love and hate

Last week I said that spiritual gifts was one of the most misunderstood subjects of the Bible.  Paul lists seven gifts in Romans 12.  And to understand these gifts correctly, we must understand why God designed them and what His purpose is for them.  We broke this down Wednesday evening, but I realize a lot of you cannot be there on Wednesdays, and so I will try to briefly bring you up to speed.  Because none of this can be taken in isolation.  Paul builds this great dissertation we call Romans precept upon precept, and it’s imperative that you always look at what has proceeded the passage that you’re looking at if you want to interpret it correctly.

So, notice first of all that chapter 12 begins with exhortation and application, following 11 chapters of doctrine concerning our salvation.  Paul wants us to thoroughly understand our salvation.   And we have learned that we should not base salvation on good works, or our merits, or our heritage, or our nationality, or church membership, or circumcision or baptism or anything that we can do in and of ourselves.  But Paul makes it clear in those 11 chapters that salvation is  by grace, it is the gift of God to those who trust in the  atoning work of His Son Jesus Christ.

Therefore, he says in 12:1, on the basis of God’s great mercy by which He has saved us and made us born again into new life, having become a new creation, old things have passed away and all things have become new, Paul says I urge you to lay down your bodies on the altar as a living sacrifice to God.  He says this is your reasonable service of worship, considering the fact of all that God has done for you.   Lay yourselves on the altar, consider your body as dead to the world, and yet spiritually made alive unto Christ.  All the things of the flesh that once were a source of pride and accomplishment, lay it down at the cross.

And then he tells us that we should no longer think as the world thinks, no longer be conformed to the standards and expectations and desires and passions of the world, but instead be transformed by the renewing of our mind through the word of God, and there is a very important clause on the end of verse 2.  “So that we may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”  In other words, we are made living creatures by God’s grace, we are transformed by the Holy Spirit working through the gospel,  and we lay down our old fleshly nature at the cross, SO THAT WE MIGHT DO THE WILL OF GOD.

Folks, this is so essential.  It’s so fundamental.  You know, there is a lot of so called theology out there being written about in books and taught from pulpits and presented on television that has missed that principle completely.  They will tell you that if you will have a relationship to God then He will basically do YOUR will.  All your dreams and fantasy’s will come true.  You want a better paying job?  Come to God.  You want a new car?  Come to God. (Hey, if you believed that by coming to God you could get a new car, who wouldn’t come?)  You want to be healed of some disease?  Come to God.  They will tell you that God is just this giant Santa Clause type of guy up in the sky that wants you to love Him and wants you to tell Him you love Him, and through having a relationship with Him that is based on mutual love and admiration, He will give you the desires of your heart.  And you can have your best life right here on earth because God loves you and just wants you to be happy.

The sad thing is, many, many people are falling for this false doctrine hook, line and sinker.  There was a time in my life that I wanted to believe it as well.  But listen, vs 2 tells us that we are saved not so that God might do our will, but that we might do His will.  Rather than God giving us everything our heart desires, Paul tells us that we should lay our fleshly desires down on the altar as a sacrifice to God. Phl 3:7 “But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ.”

So then, if our purpose now that we are born again is to do God’s will, then the list of spiritual gifts that Paul gives us starting in verse 6 are to be understood not in terms of pride but practicality.  Having laid down our fleshly body on the altar, God gives us the means to do His will.  Remember the last verse of the preceding chapter?  “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.”  So then as we have received from Him new life, become a new creation, then we now receive new gifts or empowerments that enable us to do His will.

And I don’t have the time this morning to go through all the gifts and unpack each of them again, but note one important characteristic that they all have.  They are all for the edification of someone else, rather than for your own edification.  In other words, we are given the gifts to build up the body, not to build up ourselves.   Pride is marked by building up yourself, but humbleness is marked by building up someone else.  And everyone of those gifts, or the combination of any of those gifts, is designed by God to build up the body, the church, not for your own building up.  That’s why Paul says in verse 3 not to think more highly of yourself than you ought, but to have sound judgment. We all belong to the body, and the body belongs to Christ, and so therefore we belong to one another and our gifts are necessary for the benefit of each other in the body.

Now moving on, we come to today’s text.  And I really don’t think we’re going to get further than one verse today.  But don’t get your hopes up that the message will therefore  be more brief than normal.  Usually, the shorter the text, the more longwinded I get..  Verse 9 says, “Let love be without hypocrisy.  Abhor what is evil, cleave to what is good.”

Now if spiritual gifts were misunderstood, then I must tell you that it pales in comparison to the misunderstanding of the word love.  Love has so many connotations and meanings in the English language and in our culture. It’s used for everything.  I’ve said it before, I love ice cream, I love my dog, and I love my wife.  Not necessarily  in that order.  And so we really need to define our terms before we can  understand what Paul is getting at.

First of all, the word Paul uses for love here is the Greek word agape.  It is probably the most common word that Paul uses when he refers to love.  There are three words in the Greek that were commonly used for love;  there was eros, from which we get the word erotic, and I don’t think I need to explain for you any further what connotations that word has.  There is another word that is used for love, in fact it is used in verse 10, and it is phileo, from where we get the word Philadelphia.  And some of you folks here today I’m sure are from that city.  What slogan is associated with Philadelphia?  The city of brotherly love.  That’s what  phileo means.  Familial love.  And then agape is the other word most commonly used by Paul to describe Christian love, and it means a sacrificial, selfless love that puts the needs of others ahead of one self.

And I would submit to you that Paul isn’t starting some new thought here, but when he mentions agape love immediately following the gifts of service to the church, it’s because love is the attitude with which those gifts must be administered.  Love isn’t some completely new concept that he is going to talk about, but it is the underlying component of effective spiritual gifts.  And we only have to look at 1 Corinthians 13 to verify that.  Gifts that are self serving, that are showy, just end up being prideful, selfish, ways of trying to manipulate God for the benefit of our will.

“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.  Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,  does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;  bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part;  but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.”  (1 Cor. 13: 1-10)

So then, love is an attitude, it’s our motivation.  In Christian love, it’s the attitude of humility, the attitude of service, it’s the attitude of putting your self on the altar to be used by God as a living sacrifice to serve the body of Christ.  Love isn’t an emotion.  Love isn’t a feeling.  I know our culture tells us that love is all those things.  John Lennon told us the world’s theology: that all the world needs is love.  But the kind of love he espoused has not been the answer for the world’s problems.  And if we are not careful, the world’s theology will creep into Christian theology.  We will end up with silly sentimentalism rather than the kind of love that the Bible teaches.

The Bible tells us what love is: 1John 4:9 “By this the love of God was manifested in us, [ this is what love looks like] that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.  In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

So what are the two major characteristics then of love as shown by those verses?  Love is service, and love is sacrifice.  Jesus became our servant, He became our substitute and He became our sacrifice so that we might have life through Him and forgiveness of our sins.  So true love is marked by service and sacrifice, not sentimentality, not emotion, not feelings.

And so we know what love looks like and how love acts, and  in2 John 1:6 we learn what love does.  “And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, that you should walk in it.”  That takes us full circle doesn’t it?  Acting in love brings us right back to doing God’s will.  Walking according to HIS commands.  HIS will.  And His will is stated in John 15:12  "This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.”

