 00:04:24.120 You can go home and read them. 00:04:24.120 --> 00:04:27.560 And I know you've read them before, many of you. 00:04:27.560 --> 00:04:33.199 But he kind of summarizes the whole gospel message in these eleven chapters, really strong 00:04:33.199 --> 00:04:35.600 meaty theology. 00:04:35.600 --> 00:04:42.360 And basically what Paul is saying is if you don't know these things, you'll never grow. 00:04:42.360 --> 00:04:43.800 You'll never grow as a Christian. 00:04:43.800 --> 00:04:50.439 If you have known real interest in the theology, which simply means the knowledge of God, if 00:04:50.439 --> 00:04:55.320 we don't have any interest in the knowledge of God, how He reveals Himself, how He explains 00:04:55.320 --> 00:05:00.360 Himself, how He describes Himself and His work and His salvation on our behalf, then 00:05:00.360 --> 00:05:07.319 we will never grow, because we will find the more we fall into seeking the character and 00:05:07.319 --> 00:05:15.439 nature of God, we will be challenged greatly about our understanding of the world and understanding 00:05:15.439 --> 00:05:22.439 of our own hearts and our understanding of the living and miraculous God. 00:05:22.439 --> 00:05:26.120 He will turn our thinking upside down. 00:05:26.120 --> 00:05:33.600 He will primarily make clear, as he does in these early chapters of Romans, that we deserve 00:05:33.600 --> 00:05:44.160 nothing from God but His eternal wrath, eternal judgment, even in the best of our motives and 00:05:44.160 --> 00:05:51.439 the best of our actions, there is an impurity that leaves us short of the perfect standard 00:05:51.439 --> 00:05:54.439 of the living God. 00:05:54.439 --> 00:05:58.360 And it's that terrible reality about our hearts. 00:05:58.360 --> 00:06:05.680 But it's the glorious truth also that in Christ we have absolutely everything. 00:06:05.680 --> 00:06:13.600 We have renewal, we have forgiveness, we have a new heart and new life and new future that's 00:06:13.600 --> 00:06:22.000 unimaginably secure and glorious even as we grow older and become more wrinkly and weaker 00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:25.199 and eventually die. 00:06:25.199 --> 00:06:31.000 We're becoming more alive and we go and live with Him in His presence forever. 00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:35.199 And that is the truth of Scripture. 00:06:35.199 --> 00:06:41.519 And the more that we know that, the more we understand that, the more therefore we will 00:06:41.519 --> 00:06:45.639 be able to give our lives in living sacrifice to Him. 00:06:45.639 --> 00:06:49.160 So you know, when we speak about the spiritual disciplines, which we do here and we've got 00:06:49.160 --> 00:06:54.640 the grace groups to encourage that as well as the coming together and worship and fellowship 00:06:54.640 --> 00:06:57.800 and hospitality and all these things. 00:06:57.800 --> 00:07:03.840 Spiritual disciplines, it's that daily prayer and it's that daily reading of Scripture is 00:07:03.840 --> 00:07:10.320 getting to know the truth and remaining in the truth and being plugged into the truth 00:07:10.320 --> 00:07:16.040 because that transforms who we are, it transforms how we think as we get to know Jesus Christ 00:07:16.040 --> 00:07:17.040 better. 00:07:17.040 --> 00:07:23.480 The prayer is our response to that, the prayer is our coming to Him in need and is building 00:07:23.480 --> 00:07:25.920 that relationship with Him. 00:07:25.920 --> 00:07:32.680 Therefore, and it's interesting isn't it really that He sums up the first eleven chapters. 00:07:32.680 --> 00:07:37.040 You read these chapters and there's quite tough stuff going on in these chapters. 00:07:37.040 --> 00:07:42.200 He summarizes it in this verse basically, the mercies of God. 00:07:42.200 --> 00:07:46.720 That's how He summarizes all that truth in the first eleven chapters of Romans. 00:07:46.720 --> 00:07:53.600 It's God's, therefore He says by the mercies of God and He's thinking back to these eleven 00:07:53.600 --> 00:07:56.240 chapters. 