Now that we have defined our terms, we know what love is, notice our text again.  Paul says let love be without hypocrisy.  Do you know what the Greek word for hypocrite means?  It means an actor on a stage.  Someone who performs for public acclaim. Public applause.  Someone who performs to be seen of men and acknowledged by men.  Paul is saying, don’t let your service which is supposed to be done in love, don’t let it be for public acclaim.  Don’t do it so people will notice how spiritual you are.  What did Jesus say in the sermon on the mount?  If you do your works for other people to see you then you already have your reward.  But do your works in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.

Now maybe in your Bible another word is used rather than hypocrisy, you might see the word unfeigned.  But it means pretty much the same thing.  It means don’t fake it.  Let your love be genuine.  Let your love be sincere.  And Paul illustrates this principle beautifully in the next statement.  He says, “Abhor what is evil, and cleave to what is good.”  See, I believe that this statement is an explanation or illustration of the preceding statement that we are to love without hypocrisy.  How can you have a love that is unfeigned, not faked, that is sincere, and not hypocritical?

First, abhor what is evil.  Or some versions say, hate what is evil.  Now notice first off that Paul doesn’t say hate someone or some person.  He says hate evil.  Abhor evil.  We are to be like God are we not?  We are made in His likeness, filled with His Spirit, so that we may do His will and be conformed in the image of Christ.  And what does the Bible say that God hates?  God hates sin.  He doesn’t hate the sinner.  He loves the sinner so much that Jesus came to die for Him.  But He hates sin.  And so Paul is telling us that if we love God then we will love what He loves and hate what He hates.

In fact, that love and hate relationship is what defines us as being children of God.  Look at 1John 2:15 “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.”  That’s why Paul started off telling us that we needed to lay our bodies down on the altar as a living sacrifice to God right at the beginning.

James lays it out in pretty bluntly.  He says in James 4:4 “You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

You know, I was joking while ago about loving my wife.  I really do love my wife.  And the really amazing thing is that she loves me.  She puts up with an awful lot.  But one thing she probably wouldn’t put up with is if I told her that I loved her, and I sang love songs to her and put notices on face book that I loved her, but then I went and hung out with old girlfriends that I used to have.   I can tell her how much I love her all day long, but if I’m running around with my old girlfriends in the evenings she is going to know that I’m a hypocrite.  That I am not sincere in what I say.

I believe that God feels sort of the same way when we go back to the old ways, the old paths of the world and yet say we love God.  When we still go back to the places which once enslaved us.  Like the Israelites when God brought them out of Egypt, they constantly yearned for the things that God had delivered them from.  Listen, grace is not a license to sin.  God’s mercy should never be presumed upon.  God is a jealous God.  He loves us with a jealous love.

As Christians, grace doesn’t mean that we can try to see how close we can get to sin without being burned.  But being saved by grace means that we devote ourselves to holiness and purity, that we consider ourselves betrothed to one husband and we want to keep ourselves pure and unblemished by the world for Him.   As Jude said, “hating even the garment polluted by the flesh”,  in other words, staying as far away as possible from the disease of sin.

I’m reminded of the story of the millionaire that wanted to hire a limousine driver.  And so he arranged a little road test for the applicants.  He told them that there was a hairpin turn down the road and he wanted to know how well they were able to negotiate the turn.   And the first limo driver said, “Sir, I can take your limo at the speed limit within one foot of the cliff without going into a skid or running off the road.”  And the second limo driver, not to be outdone said, “Sir, I believe I could drive that car at the speed limit within 6 inches of the cliff without running off the road.”  And the third limo driver said, “Sir, I would stay as far away from the cliff as possible.”  Needless to say, the millionaire gave the job to the third candidate.

As Christians, we need to stay as far away from the world as possible.  Folks, I said last week that if Satan can deceive you into thinking that you can get to heaven without being born again by the Holy Spirit, then he can destroy you.  But if you do become born again, he doesn’t stop trying to destroy you.  He can’t take away your eternal destiny, but he can destroy your testimony.  He can destroy your ministry.  He can destroy your effectiveness in the church and perhaps cause you to be a stumbling block to others.  I was never a soldier, but I read once that in warfare it costs the army much more to take care of the wounded than it does to take care of the dead.  Satan knows and employs this tactic very effectively.  He is working to deceive and destroy the church. Satan wants wounded Christians.  And Christians are being duped into thinking that they can have a relationship with God and keep their relationship with the world.  And they don’t realize the danger that they are subjecting themselves to.  Folks, we need to be more like Joseph, who when faced with possible temptation left his coat in the hands of the woman and ran.  We can’t flirt with sin.  We need to have a holy abhorrence of evil.

Then finally, Paul says back in our text that we need to cleave to what is good.  To use the marriage metaphor again, when you were married, chances are you said something like this:  “forsaking all others, cleave only to you.”  It comes from the passage of scripture found in Genesis 2:24   “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”  That is a picture of our relationship with God.  Not a feigned love, where we try to have our cake and eat it too.  But where we forsake all others and cleave only to you.  We give ourselves, fully, completely to God to be used for His glory.

We need to love what God loves.  We need to love righteousness.  We need to love His word.  We need to love one another.  We need to love the church, because Christ loved the church and gave His life for her. We think we can walk the center line between God and the world.  But you can’t be in neutral with God.  God said you are either for me or against me.  You can’t have a little of the world and a little of God.  The problem with most Christians is that they want just enough God to be safe, but not so much as to be sorry for what they might be missing out on.  But God says He wants all of us.  Not just a part of us.  Cleave to what is good.

 I’ve noticed that behind every good man is a great wife. A good wife gives herself totally to her husband.  She not only says she loves him, but she also shows that she loves him.  She cleans up after him.  She cooks for him.  She supports him.  When I was in the antique business I was always amazed at how the wives would come along to some of the shows that we did around the country and support their husbands.  They learned to like what their husband liked.  My wife got to be a pretty good judge of antiques because she supported me in my business.  She cared about me, and so she cared about the things I cared about.  I can’t tell you how much my wife has gone through to support our family in surfing.  Our vacations for years now have centered around surfing.  My wife doesn’t surf, but she loves us, and so she cares about what we care about and is willing to sacrifice what she wants many times so that we can do what we want.

Listen, God does want a relationship with us.  He does want us to love Him. But He wants real love, not some faked love.  He wants us for Himself, He doesn’t want to share us with the enemy.  He wants us to love what He loves, and hate what He hates.  He wants us to abhor what is evil, and cling to what is good.  And folks, He is good.  He is good.  You can trust Him with your life, with your future, with eternity.

Gifts: a tool box, not a toy box

Today we find ourselves in Romans 12.  We have been studying Romans now for several months, and we have had 11 chapters of doctrine.  Some of it was pretty heavy doctrine.  But doctrine is so very essential as the foundation for building a Christian life, as well as a truly Christian church.  Doctrine defined very simply, is Christian truth.  It’s not negotiable.  And it is foundational.  You cannot build a Christian life, or the church of God without a foundation of correct doctrine.

I was trying to counsel someone not too long ago that was under spiritual attack, and it was so severe that they were actually fearful that they might die.  And I was glad to be able to tell them that according to the scripture, Satan was unable to even so much as touch a hair on their head.  He was not able to harm them without express permission from God.  But what I told them Satan could do, is deceive them.  He is described in the Bible as the father of lies.  And he comes to deceive, and destroy, but his power to destroy lies only in his power to deceive.