00:07:56.240 --> 00:08:03.200 It sums up the motive behind all we do, all we are, all we think. 00:08:03.200 --> 00:08:06.440 It's God's great mercy in Christ. 00:08:06.440 --> 00:08:11.960 It's His sacrificial and unending love that we will celebrate in the Lord's Supper shortly. 00:08:11.959 --> 00:08:18.039 And He is the one who swallowed God's perfect wrath against us and took the punishment that 00:08:18.039 --> 00:08:19.039 we deserve. 00:08:19.039 --> 00:08:27.000 It was meted out on Him because He wanted us back, because He wanted us in relationship 00:08:27.000 --> 00:08:28.919 with Him. 00:08:28.919 --> 00:08:32.159 He is in effect the living sacrifice. 00:08:32.159 --> 00:08:38.600 He died and He rose again because He wants us back in relationship with Him. 00:08:38.600 --> 00:08:44.960 He doesn't want us separated from Him and in that place of darkness and danger. 00:08:44.960 --> 00:08:49.440 It's free, it's full, it's, there is no alternative. 00:08:49.440 --> 00:08:53.800 And that's why Paul is so passionate about what he says. 00:08:53.800 --> 00:08:56.120 He got that. 00:08:56.120 --> 00:08:57.639 Absolutely got that. 00:08:57.639 --> 00:08:59.800 It's all about God's mercy. 00:08:59.800 --> 00:09:03.720 And if you're an unbeliever here today and it's great to see you if you are and we're 00:09:03.720 --> 00:09:08.759 delighted that you're here, but can I say that even your breath today, your life today, 00:09:08.759 --> 00:09:14.840 your relationships today, your history up till now today has been because of the mercy 00:09:14.840 --> 00:09:19.960 of God that He's brought you here, the laughter, the love, the gifts, the relationships, all 00:09:19.960 --> 00:09:26.519 because of His mercy, all because He wants you to consider His Son Jesus Christ and the 00:09:26.519 --> 00:09:27.519 salvation that He offers. 00:09:27.519 --> 00:09:29.519 And I hope you will do that today. 00:09:29.519 --> 00:09:30.879 So it matters what you believe. 00:09:30.879 --> 00:09:34.600 All of us need to be reminded of that in our lives. 00:09:34.600 --> 00:09:39.720 And the second thing is it matters that you believe with others. 00:09:39.720 --> 00:09:42.519 It really matters that you believe the gospel with others. 00:09:42.519 --> 00:09:48.120 I therefore appeal to you, brothers, He says, brothers and sisters, the church family, it's 00:09:48.120 --> 00:09:53.840 a letter, a public letter written to a church that's planted in Rome. 00:09:53.840 --> 00:10:00.559 And Paul was clearly committed and passionate in his relationship with this church. 00:10:00.559 --> 00:10:03.559 If you spin forward to chapter 16, you'll see that. 00:10:03.559 --> 00:10:08.119 It's one of my favorite chapters in the whole Bible where he just lists all the people that 00:10:08.119 --> 00:10:11.159 he loves and cares for, ask for them, ask for them. 00:10:11.159 --> 00:10:13.159 Could you remember me to them? 00:10:13.159 --> 00:10:16.879 But he's only been there a short time and yet he says there's great relationship with 00:10:16.879 --> 00:10:24.119 all these people in the church because he knows and he realizes that belief is something 00:10:24.119 --> 00:10:27.519 that is important to be shared and to be lived out with others. 00:10:27.519 --> 00:10:32.960 There's a commonality in our faith in Jesus Christ. 00:10:32.960 --> 00:10:35.439 It's hugely significant. 00:10:35.439 --> 00:10:39.679 We are royal priesthood, Peter says in 1 Peter 2. 00:10:39.679 --> 00:10:43.319 We all have the same access to the Father through Jesus Christ. 00:10:43.319 --> 00:10:50.559 And that is tremendously significant, tremendously important for us to consider that it matters 00:10:50.559 --> 00:10:54.120 that we believe with others. 00:10:54.120 --> 00:10:57.799 Think around you today in St. Columba's. 00:10:57.799 --> 00:11:01.879 People who have never met one another before, people of different races, different characters, 00:11:01.879 --> 00:11:06.560 different backgrounds, people of different temperaments, likes and dislikes. 