And the same is true in the church.  Satan’s goal is to destroy the church, but he cannot touch it.  Jesus said “I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”  The best weapon, in fact the only weapon that Satan really has in his arsenal against the church is deceit.   And he uses it mightily.  A good example is the thousands of churches and religions throughout the world.  And Satan would love to deceive people into thinking that all roads lead to God.  But doctrine tells us, the truth of God as given by Jesus Christ, in Matt. 7:13 "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.  For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

The Bible tells us very plainly that Satan will deceive many.  So therefore it is essential that we know doctrine.  And once the doctrine is understood and accepted then we can build with practical application upon that doctrine, whether you are building a Christian life, or the church. But if you don’t have the right foundation, then you may find that at the day of reckoning, you built upon a foundation other than the foundation which is the doctrine of Jesus Christ, and all your works amount to nothing.

Jesus said at that day, there would be many, many people that would say, Lord, didn’t we prophecy in your name?  Didn’t we do many miracles and works in your name?  And Jesus said He will answer them, “Depart from Me I never knew you.”

So it behooves us to come to this chapter today recognizing that only by the 11 chapters of doctrine which have preceded this passage are we able to begin this section of practical application.  Only by having the right foundation, can we begin to build our lives and the church of Christ as Paul lays it out for us in this chapter as he begins to tell us about how to live the Christian life and the life of the church.

Now I don’t have the time this morning to review all 11 chapters of doctrine we have covered so far, but what I must say is that the prerequisite for entering this chapter is that you must have been transformed from dead stones to living stones.  You must have been transformed from being dead in your trespasses and sins to being made alive by the Spirit of Christ.  You must have been transformed from being a natural, earthly being into a spiritual being.  And this is something that man cannot do through his own efforts or merits, but only through the grace of God.  Through faith in the atoning work of Jesus Christ, God graciously credits us with righteousness, and being made holy, then the Holy Spirit takes up residence within us, so that we are born again of the Spirit into new life.  We become living stones.

As Peter says in 1Peter 2:3,  “in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord, coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God,  you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

You see that?  Through salvation we become living stones, which God has selected to build a spiritual house, which is the church, for the purpose of offering up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God.  Then, and only then, once we are made spiritual stones, part of the body of Christ, can we offer up spiritual sacrifices according to Peter.

Now at this point Satan will usually try to deceive us one of two ways.  Either he will try to convince you that you can skip the first step of being born again, being made a living, spiritual stone, or he will attempt to deceive you with the wrong application of these practical applications which follow.  If he can deceive you into thinking that you can do God pleasing things in your naturally dead state, then he is successful in destroying you spiritually.  And if he can deceive you into thinking that the next phase of spiritual application is all meant to be about self fulfillment, then he is successful in destroying your effectiveness in the church and in your Christian life as well.  Because what we’re going to find out here folks, is that God has designed the body of Christ, the church, to be his hands and feet, serving one another, the body, and not to be self serving.  And as we look today at this passage which is about spiritual gifts,  a lot of times this is presented as a self serving kind of thing which God has given us so that we can further our own ends, rather than as God has designed them, and that is to serve the needs of the church.

So then as Paul begins chapter 12 he attempts to head off this sort of  me first mentality that is part of our old nature.  See, the Christian life is totally different than the way life was before.  In the new life our wisdom from God.  Our strength is from God.  Our power is from God.  And of course, our life is from God.  But it’s important for us to exercise what God has supplied and turn away from our old natural wisdom and strength and not fall back into our old patterns of thinking.

Therefore, Paul makes it clear that in light of what God has done in us, we lay down our old nature, we lay aside our pride and we exercise that spiritual reality that is from faith.  We have to be careful that we don’t fall back into the same old patterns of thinking, and working and striving as we were used to doing in the flesh.  But recognize that God has through His grace given us gifts by which we might live the life that He wants us to live.  The problem is that when we start talking about spiritual gifts we sometimes get confused and start thinking of our natural talents.

According to our natural birth we are born with natural talents and abilities.  And  through spiritual birth: we are born again with spiritual talents and abilities.   And we need to recognize that they are sometimes diametrically opposed.  I’ve been in churches where they gave out a handout at the end of the service which you were supposed to fill out so that you could determine your spiritual gifts.  And all the questions in the survey were all about your natural inclinations.  What do you like to do?  What are you good at?  And then they tried to tell you that the results of your natural tendencies were somehow  now your spiritual gifts.  What a load of horse dung.  They either forgot their doctrine, or more likely, they never knew it to begin with.  Our natural inclinations are our problem, not our solution.

Listen to Romans 8: “For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace,
because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.  If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.  But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” So how can that which came from the flesh, the body of death, now be considered a gift from God?  It can’t.  God gives life to your dead bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.  He provides the gifts, and the gifts that He gives are not necessarily based on our natural talents.

This is so misunderstood in the church today.  We love to use our lack of talent as an excuse that God has not gifted us for a particular ministry in the church.  “Oh, I can’t carry a tune, so therefore (thank goodness!) I don’t have to help with the singing.”  Listen, the gifts of God are given to those that are saved to equip them to do what God has asked them to do.  To start with, you can’t be righteous without the gift of the Holy Spirit.  And so goes the rest of the Christian life as well.  If you are naturally a good singer, and you like to sing in public, then that isn’t a spiritual gift.  It’s a natural gift.  You should still give it to God and use it for God’s glory.  But if you can’t sing a lick, and you by faith in the grace of God,  sing your heart out to the Lord, then that is a spiritual gift.  And by exercising that gift, that is practicing that gift, you’re going to find that God will use it for His glory and not your own.  And that is the difference between natural talents and spiritual gifts.  Don’t get them confused.  And don’t be deceived into thinking that spiritual gifts are related to physical gifts.

Naturally in our bodies we are selfish creatures.  Pride is a natural characteristic and selfishness is his twin brother.  And we all have them in spades.  But in our new birth, vs. 4 says, we are born into  part of another body;  the body of Christ.  We are not to be selfish any more.  But the life we live now we live for the glory of God.

So the first thing Paul tells us in verse 1 is to lay that prideful, selfish body down on the altar as a living sacrifice to Christ.  He says that is your reasonable service.  It’s reasonable because we’ve learned that our flesh profits nothing in God’s kingdom.  We need to lay it down.  And secondly Paul tells us in verse 2 that we need to change our way of thinking, we need to stop thinking according to human wisdom and learn how to discern spiritually the will of God.  And thirdly, he tells us in verse 3 that we need to divest ourselves of pride, not thinking highly of ourselves, but realize that it is only by God’s grace that we are even saved and chosen of God.  And then fourthly, Paul tells us in verse 4 that all of us are just one of many parts of the same body, we all belong together, and we all exist for the good of one another.

And then fifthly, Paul tells us that each part of the body has been given gifts from God so that we might be able to perform the function of the body we are designed to do.  I mean, this is pretty practical stuff.  God gives us the life to be a part of His body, and so He gives us the power to live that life as He has designed us to live.

I heard one preacher say it this way:  Spiritual gifts are not found in a toy box, but a tool box.  God gives us gifts not for our own personal pleasure or self fulfillment, or to make ourselves look spiritual, but so that we might minister to others.  And Paul lists 7 gifts here.  And there is a lot of discussion over these gifts.  There are other lists in other books like Ephesians, and 1 Peter, and particularly in 1 Corinthians.  And so much has been made of certain gifts.  There are some that want to teach that everyone is supposed to have the same gifts.  And of course, that was the problem with the Corinthian church.  They all were trying to claim what Paul described as the showy gifts.  And unfortunately, today the church is still struggling in this area.