00:11:06.560 --> 00:11:11.759 But we're called to be a family together and we're called to live out this Christian life 00:11:11.759 --> 00:11:17.120 and this truth and be living sacrifices together, not simply alone. 00:11:17.120 --> 00:11:20.680 We'll come back to that in a little while. 00:11:20.679 --> 00:11:25.039 Now the question goes out, what place does the church have in your life, in your Christian 00:11:25.039 --> 00:11:26.799 life, the church family? 00:11:26.799 --> 00:11:32.120 I don't mean the church service per se, that's an outworking of the church family, but I 00:11:32.120 --> 00:11:35.879 mean the church as a family, as a people. 00:11:35.879 --> 00:11:38.399 What place does the church have in your life? 00:11:38.399 --> 00:11:43.599 It's tremendously significant because it matters not only what we believe but that you believe 00:11:43.599 --> 00:11:46.919 with others. 00:11:46.919 --> 00:11:52.759 And Paul recognized that and he had a passionate concern for that reality. 00:11:52.759 --> 00:11:54.599 He says, I appeal to you. 00:11:54.599 --> 00:11:56.639 He says, I urge you. 00:11:56.639 --> 00:12:01.479 This wasn't some kind of dispassionate lecturer at the front giving some kind of intellectual, 00:12:01.479 --> 00:12:04.079 theological reason why it's good to be together. 00:12:04.079 --> 00:12:05.479 He's passionate. 00:12:05.479 --> 00:12:06.879 He's urging them. 00:12:06.879 --> 00:12:09.079 He's appealing to them. 00:12:09.079 --> 00:12:15.439 With brotherly love and friendship, the word behind that is used here for appeal is a kind 00:12:15.440 --> 00:12:22.600 of powerful, persuasive, personal plea of a defending lawyer before a jury. 00:12:22.600 --> 00:12:30.400 You know, you see them in the films, passionately defend their client because it's real and 00:12:30.400 --> 00:12:34.320 it's significant to them, or maybe isn't but that's their job. 00:12:34.320 --> 00:12:36.400 But for us it is real. 00:12:36.400 --> 00:12:43.400 And he's able to say what he can say because he loves them and because there's relationship 00:12:43.399 --> 00:12:48.679 with them and there's a spiritual openness and an accountability of love and care. 00:12:48.679 --> 00:12:52.840 So he can be passionate as he appeals and he can speak in that way. 00:12:52.840 --> 00:12:59.519 Now, I think that's one thing we need to work on in St. Columbus. 00:12:59.519 --> 00:13:01.559 It's something we have to work on. 00:13:01.559 --> 00:13:03.919 It's something we're not that great at sometimes. 00:13:03.919 --> 00:13:06.759 We're great at fellowship, we're great at friendship, we're great at talking about the 00:13:06.759 --> 00:13:11.519 weather and the football and the traffic and what it's like to be in the high street and 00:13:11.519 --> 00:13:13.079 everything else. 00:13:13.080 --> 00:13:14.080 What do we talk about? 00:13:14.080 --> 00:13:16.520 Are we accountable to one another spiritually? 00:13:16.520 --> 00:13:21.600 Can we appeal to one another as brothers and sisters in Christ about our spiritual lives? 00:13:21.600 --> 00:13:25.040 Is there that openness and intimacy and trust and honesty? 00:13:25.040 --> 00:13:29.800 I think we always are working on that as believers. 00:13:29.800 --> 00:13:32.080 It's not a critical statement. 00:13:32.080 --> 00:13:35.720 It's a reality for us that we're a growing community and it's something that is good 00:13:35.720 --> 00:13:41.960 to work on because our commitment and our involvement is always, it must be more than 00:13:41.960 --> 00:13:44.920 turning up simply on a Sunday. 00:13:44.920 --> 00:13:49.120 It's about doing life and being accountable to one another. 00:13:49.120 --> 00:13:53.480 And it's not about looking at others to ask them to be accountable. 00:13:53.480 --> 00:13:57.639 It's each of our responsibilities and duties so to do. 00:13:57.639 --> 00:13:58.639 Second thing. 00:13:58.639 --> 00:14:04.920 Third thing is that your faith is as, it's a strange thing to say maybe, your faith is 00:14:04.920 --> 00:14:07.680 as public as your body. 00:14:07.679 --> 00:14:13.120 Your faith is as public as your body by the mercies of God, He says, to present your bodies. 00:14:13.120 --> 00:14:16.279 He doesn't say present your brain. 00:14:16.279 --> 00:14:18.759 He doesn't say present your soul. 00:14:18.759 --> 00:14:20.120 He says present your bodies. 00:14:20.120 --> 00:14:25.439 And that's a very deliberate statement by Paul into the Greco-Roman world in which he's 00:14:25.439 --> 00:14:31.559 living where the background thinking and the secularity of their thinking was very much 00:14:31.559 --> 00:14:32.559 that the body was evil. 00:14:32.559 --> 00:14:36.639 And it was all about what was internal and all about your soul and all about having special 00:14:36.639 --> 00:14:39.559 spiritual insights. 00:14:39.559 --> 00:14:43.279 And it's very much today for us, it's countering the idea that our faith is simply something 00:14:43.279 --> 00:14:47.759 private, something just mystical. 00:14:47.759 --> 00:14:52.439 And it's a spiritual lay-by in our life that we eventually, you know, we go into now and 00:14:52.439 --> 00:14:58.120 again to get some, it's like going to a petrol station for fuel. 00:14:58.120 --> 00:15:02.759 We go in occasionally and we get stacked up again and then we live our lives. 00:15:02.759 --> 00:15:13.279 And I think sometimes we add that, I add into that misunderstanding. 00:15:13.279 --> 00:15:17.240 Sometimes I think by the way we often talk about our heart, the importance of our heart 00:15:17.240 --> 00:15:23.399 being right and having a heart relationship with God, which is absolutely true of course, 00:15:23.399 --> 00:15:29.360 absolutely and hugely important, but only as the heart is the seat of our emotion, our 00:15:29.360 --> 00:15:31.879 will, our actions and our bodies. 00:15:31.879 --> 00:15:34.559 That is our soul. 00:15:34.559 --> 00:15:37.279 We're fused together, body and soul. 00:15:37.279 --> 00:15:40.399 We should never separate the two. 00:15:40.399 --> 00:15:46.799 We're living, we're incarnate Christians, just as God was incarnate in Jesus Christ. 00:15:46.799 --> 00:15:54.240 We are to incarnate what is private and personal to us in our bodies, in our life. 00:15:54.240 --> 00:15:55.720 We are to present our bodies. 00:15:55.720 --> 00:15:59.759 Our bodies are not prisons, our bodies are not unspiritual. 00:15:59.759 --> 00:16:05.240 Our bodies reflect, our bodies is what people see, isn't it? 00:16:05.240 --> 00:16:06.799 They don't see your soul. 00:16:06.799 --> 00:16:08.600 They don't see your faith. 00:16:08.600 --> 00:16:09.919 They don't see your beliefs. 00:16:09.919 --> 00:16:12.639 These are invisible things, but they see your body. 00:16:12.639 --> 00:16:15.600 They see your physicality. 00:16:15.600 --> 00:16:21.399 And that is hugely important that we incarnate our faith. 00:16:21.399 --> 00:16:31.399 People are saying, our faith is to be seen, to be heard, to be witnessed. 00:16:31.399 --> 00:16:34.399 With our eyes and with our ears, it's to be tangible. 00:16:34.399 --> 00:16:37.079 This is a great earthy verse. 00:16:37.079 --> 00:16:42.039 It's saying that wherever you go, people see your body, isn't it? 00:16:42.039 --> 00:16:43.039 That's what they see. 00:16:43.039 --> 00:16:44.039 They see your face. 00:16:44.039 --> 00:16:45.039 They see your eyes. 00:16:45.039 --> 00:16:48.279 They see your form. 00:16:48.279 --> 00:16:52.000 And where they see that, they are to see Christ. 00:16:52.000 --> 00:16:58.439 In everything that we do, what we say, how we respond, how we react, how we think, how 00:16:58.439 --> 00:17:03.879 we behave, it's all related to our bodies and where to take Christ with us. 00:17:03.879 --> 00:17:09.359 And that is what He really means when He talks about being living sacrifices. 00:17:09.359 --> 00:17:14.359 Christ ultimately became the only living sacrifice. 00:17:14.359 --> 00:17:21.119 He died and He rose again and the lamb at the center of the throne as the marks of the 00:17:21.119 --> 00:17:23.639 crucified one. 00:17:23.639 --> 00:17:28.199 But we are to take this imagery here. 00:17:28.199 --> 00:17:31.119 We're not to be sacrificial. 