If I put a notice in the newspaper that we were going to have a conference down at the Holiday Inn next week that would teach you how to have some so called spiritual gift that produces a special goose pimple experience, there would be a line getting in there.  But I guarantee you that if I advertised a conference on how to employ the spiritual gift of giving, or serving, I couldn’t pay people to come.  It’s human nature to covet showy, self serving things.  And that’s the problem.  We too often let human nature direct our thinking when it comes to this matter of spiritual gifts.

So rather than approaching this passage in the typical way and giving a long dissertation on the varieties and meanings of all the spiritual gifts out there, and compare Corinthians list with Romans list and so on, I would like to really just get you to change your perspective on the purpose of the gifts today.  I want you to see that the gifts were given for the edification of the body, for the good of the church, for the good of the other members and parts of the body, and not for your own edification, and certainly not to be the means or source of pride.

To look at this in the most elementary way possible, number one , I would suggest to you that you consider these lists of spiritual gifts as not conclusive, nor exclusive, but representative.  That’s why there is so much overlap in these lists, and yet at the same time, none of them match exactly any of the others.  Romans 12 lists seven:  prophecy, service, teaching, exhortation, giving, leadership, and mercy.  Corinthians gives 9.  Ephesians gives four.  But let’s take these various gifts that God gives and think of them like the alphabet.  Our alphabet has 26 characters.  And yet we can arrange them in so many different ways that we can create millions of different words.  I believe that is a good picture of our gifts.  God takes some of this and some of that and perhaps a little of a couple of more things and it says in verse 3 that He measures it out to each of us.

Another illustration is like an artist’s palette.  He has some primary colors on his palette.  And the artist mixes these colors together in a way to make a unique color.  And he can create an almost endless variety of colors from those basic hues.  Now I believe that is how God distributes the gifts to us.  A little of this and a little of that, more of this and even more of that.  So that each of us is uniquely qualified, uniquely gifted to be able to do what God has called us to do.

David speaks of this masterful working of God in Psalm 139:13 “For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb.  I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well.  My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them.”  What a testimony.  For God saw David when he was just a boy, and picked him out from all his brothers, all big handsome, strapping men, each of them looked like a king.  And yet God told Samuel, God looks on the inward part, not on the outward appearance of a man.  And God said I have picked this little boy to be the king, because he is a man after my own heart.

And then secondly, to consider this in the most elementary fashion possible, God wants you to exercise your gifts for the edification of the body. As you have been given gifts, then exercise them. Perhaps this very general list of gifts that Paul describes here are things that we all have to some degree or another.  We may have some of them all.  So we are told to exercise them.  Make them stronger.  Use them.  Some of you will find that as you begin to exercise certain gifts there is a limit as to how much you can do in that particular area.  But I believe the gifts aren’t like physical, natural gifts.  These gifts are supernatural in origin.  They don’t come from you, they come from God.  Therefore, they are limited only by your faith in God and the opportunities that God gives you to use them.

These aren’t offices but practical means of doing God’s will. Let’s look at them briefly, and I’ll think you will agree that by God’s grace, there is not one gift listed here that you can’t do by the help and power of the Holy Spirit in your life.    1. Prophecy: not fortune telling, not prediction, but forth telling: the explanation of God’s revelation. And His revelation as revealed in His word is available for all of us to dispense.  2. Serving:  sensing what needs to be done and doing it.  This is so important that Christ Himself became a servant so that we might follow his example.  3. Teaching: imparting information and knowledge. Discipling others. 4.  Exhortation:  how about encouragement?  Think you can do that?  5.  Giving.  Not just rich people. But having a heart to give like the widow’s mite. Like the good Samaritan.  6.  Leadership; being diligent in the course you’re given.  Stay the course.  You can be a leader by example.  It’s not an office. It’s an attitude.
7. Mercy;  He who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness.  Mercy is given to people who don’t deserve it.  And none of us deserve it, do we?  We stand in grace.

I heard about a CEO once that was looking for a top manager to take over an important division.  And so he went around the plant dropping little pieces of trash and setting things a little out of order and making a little mess here and there.  And then he secretly watched to see who took the time to personally take care of those things.  And the guy he found that took care of the little things, the things that didn’t have a bunch of people taking notice of it, the things that took a love and caring about the company and it’s people, this was the guy that he gave the promotion to.

Listen, the showy people doing the showy things have already gotten their reward. 1Cr 12:22 On the contrary, it is much truer that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary; and those members of the body which we deem less honorable, on these we bestow more abundant honor, and our less presentable members become much more presentable, whereas our more presentable members have no need of it. But God has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.  Now you are Christ's body, and individually members of it.

Listen, God hasn’t designed the gifts of the church to create chaos.  But harmony.  The whole body working together effectively.  And for that to happen, we need all the members of the body to work, to exercise, to participate as they are designed by God for the glory of the church. Mat 20:26 "It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."

a living sacrifice

Rom 12:1,2  “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.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

As we have said so many times before, the word therefore requires that we look back and see what it is there for.  And in this case it signifies a the culmination of 11 chapters of doctrine, bringing us to this grand conclusion.  He is saying, on the basis of all that God has revealed to us, the following is to be our response.

And basically, to condense all eleven chapters into one or two succinct statements is next to impossible.  But the gist of what has been said up to now is this.  That because of the original sin of Adam and Eve, man is born spiritually dead.  Mankind is condemned because all men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  But God so loved the world, that He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to come to earth to become our substitute.  He was God in the flesh, and lived a perfect life, and He took our sin upon Himself and died on the cross, so that those who believe in Him might receive righteousness.  2 Cor. 5: 21, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Paul goes on in the last chapters which we’ve been looking at, chapters 8-11, to explain to us, as much as we are able to understand it, that God’s plan for our salvation was formed by God before the foundation of the world.  He chose us to receive grace, and then He  called us, and when we responded to that call, He justified us, and now His Spirit is working in us to sanctify us, and one day He will glorify us by changing our bodies to be like Him.  And chapter 11 concludes this  expose’ on the sovereignty of God with the phrase found in verse 36, “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.”  In other words, were it not for the mercies of God, all the world would be lost, and we have obtained mercy according to Titus 3:4 when the kindness of God appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us.

Now God’s purpose has always been to redeem the total man.  You remember in Gen. 1 it says man was made in the image of God.  God is a trinity, God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  And so God created man in His image, and He made man in three parts, spirit, soul and body. And that order is very important.  Man’s spirit was made to be in communion with God, ruling his soul or  mind, which in turn governed his body. But God said that if you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you will surely die.  And when Adam and Eve were deceived by Satan and ate of the tree, immediately they died spiritually.  And as a result, all men are born spiritually dead.   Satan overturned God’s order of creation.  By seducing man to sin, man died in his spirit, and God’s order was overturned.  Man’s body now ruled the soul (the heart and mind) and the spirit lay dormant.  This was the status of man on the earth.  Ruled by his basest passions, his mind captive to his lusts, and his spirit dead, condemned to eternal separation from God.

But when the kindness and mercy of God appeared to us by the sacrificial substitute of Jesus Christ, the first thing that God does in response to our faith in Christ is justify us.  He makes us righteous, not by righteousness which we have done, but by faith, according to the righteousness of Christ.  And once we are made holy and righteous, justified, God can once again have fellowship with us, and so He sends the Holy Spirit to live inside of us.  And the Spirit is life, and He gives us eternal life.

Now that is salvation.  Through the mercy of God, man is made justified, righteous, a living spiritual being, having the Holy Spirit living inside him, through which he is given life, even eternal life.  So the question now arises, what next?  What is our purpose now that we are saved?  What does God want from us now?  And the answer is now that our spirit which was dead has been born again into life, now we need to bring the other two elements of our being into conformity with the Spirit;  our mind or soul, and our body.  And Paul explains how to do that, starting first with our body.

And there are some key words here that will help us understand how this works. Paul  says, now on the basis of all this that God has done for us, in response to the mercy of God to us, I beg of you, I beseech you, I urge you, I exhort you to present your bodies a living sacrifice.  The word "beseech" literally means to beg, parakaleo, I come alongside to call you to this.  Or it could be like a coach that comes alongside you to urge you onward, to go further, to do more.

The second word that is significant here is present.  To present.  It has the idea of surrendering up, of yielding, of offering. It also is a technical term for the Levitical offerings, to bring  an offering, to bring an actual sacrifice. And what God wants us to present  here is our body.

What does that mean our body must be sacrificed? In the old covenant, the priests offered up various types of sacrifices.  And when they offered up animal sacrifices they first killed the animal and then laid them on the altar. But in the new covenant, Christ has already died.  He paid the price for our sin.  What God wants now is not dead bodies, but living sacrifices.  Now in the old covenant, when they offered up sacrifices to God, they were always supposed to be without spot or blemish.

And in the new covenant, we have already explained that we are made alive spiritually by the righteousness of Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  You can’t be saved without the Holy Spirit.  We don’t have to go around looking for the Holy Spirit, you can’t be made alive without Him. John 6:63. The Spirit gives life.  So we that have been saved have been made alive by the Spirit.  And we have been made holy through the righteousness of Jesus Christ.  And through the righteousness of Christ which has been credited to our account, we have become acceptable to God.

Now positionally we have been made alive and holy by the mercy of God, but what God is asking from us now is that we present our bodies practically to Him as well as a sacrifice. Rom 6:12 puts it this way, “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.” So this tells us that those things of the flesh which once controlled us, the lusts of the flesh, the pride of life, the base passions of the body, our worldly desires, we no longer present our bodies to those things.  But instead we present our bodies to be used for God’s purposes.

And 1Cor 6:19 takes it a step further; “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”  Notice one very important phrase in this verse, our body is now a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you.  Listen, this is one of the most amazing statements in the Bible.  God doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands, but in the hearts of His people.  We that have been made righteous are now a temple of God.

 Peter sheds more light on this phenomenon in 1Pet 2:5 “you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” In the old covenant, God’s shekinah glory dwelled in the Holy of Holies behind the veil of the temple.  But now in the new covenant, God tore the veil in two, and God lives in the us, the Holy God living in a holy place, our spirit.  Now that ought to humble you.

Peter tells us that now we individually are the spiritual stones of God’s house, being built up to offer sacrifices to God. Listen, a church is not bricks and mortar.  A church is God’s people, a congregation of the redeemed, living stones, built upon a foundation of God’s word, the cornerstone of which is Jesus Christ. One of the things I have learned here at the beach is when the service is over, and I stand up on the dune and look back on the beach to be sure we didn’t leave anything, all you can see is an empty beach.  There is no building.  God dwells in the hearts of His people.  We are the living stones of God’s church, being built up to offer sacrifices to God.  And so that brings us back to Romans 12 which says that  the sacrifices that God wants us to bring is ourselves; surrendered, sold out.  Those are the only stones worthy of God’s building.  There are many monuments men have built throughout our country that have the name church attached to them. But what a monumental waste of time if the men and women are not living stones themselves. Men and women without the Holy Spirit living in them are simply dead.  And God doesn’t dwell in dead people, or dead stones or dead churches for that matter.

Another consideration here is that a living sacrifice is a sacrifice which lives, which perpetually lasts. An animal was put down and burned up. It was a one-time deal. But what God wants is a perpetual offering. What He wants is not something that you bring once and it's burned up, but something that is perpetually offered and never dies and is never consumed, it's just always offered, always offered, always offered.

A good illustration would be when Abraham was told to offer Isaac on the altar.  Isaac was the son that God had promised to him many years before.  And you remember that God stopped Abraham as he lifted the knife to kill his son, and revealed a ram stuck in a thicket instead.

Now if Abraham had followed through then Isaac would have been an illustration of  a dead sacrifice. But Abraham, not Isaac, is an illustration of a living sacrifice. It isn't that God is saying to you, are you willing to die for me.  What He is saying is, are you willing to live for God, even if it means that I will live the rest of my life without anything that I now hold dear if that is Your will? And that is a perpetual and lasting commitment. That's the stuff of which a living sacrifice is made. And Abraham was willing.

This living sacrifice, this surrender of our will in a humble submissive act to God, this, as Paul put it, bearing about in my body always the dying of Jesus Christ, this kind of living sacrifice is the basis of true worship. It is the foundation of all Christian dedication. It is what Paul meant when he said, "For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” If we live, we live for the Lord, if we die, we go to the Lord.  So therefore, let’s commit to live for Christ. It’s the only thing that will matter.

Someone wrote, I counted dollars while God counted crosses.
I counted gains while He counted losses.
I counted my wealth by the things gained in store,
But He valued me by the scars that I bore.

I counted the honors and sought for ease.
He wept while He counted the hours on my knees.
And I never knew until one day by a grave
How vain are those things that we spend a life to save

I never yet knew till a friend went above
That richest is he who is rich in God’s love.

God is satisfied, then, when we offer our bodies totally holy, set apart, pure, undefiled, and this is, notice at the end of verse 1, this is your spiritual worship. The word "service," or "worship," is latreia, it is used in the Septuagint which is the Old Testament Greek text to speak of the worship of God according to the Levitical law. And again we're talking still about that priestly kind of language, language of sacrifice. The priests came to worship. And that's the word used for worship in the Old Testament. And here it's still worship. You come to worship God with an offering. What are you bringing Him? Are you bringing Him an offering defiled by the world, defiled by sin?  Or is your sacrifice consecrated and holy before God?

Real worship is not just music, or even elaborate prayers, it is not liturgy, it is not ritual, it is not candles, stained glass, or ceremony. Real worship is not feeling  goose bumps in a church service. Real worship is the willful, spiritual act of giving my body first of all to God, holy, set apart unto Him. That's what God wants.

So our body is to be conformed to the Spirit by presenting it to God as a sacrifice, and then lastly, our soul is to be conformed to God.  Verse 2 says, " And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect." And here Paul tells us that the key to your soul being transformed is to be sure that your mind has been renewed. The mind must be presented for renewal.

And notice how he presents it with a negative and then a positive. "Do not be conformed to this world.”  The Phillips translation puts it this way, “Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold.”   In Eph 2:1, Paul says it this way, “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the COURSE of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”  And the idea of a course is like a river bed, and the current of the world carries us along on a path to destruction.  Everyone else is caught in the same course, and so it doesn’t seem so bad.  But the truth is, we are being swept along by the world, to our eventual destruction.  Paul says don’t let the world sweep you along in it’s course.

On the other hand, he says, "But be transformed," metamorphous is the root idea, totally changed.  That’s what repentance is you know, totally changing direction, changing course.  And how are we to do this?  By the renewing of the mind in accordance with our spirit now made alive.  We need to change the way we think.  We need to change our will.  We need to be changed from the inside out.  It’s like the old adage, you are what you  eat.  (I’m a krispy kreme donut).  We need to feast on the word of God.  I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation.  The word of God is the power to transform your mind.

David said it this way in Psalm 119, " Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You.” That's the key to the renewed mind.  And again David says, Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Col 3:16 “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you.”