00:17:31.119 --> 00:17:35.719 We're not to sacrifice something every now and again. 00:17:35.719 --> 00:17:40.319 Our lives are not to give off the odd sacrifice. 00:17:40.319 --> 00:17:43.479 We are to be one. 00:17:43.480 --> 00:17:46.360 Something about us were to be a living sacrifice. 00:17:46.360 --> 00:17:52.360 It's temple terminology that Paul is using here that would have filtered right through 00:17:52.360 --> 00:17:56.519 all the Old Testament and all the sacrificial offerings that were made. 00:17:56.519 --> 00:18:04.599 And he's speaking here about the offering of the whole lamb, the whole burnt offering 00:18:04.599 --> 00:18:12.360 where it was given to God in thanksgiving with a deliberate intentionality of consecrating 00:18:12.360 --> 00:18:13.360 everything. 00:18:13.359 --> 00:18:17.759 There's a symbol of consecrating everything to the Lord, giving everything to Him as a 00:18:17.759 --> 00:18:19.879 living sacrifice. 00:18:19.879 --> 00:18:21.679 Christ was the burnt off, Christ died. 00:18:21.679 --> 00:18:23.159 He was the sacrificial sin offering. 00:18:23.159 --> 00:18:32.479 But this is the life we live in response to what Christ has done for us. 00:18:32.479 --> 00:18:37.119 Jesus speaks about it in Luke 9, 23, 24 where He says, whoever wants to be my disciple must 00:18:37.119 --> 00:18:41.119 deny him, take up their cross and daily and follow me. 00:18:41.119 --> 00:18:46.279 Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will 00:18:46.279 --> 00:18:47.279 save it. 00:18:47.279 --> 00:18:49.439 That's the great paradox of the gospel, isn't it? 00:18:49.439 --> 00:18:52.359 We have to be living sacrifices. 00:18:52.359 --> 00:18:58.479 The Holy Spirit in us is what the interesting thing is, the Holy Spirit in us is life. 00:18:58.479 --> 00:19:03.000 So we're giving life in the Holy Spirit, spiritual life, relationship with God, connection with 00:19:03.000 --> 00:19:04.000 the Trinity and that. 00:19:04.000 --> 00:19:12.359 The most remarkable of ways, and yet part of His work in our lives is to put things to 00:19:12.359 --> 00:19:13.359 death. 00:19:13.359 --> 00:19:14.359 That's the paradox. 00:19:14.359 --> 00:19:19.400 He, as the giver of life, is working in us to put to death the selfishness and the sin 00:19:19.400 --> 00:19:22.819 in our hearts and in our behavior. 00:19:22.819 --> 00:19:31.240 So one of the critical realities of being a living sacrifice, paradoxically, is both 00:19:31.240 --> 00:19:33.240 positive and negative. 00:19:33.240 --> 00:19:40.640 It's putting God and others first and putting others before ourselves. 00:19:40.640 --> 00:19:43.440 And that's what it means to be a living sacrifice. 00:19:43.440 --> 00:19:49.599 It means that we're dependent and looking to God to how to act, to speak, to respond, 00:19:49.599 --> 00:19:50.599 to live today. 00:19:50.599 --> 00:19:54.079 That's where my body is. 00:19:54.079 --> 00:19:55.079 That's where God is. 00:19:55.079 --> 00:19:56.880 That's where the Spirit is. 00:19:56.880 --> 00:20:00.440 I was speaking with someone recently who's talking about prayer and the significance 00:20:00.440 --> 00:20:05.640 of prayer and saying, not that we pray, not that we come together and pray, not that we 00:20:05.640 --> 00:20:09.400 do prayer, we are prayer. 00:20:09.400 --> 00:20:12.400 That's a great description of the church, of the Christian. 00:20:12.400 --> 00:20:21.960 We are prayer because we're in that relationship of a living sacrificial commitment and consecration 00:20:21.960 --> 00:20:24.920 to the living God. 00:20:24.920 --> 00:20:32.160 We are not in our lives to have an ejector seat or a locked door where God gains no entry 00:20:32.160 --> 00:20:35.720 or where God is ejected. 00:20:35.720 --> 00:20:40.560 It is to be that life where we live in Him and for Him. 00:20:40.560 --> 00:20:47.480 And you know the greatest thing about this, the greatest thing about this is that we have 00:20:47.480 --> 00:20:48.480 a mandate. 