God’s word is the only way to renew your soul, for it is the only thing powerful enough to pierce your soul. Hbr 4:12 “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”  Our mind is where the war is fought.  And this is where the battle is won.

2Cr 10:5 We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,

The key to spiritual victory is not getting all you can get, but giving all you have. There's a big difference. And there are people literally flocking into churches, looking for spiritual experiences to get more of God when the issue is not what they need to get but what they need to give. And that's the essence of this tremendous passage of Scripture.  We need to surrender all to Christ.  Everyday.  The problem with a living sacrifice is that it’s always trying to crawl off the altar.  But when we remember that we are not our own, we are bought with a price, and we truly understand the price that Christ paid on the cross for us, then the cost of surrendering everything to God seems trivial by comparison.  We have so much more to gain.

So that we might say with Paul, For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.  Yes, thank God for His mercies that He saved us, but now let’s present our bodies and our souls to Him as well, offering up to Him our spiritual worship.  Yes, there is a cost to follow Christ.  But it will be worth it all when we see Christ.

Therefore my brothers and sisters in Christ, I beseech you, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and set apart to God, which is your reasonable response of worship.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed, by the renewing of your mind, so that you may do the will of God.

a zeal for God

      Romans 10:2,3 contains one of the most tragic lines in scripture.  Speaking of the Jews, some of the most religious people on the planet, Paul says,  “For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge. For not knowing about God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.”
     What a tragedy.  To know of the true God, to try to worship Him, to perform all kinds of religious works thinking that they were serving Him, and yet all that zeal be of none affect.  It was worthless, even damning, because the Bible says that to him who has been given much, much shall be required.  And the Jews had been given every advantage and yet failed to follow the Lord fully.
     Paul says their downfall was failing to understand God’s righteousness, what God required to be holy and acceptable.  Instead, they offered up another standard – their own.  In effect, what they ended up doing was defining God according to what they wanted God to be like, rather than what God actually is like as depicted in His Word.  And the end result of that is a form of idol worship.  A god made in their own image, according to their perspective of righteousness.
     Unfortunately, Israel fell short of God’s standard.  They stumbled over the stumbling stone -  that stone being a Savior.  They didn’t really want a Savior.  In their self righteousness they didn’t really consider themselves sinners.  So what was the point of  a Savior?  They wanted an idol, that would work as a talisman when they could use some help or good luck, but would stand mutely on a shelf when not needed.
    But  lest we look down on the poor ol’ Israelites, we would do well to remember that Israel is a picture of the church.  What happened to them was for our example (1 Cor. 10:11).  Today the church is often guilty of the same attitude towards God.  We have dumbed down God in an attempt at making Him relevant, and in the process have stripped Him of all holiness, rendering Him little more than a genie who is manipulated by our faith to bless us and help us on demand.  Then when we are out of our jam, we place Him back on the shelf and hit the mute button until we need Him again.  Jesus Christ has become the means to an end, rather than the end of our means.  Paul says, in Rom. 10:4, that Christ is the goal, He is the end.  And the goal is for our righteousness.  To be holy.  Set apart unto God for righteousness.
     The problem with the church today is not that we aren’t relevant enough to the world.  The problem with the church today is we are too relevant to the world.  We are neither light nor darkness.  We are a nice muted grey.  Unbelievers are way too comfortable in the pew.  And believers are way too comfortable in the world.
     It’s was prevalent in the church in Corinth as well.  Here’s what Paul had to say to the Corinthian church. 2Cr 6:14 Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial (Satan), or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, "I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK AMONG THEM; AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.  Therefore, COME OUT FROM THEIR MIDST AND BE SEPARATE," says the Lord. "AND DO NOT TOUCH WHAT IS UNCLEAN; And I will welcome you.  And I will be a father to you, And you shall be sons and daughters to Me," Says the Lord Almighty.

trojan horse

      Most of us are familiar with the story of ancient Greece, when the army of Greece besieged the city of Troy.   Failing to win the war by typical methods, the Greeks constructed a giant wooden horse and hid a large group of soldiers within it.  The rest of the Greek army sailed away and seemingly left the horse as a departing gift to the resilient Trojans.  However, when the Trojans brought the horse inside the gates, the Greek soldiers were able to come out under cover of darkness and defeat the army of Troy from within their walls.

     Today I believe that a similar strategy is being used to deceive the church by what is being presented as the ministry of the Holy Spirit, but is in fact a tactic used by the enemy to usher in a whole array of false doctrines.   What is purported to be a gift, is actually a Trojan horse by which a whole host of false doctrines are destroying the church.

     So what exactly is the ministry of the Holy Spirit?  Well, to start with we must understand that He is God. Deuteronomy 6:4 says, "Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!”  Yet we also believe in the doctrine of the trinity.  And the trinity is a mystery that we cannot fully comprehend with our natural minds.  But maybe the trinity can be explained somewhat by realizing that Jesus is the manifestation of God in the flesh, and the Holy Spirit is the manifestation of God in the spirit.  The flesh is visible, and the spirit is invisible.  So Jesus is the manifestation of God in the flesh, visible to man.  And the Spirit is the manifestation of God in the Spirit, invisible to man.  Yet there is one God.  The Bible is filled with the attributes  and characteristics of God.  However there are three manifestations of God; the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

     Phillip said, “Lord, show us the Father.”  And Jesus  said to him, "Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. (John 14:9,10)  That unity is how Jesus could say, “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30)  So Jesus is the physical manifestation of God.

     And God in the flesh is the same God that is in the Spirit, though His manifestation is different – invisible as opposed to visible.  The ministry of Jesus was so that we might know God, so is the ministry of the Spirit is that we may know God.  Jesus said that the Holy Spirit will testify of Him. "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.  He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you.”  (John 16:13,14)

     So if Jesus is not speaking of His own initiative but speaking the words of the Father, and the Holy Spirit is not speaking on His own initiative but disclosing the words of Jesus, and everything Jesus does is glorifying the Father and everything that the Spirit does is glorifying Jesus, then you have one God, with one message, and one Word, presented in three dimensions, but all unified in delivery.  There will not be some variant, weird thing over here that is contrary to the nature of Jesus.  Just because something is bizarre and freaky is no indication that it is of the Spirit.  He has the same nature as Jesus.  What we saw lived out in the life of Christ is what we should expect to see the Spirit living out in our life.

      See, that is it in a nutshell.  As God lived in Jesus as God in the flesh, so the Spirit lives in us as God in the flesh.  As Jesus lived to do the will of the Father, so we have the Spirit living in us that we might do the will of the Father.  This is called sanctification.  And this is where the rubber meets the road in the Christian life. 

     But the devil would love to substitute a fleshly experience for a true spiritual experience.  However if you understand what constitutes matters of the flesh and what constitutes matters of the Spirit, then you should be able to start to recognize the difference. And if you want to know what the ministry of the Holy Spirit looks like, then simply ask yourself what was Jesus doing?  And if you can’t find any record of Jesus doing it in all four gospels then you can probably bet it’s not of God. 

     1Tim. 4:1 “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons.”

                                           ******SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT******

Every night this week, Monday May 28 through Saturday June 2, we are doing the Jericho March around Bethany Beach, praying for the destruction of fortresses.  I encourage you to join us at 7pm in the Ocean View Parkway parking lot (Wednesday it will follow Bible study). 2Cr 10:3,4  “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.”

worship at the beach

      Imagine a crowded seashore in the heat of the summer and Jesus walking down across the sand dunes to the multitude gathered on the beach.  And as the crowd turns expectantly to see Jesus, He announces that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand and that He is here to declare the way to enter into the Kingdom.
     The expectant crowd draws closer in anticipation.  Jesus then announces in a loud voice that He wants all the good people to gather together on the north end of the beach, and all the sinners to go down to the south end.  Immediately, there is a great commotion as people start moving, and jockeying for position, hurrying to take their  place on the north end.  Some stand uncertainly, watching to see which way their friends go.  But when they notice that their friends are moving to the “good” end of the beach, they feel that certainly, they must be as good as their friends are, and so they move off to the north end as well.  The “good” side quickly becomes packed.
     Meanwhile, only a few downcast, sorry looking individuals move slowly down to the south end.  They huddle together with their heads down in a small group, embarrassed and ashamed, but knowing that there is no way that they can claim to be good enough to go to the good side.
     Once the crowd has separated, Jesus walks over to the good end of the beach and dismisses all the multitude on the north end.  He says they are not able to enter the Kingdom because of their self righteousness.  Surprised and indignant, the multitude begins to move away, grumbling and complaining.
     Jesus then turns His attention to the few despondent people on the south end - the sinner’s beach.  And He says to them, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." (Luke 5:32)   “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners.” (Isa.61:1)
     Jesus said, “I came to live the perfect life that you could never live, and pay the ultimate sacrifice that you could never pay so that you might be reconciled to God, that sinners might be made holy and righteous by God as a gift of His grace.  ‘If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.’” (Rom. 10:9,10)  And having been justified by faith in Christ’s atonement,  “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”  (Rom. 8:1)   Furthermore, He said, whereas before you were powerless in your captivity to sin,  now that you have been made holy by Christ’s sacrifice, God will give you His Spirit to live in you, that you might have power over sin, to live in sin no more.
      Now that “Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” (Rom. 8:10,11)
     The Savior then announces to this small group, whose faces are  now shining in hope, their consciences washed clean by faith in God’s forgiveness,  that “your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own. For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”  (1 Cor. 6:19,20)
     Before leaving them, Jesus gives them this final word. “Now that you have been delivered from sin, justified, made righteous and holy before God by the sacrifice of Christ on the cross for your sins,  ‘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. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.’” (Rom. 12:1,2)

                              ***SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT***

This Wednesday, 5/16/12, we will be having a cookout at the Savages house.  Dinner is at 6pm followed by a short Bible study.  Please plan on joining us for a fun night of fellowship.  The Savages live on Central Ave., just past Bear Trap on the right side, about 4 houses past Burbage Road.  33476 Central Ave.  Frankford, DE 19945.

faith like Abraham

The name Abram means “father of many”. Yet, at 60 years old, when God called him out of Ur of Chaldea, Abram was childless. But God called him out of his country and gave him the promise that he would become the father of many nations, that from his seed would come one from whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed. For the next 40 years, Abraham did not see any of God’s promises come to fruition. Yet, at 100 years old, as he considered the deadness of his body and the deadness of his wife Sarah’s womb, Romans 4:20 tells us that without becoming weak in his faith, “with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief, but grew strong in his faith, giving glory to God, being fully assured that what He had promised, He was able also to perform.” It goes on to say that because of his faith, God reckoned unto him righteousness. In other words, Abraham was saved by his faith in God’s promises.

In fact, Paul gives Abraham as an illustration of saving faith. The type of faith by which you and I also can be made righteous before God – to be justified (just as if I never sinned). The next few verses give us a breakdown of what constituted Abraham’s faith. First point, vs. 18, “In hope against hope he believed.” Or to put it another way, against all hope, Abraham in hope believed. You know, faith that is realized, or seen isn’t faith at all. But faith is believing in the impossible, the invisible, the impractical, the unreasonable.

Next, Vs. 19 says, “without becoming weak in faith”. In spite of 40 years of having absolutely nothing to indicate that this incredible promise of land and a nation and a seed that would multiply like the stars in the heavens could come to pass, Abraham’s faith did not diminish. Verse 20, “With respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith.” So actually, the passage of time did not diminish his faith, but actually increased it. How could that happen? Well, God repeated his promise to Abraham many times. And God kept reaffirming it to him. How do we keep our faith from wavering with the passage of time and in spite of all the seemingly impossible obstacles that life seems to throw at us? By reading God’s word and letting the Holy Spirit reaffirm to us over and over again the promises of God.

Third thing about his faith was that he was not discouraged by his own natural weakness. Verse 19. “He didn't become weak in faith even though he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead.” Abraham considered the deadness of his body, and obviously he is thinking of his reproductive power. At 100 years old he considers the reality that part of him is dead, but it never ever diminishes his faith because he understands that this is a divine promise, not something that he has to accomplish. Abraham still counted on a God who could create something out of nothing and bring to life that which was dead.

And finally, verse 21, he was fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform. If you look back in the book of Genesis, you could see how many times God repeats the promise, again and again and again. So Abraham is convinced because God continues to reiterate His promise to him. This is the kind of faith that is the model of saving faith. We find assurance through God’s repeated promises found in Scripture. And His promise to us is that we too can receive righteousness by believing in his promises by faith.

****SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT****

The Beach Fellowship will hold a special Easter service on the beach at 8am, April 8. Service will be at our usual location, at the end of Ocean View Parkway in Bethany. In the event of inclement weather, we will meet at the Christian Conference Center. After Easter, we will continue meeting at our winter quarters until further notice.

easter service

We will hold our Easter Service on the beach, weather permitting, at 8:00am, April 8, 2012. In the event of inclement weather, we will be indoors at our usual winter quarters, the Christian Conference Center just north of the totem pole in town. Our beach service is held opposite the parking lot at the end of Ocean View Parkway. Bring a chair and hope to see you there!

a child of God

Perhaps you grew up in a less than ideal home. Who didn’t? But maybe there was a friend you knew that seemed to have the perfect home. And perhaps you enjoyed hanging out there when you were a kid. Maybe you even imagined how great it might be if you were part of the family. But no amount of hanging out over there would actually make you part of that family. No matter how many times you came over for dinner, or went somewhere with that them, you still never really belonged. The only way you could actually become a part of that family would have been if they offered to adopt you, and you agreed to live as their child.

There are some obvious similarities in that scenario to Christianity. Many people see the advantage that being a child of God offers. They hang out in church from time to time. They participate in various things the church is doing. They make some friends there. And many would like to believe that just by association they are part of the family of God. After all, they got baptized there, or they joined the church, or participated in one of the ceremonies the church conducted.

But the truth is, you can’t become a child of God just by hanging out in church a couple of times a week or by anything that you could do on your own. The only way to become part of the family of God is to be adopted. And the only way that God is going to adopt you is if you become holy. God said in 1 Peter 1:16, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” Not by becoming good in your own estimation, or in comparison to others, but by becoming as righteous as His Son.

However, Romans 3:10 says, “There is none righteous, no not one.” But God loved you so much that He sent the only righteous one, His Son, to pay the price to make you holy. By the death of the Son of God, your sins were paid for in full. He left His robe of righteousness at the foot of the cross for you to put on. And because of His righteousness which was transferred to us, God sees us as completely, perfectly holy. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. “ 2 Corinthians 5:21

If you are willing to accept that gift of righteousness and agree to give up your life to live the life that He has for you, then He will adopt you into the family of God and give to you the full benefits of an heir. You will become a child of God, and live with Him forever, enjoying all that He has provided for you. I trust you know God as your Father. The price has been paid - all that is stopping you is pride. Pride in your goodness, your ability, your own self sufficiency.