00:20:48.480 --> 00:20:50.680 Now, be careful. 00:20:50.680 --> 00:20:52.519 Don't write this down and take it away with you. 00:20:52.519 --> 00:20:54.019 Don't quote me on it. 00:20:54.019 --> 00:20:57.279 We have a mandate to fail. 00:20:57.279 --> 00:21:03.240 That's the great thing about this freedom we have in Christ, to be living sacrifices. 00:21:03.240 --> 00:21:10.720 We have a mandate to fail and to make errors and to fail in His name. 00:21:10.720 --> 00:21:12.920 Why do I say that? 00:21:12.920 --> 00:21:20.279 Well, in 1 John, which we looked at recently, chapter 1 and verse 8, it says, if we say we 00:21:20.279 --> 00:21:24.960 have no sin, we deceive ourselves, the truth is not in us. 00:21:24.960 --> 00:21:29.559 If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins. 00:21:29.559 --> 00:21:34.879 You know the reality of living sacrifices is we have a mandate to fail. 00:21:34.879 --> 00:21:40.240 Not deliberately, not because we want to fail, not because it's good fun to fail, but because 00:21:40.240 --> 00:21:42.359 we simply do. 00:21:42.359 --> 00:21:46.720 And the great thing is all we're asked to do is, when all the brutal honesty that we 00:21:46.720 --> 00:21:50.839 can muster, go back to God and ask for His grace and forgiveness. 00:21:50.839 --> 00:21:55.440 That's what it means to be a living sacrifice, is to go back to God again and again and again 00:21:55.440 --> 00:21:56.440 with all our failure. 00:21:56.440 --> 00:21:57.440 Isn't that freedom? 00:21:57.440 --> 00:22:03.480 Isn't that freedom that we can go back to God with our failure and be forgiven and not 00:22:03.480 --> 00:22:06.839 to weigh on us and not to think that we have to earn some things with God? 00:22:06.839 --> 00:22:11.240 And if I do good today, if I read my Bible, if I try my hardest, it'll be a blessed day. 00:22:11.240 --> 00:22:14.120 Bing, bang, bong, God, it'll bless me. 00:22:14.119 --> 00:22:19.079 Quid pro quo, if I do my best and He does, then He'll do His best and give me. 00:22:19.079 --> 00:22:20.559 That's not what it's like. 00:22:20.559 --> 00:22:26.399 We go to Him, needy, empty, weak, failed, fallen, miserable, and we come to Him for filling 00:22:26.399 --> 00:22:30.079 and for forgiveness and for hope and for grace and for a future. 00:22:30.079 --> 00:22:32.519 That's what it means to be a living sacrifice. 00:22:32.519 --> 00:22:34.479 That's what freedom is. 00:22:34.479 --> 00:22:40.039 It's, you know, what it's like if you've got a real pain in your back or your side or 00:22:40.039 --> 00:22:45.599 somewhere else, you can ignore it and you can try and carry on living. 00:22:45.599 --> 00:22:48.240 It's like it's worse and worse. 00:22:48.240 --> 00:22:53.759 Or you can go to the doctor and you can admit your weakness and your need and your pain 00:22:53.759 --> 00:22:57.279 and your suffering on the road to healing, hopefully. 00:22:57.279 --> 00:23:00.039 It doesn't work in every case, physically. 00:23:00.039 --> 00:23:04.200 It's the world we live in, but spiritually it does. 00:23:04.200 --> 00:23:08.039 We can hide the pain and the suffering and the mistakes and think we can just battle 00:23:08.039 --> 00:23:10.759 on regardless on our own strength. 00:23:10.759 --> 00:23:14.319 Or we can go to the one who says, look, you're a living sacrifice. 00:23:14.319 --> 00:23:18.359 Just offer yourself again before me in that relationship. 00:23:18.359 --> 00:23:22.000 Holy and pleasing, he says to God, is the kind of sacrifice. 00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:29.680 That's what Paul is pleading about, set apart as a child of God in God's company. 00:23:29.680 --> 00:23:30.680 Pleasing Him. 00:23:30.680 --> 00:23:36.159 Can I say pleasing Him even in failure? 00:23:36.160 --> 00:23:41.560 His love doesn't move up or down according to our obedience, but He is pleased when we 00:23:41.560 --> 00:23:43.519 come back to Him. 00:23:43.519 --> 00:23:48.360 Just read the parable of the prodigal son or the prodigal father, which is probably a 00:23:48.360 --> 00:23:50.800 better description of it. 00:23:50.800 --> 00:23:55.560 The prodigality of His love, He doesn't wag His finger and make demands of the Son who's 00:23:55.560 --> 00:24:00.480 gone and His eating pigs swill for His dinner. 00:24:00.480 --> 00:24:04.560 He has His open arms because He's come back and He's confessed, Father, I have nothing 00:24:04.559 --> 00:24:06.559 to say to Him. 00:24:06.559 --> 00:24:08.559 He was one of your higher slaves. 00:24:08.559 --> 00:24:11.799 He says, no, you will get a ring in your finger. 00:24:11.799 --> 00:24:18.079 Magnificent, magnificent reality that even in failure, failure is a sign that we're 00:24:18.079 --> 00:24:22.200 putting to death if we take our failure in confession. 00:24:22.200 --> 00:24:24.440 That we're putting to death the sin in our hearts. 00:24:24.440 --> 00:24:25.440 That's where it is. 00:24:25.440 --> 00:24:26.799 That's where growth comes from. 00:24:26.799 --> 00:24:30.240 There's no growth if we're not confessing our failure. 00:24:30.240 --> 00:24:37.720 Now, don't get self-righteous on me, don't become a hypocrite and say, well, that's just 00:24:37.720 --> 00:24:39.359 an excuse to live anyway. 00:24:39.359 --> 00:24:40.359 It's not. 00:24:40.359 --> 00:24:45.240 It's a recognition of our hearts and it's a recognition that it's incoming to Him in 00:24:45.240 --> 00:24:52.240 confession that we know healing and we know hope and strengthening and peace and protection. 00:24:52.240 --> 00:25:01.000 It pleases Him when we come to Him in our failure asking for His grace. 00:25:01.000 --> 00:25:04.039 What do you think your Christian faith involves? 00:25:04.039 --> 00:25:10.160 When did you last, when did I last speak seriously to God about my heart? 00:25:10.160 --> 00:25:14.720 When did you last speak to Him about your heart, about your motives, about your daily 00:25:14.720 --> 00:25:16.720 life, about your failings? 00:25:16.720 --> 00:25:21.240 Do you think you're trying to come into God's presence, clean and nice and good? 00:25:21.240 --> 00:25:23.240 Is that what you're waiting for? 00:25:23.240 --> 00:25:27.359 Man, you'll be old and wrinkly then before you do. 00:25:27.359 --> 00:25:29.680 We come because we need Him. 00:25:29.680 --> 00:25:33.559 We come because that is what a living sacrifice is. 00:25:33.559 --> 00:25:39.599 It's putting to death, recognizing and putting to death our sinful natures and being filled 00:25:39.599 --> 00:25:42.039 and overflowing with the love of Christ. 00:25:42.039 --> 00:25:43.039 It's the third thing. 00:25:43.039 --> 00:25:48.880 And lastly and very briefly, true worship is all of life. 00:25:48.880 --> 00:25:54.560 It's present to God, your body's living side, holy and acceptable, which is your spiritual 00:25:54.560 --> 00:25:58.200 worship, which is your... 00:25:58.200 --> 00:26:00.200 It can be translated reasonable, logical. 00:26:00.200 --> 00:26:02.920 It's the word that we get logical from. 00:26:02.920 --> 00:26:08.320 It's also our living life. 00:26:08.320 --> 00:26:11.360 Every breath that we take is we're worshiping. 00:26:11.360 --> 00:26:15.480 So I'm not really speaking primarily about church today, about church attendance. 00:26:15.480 --> 00:26:21.319 More significant and important that is, and get me on that, I recognize that absolutely. 00:26:21.319 --> 00:26:25.120 Worship together is critically important for our understanding, for our encouragement, 00:26:25.120 --> 00:26:28.240 for our accountability, for our community together. 00:26:28.240 --> 00:26:31.640 But worship is everything that we do. 00:26:31.640 --> 00:26:33.000 Everything that we do. 00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:37.400 You arise from here and that will be how you worship. 00:26:37.400 --> 00:26:44.480 It's what we are the other 166 hours of the week that matters as well as this two hours 00:26:44.480 --> 00:26:45.480 of the year. 00:26:45.480 --> 00:26:49.079 That's what matters. 00:26:49.079 --> 00:26:50.799 We're living sacrifice. 00:26:50.799 --> 00:26:57.599 Everywhere your body goes, you're worshiping as a believer or not as a believer. 00:26:57.599 --> 00:27:02.400 If he's not your Lord, then it's either yourself or something else that you're worshiping. 00:27:02.400 --> 00:27:07.440 But you are worshiping and I am worshiping and we are to take him everywhere with us 00:27:07.440 --> 00:27:09.360 in all that we do. 00:27:09.360 --> 00:27:12.160 True worship is all of life and that makes sense. 00:27:12.160 --> 00:27:19.759 That is reasonable, that is logical, that is spiritual. 00:27:19.759 --> 00:27:24.800 And that's going all the way back to Romans chapter 111, it's truth and theology. 00:27:24.800 --> 00:27:31.240 If God is our Creator, if He has shown Himself in preparatory ways through the Old Testament 00:27:31.240 --> 00:27:36.200 and if He has shown Himself in Jesus Christ, then it makes perfect sense that what He has 00:27:36.200 --> 00:27:44.360 done for us should mean in response to Him that we have this incredible, consecrated, 00:27:44.360 --> 00:27:49.880 wholehearted, fulsome, enjoyable life in His company. 00:27:49.880 --> 00:27:56.840 But if we hold back, and we all do it, if we hold back, if we keep loving sin before Christ, 00:27:56.840 --> 00:27:59.600 then we're dying inside. 00:27:59.600 --> 00:28:05.120 Our love is dying, our faith is dying, our joy is dying, our peace is dying because we 00:28:05.119 --> 00:28:07.039 need to be in His company. 00:28:07.039 --> 00:28:13.199 Grace, it's illogical, it's an illogical way of living. 00:28:13.199 --> 00:28:16.599 Response of grace is always gratitude. 00:28:16.599 --> 00:28:20.239 The two words come from the same Greek root and that's greatness. 00:28:20.239 --> 00:28:24.839 When we know God's grace, then we respond by living lives of gratitude. 00:28:24.839 --> 00:28:26.519 Now I'll finish with that. 00:28:26.519 --> 00:28:29.519 Our Amy and Ben, you know, some of you will know we got married, my daughter got married 00:28:29.519 --> 00:28:31.279 to here last Saturday. 00:28:31.279 --> 00:28:33.599 Great day it was, great celebration and love. 00:28:33.599 --> 00:28:37.199 And they commit themselves, they wrote their own vows, beautiful vows, Christ-centered vows, 00:28:37.199 --> 00:28:39.439 they read together. 00:28:39.439 --> 00:28:42.919 But wouldn't it have been strange if after the wedding that Amy went back to Gilmerton 00:28:42.919 --> 00:28:46.159 and Ben went back to Nidra and they lived in their own flats and they didn't ever get 00:28:46.159 --> 00:28:48.159 together and they didn't live as one? 00:28:48.159 --> 00:28:50.799 Now that's just a poor example. 00:28:50.799 --> 00:28:57.919 But isn't that strange if we come to Christ and He's given us everything and then we go 00:28:57.919 --> 00:29:01.279 and, having confessed Him, we go and live our own lives in our own ways if He's not 00:29:01.279 --> 00:29:07.799 there at all, in our own homes, in our own hearts, in our own lives, just without Him. 00:29:07.799 --> 00:29:11.200 It's our spiritual worship. 00:29:11.200 --> 00:29:19.399 That is, it's nothing ceremonial, it's nothing ritualistic. 00:29:19.399 --> 00:29:27.000 It comes from our hearts for sure, but it is revealed in our lives and in our bodies. 00:29:27.000 --> 00:29:33.680 Let's let His light today plunge into our hearts to fight our doubts, our failure, our 00:29:33.680 --> 00:29:40.400 sin, our fear, and consider, as you sit at the Lord's table, how, and pray about how 00:29:40.400 --> 00:29:46.759 you react, how you deal with challenges, persecution, opposition, confusion. 00:29:46.759 --> 00:29:50.480 Remember we are hidden in Christ, but we're revealed to the world. 00:29:50.480 --> 00:29:51.480 Amen. 00:29:51.480 --> 00:29:52.480 Let's pray. 00:29:52.480 --> 00:29:57.720 God, help us to understand your way and your truth and your life, and bless us now as we 00:29:57.720 --> 00:29:59.039 celebrate the Lord's Supper. 00:29:59.039 --> 00:30:25.039 Amen.