“God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. 1Peter 5:5-7.

***Special announcement: There will be no Wednesday night Bible study at the Harrell’s house on March 7. Sunday services will be as usual. The next Wednesday Bible study will be March 14 at 6pm. At that time, we will look at what is known as the Romans Road, a series of scriptures in Romans that show the plan of salvation very clearly. I would encourage all of you who are either unsure of your salvation, or would like to know how to lead others to Christ, to plan on attending that session in particular.

a living sacrifice

Sacrifice is a word that has no cultural relevance today. But to first century Jews it was a vivid reminder of the price of their sins. Imagine if every time you thought a lustful thought, or told a little white lie, or committed some other seemingly innocuous, victimless sin, you had to take a spotless, innocent lamb from your flock, the best of your flock, and bring it to the priest and watch him slit his throat and burn it on the altar for atonement for your sin. Bet you would kind of think twice about willfully sinning next time, wouldn’t you?

Two thousand years later we no longer have any concept of sacrifice, and as a result we don’t really much of a concept of sin either. Somehow we got the idea that Jesus died for our sins, but now we have this grace thing that gives us the freedom to do anything we want without remorse, or guilt, or concern. After all, it didn’t cost us anything. But the price of sin has never changed. The wages of sin is death, and without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. So somebody has to die for that “minor” indiscretion. Somebody has to pay with their life for my rebellion. Grace isn’t a license to sin, it’s having my sins paid for by taking a perfect Lamb, and strapping Him to an altar and torturing Him to death as atonement for my sin. I bet if we got a picture of that we would think twice about willfully sinning next time, wouldn’t we?

So then, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How can we who died to sin continue to live in it? Salvation isn’t just about deliverance from the penalty of sin, but it’s about transformation to live a life for God. Understanding His sacrifice should produce a response from me – my sacrifice. "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” Galatians 2: 20

Looking around at 21st century Christianity, I don’t see any crucifixion. Everybody is willing to allow Christ to be crucified, but not willing to sacrifice anything themselves for the sake of the Kingdom. Today’s church is all about self fulfillment, realizing your potential, living your best life right here and now. Oh, we’ll sing a few “worship” songs, and tell Jesus how much we appreciate His sacrifice for us, but don’t ask me to really give anything up. They might be willing to drop a tip in the offering plate, but not many are willing to obey the command of Jesus who said, “"If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.”

True worship is found in Romans 12:1 which 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. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Jesus said, “No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” You’re either serving yourself and your worldly desires or serving the Lord. You are free to do either one you want. But don’t be fooled, you can’t do both. I urge you brethren, present your lives as a living sacrifice to God which is your only reasonable worship, when you consider the sacrifice that He made for you.

running the race

Hebrews 12:1 says, “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”

The Christian life is often compared to a race. And a race is not something that you can compete in without getting involved. It takes effort. It takes participation. It is not an invitation to be a spectator, but a participant. It says let us run with endurance the race that is set before us…. Us is the church, particularly, the individual members that make up the body of Christ. You and I are called to run a race. The Christian life is not a spectator sport.

Now not all races are alike. This particular race that we are called to run isn’t a sprint, but a marathon. It’s an endurance race. A long distance race. It begins at the moment of conversion, upon salvation. And it ends with us seeing our Savior face to face. Whether that be in the clouds when He comes back to earth to set up His physical kingdom, or when we die and go to heaven. But in the time in between, we are urged to run.

Now notice there are two things here that we are told to lay aside. The first is weights. What are weights? Well, to start with, it’s not necessarily sin. It may be some innocent thing that in and of itself isn’t wrong, but it slows you down. 1 Cor. 6:12 says, “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.”

I’m reminded of the scene in the movie Forest Gump. Maybe some of you’ve seen parts of it on TV. Forest has braces on his legs and he can’t walk very well. But one day he is walking home from school with his little girl friend, and these boys start chasing them. And the girl calls out to Forest, “Run Forest, Run!” And he begins to clumsily try to run with these legs all bound up in these braces, but as he gets going, she keeps calling him to run even faster and as he tries to do that the braces start coming apart and falling off, and Forest starts really running. Turns out he was a pretty fast runner without those braces on. Some of you need to throw away your crutches. Get rid of your braces. You don’t need them. God will give you the strength to run. Just let go of all that stuff that you think you need, but instead is holding you back and run!

Of course, some things are sins. There are weights and there are sins. Some things the Bible says flat out are sins. Adultery. Fornication. Homosexuality. Lying, False Witness. Drunkenness. Disobedience to parents. Stealing. Pride. Your conscience knows it’s a sin. God knows it’s a sin. You know it’s a sin. So quit it. Stop it. Repent of it. If you don’t, it’s going to entangle you. In other words, it’s going to wrap itself around you like an animal in a net and you won’t be able to run anymore. You’re going to trip and fall flat on your face. And you could even lose the race.

Sin is really a form of unbelief. We choose to believe a lie rather than believe what God has said. God said this is wrong and it’s bad for you. We say, no, I think it’s going to be good, to be satisfying. I think it’s going to be fun. And so we chose to believe ourselves and Satan and disbelieve God. Galatians 5:7 says, “You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth?”

Listen, Satan would love to trip you up in life’s race and get you to stay down there in the mud and just give up. He may be telling you, “Stay down, give up. It isn’t worth the effort. It’s too hard. It’s too lonely. You’re too discouraged.” But when we fall, we need to lift up our head and look at Jesus. He is right there with us, saying, “Come on Son, you can do it. I’ll be right here with you. I will give you strength. Come on, let’s go.” And the cloud of witnesses who have gone on before us I believe are cheering us on as well. If we could hear them, I believe they would be saying, “Don’t give up, keep on keeping on. It will be worth it all, when you see Jesus!”

hope for the new year

John Lennon wrote a song titled “Merry Xmas, War is Over” which has become popular around the holiday season. The lyrics go like this: “So this is Christmas, And what have you done? Another year over, And a new one just begun. A very merry Christmas, And a happy New Year, Let's hope it's a good one, Without any fear.”

Such a sentiment is a common theme around the New Year. Hope for the future from the world’s perspective is peace, no death, no fear. But the reality is that such a hope is little more than a wish. The truth is, there is no prospect of peace on the horizon. Disease and war and tragedy continue to claim human life. Economic fear grips the world as we struggle to get out of the recession.

But for the Christian, hope produces something more. Hope produces faith. Faith goes beyond where hope stops. It doesn’t simply wish, it actually believes and acts with assurance on that belief. It’s not based just on sentiment. Hebrews tells us that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Specifically, faith is believing not just in a vague hope for a “better tomorrow”, but for a Christian, faith is believing in the promises of God. Believing that God’s word is true and will not fail. And the incredible thing is this faith in God and His word becomes our justification. Romans 4:3, “Abraham believed God and He counted it to him as righteousness.” This faith becomes our justification, producing our salvation, by granting to us our righteousness not on the basis of what we have done, but by faith in what Jesus has done. And this salvation becomes our hope. Real hope for a future without the futility of suffering and death that are the hallmarks of this world. It comes full circle. Hope brings about faith, which produces justification, which produces salvation, which produces a more certain hope.

Consider this passage describing our hope from Romans 5:1, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

As we stand upon the precipice of 2012, we don’t know what the future holds. And yet for the Christian, we have hope that supersedes any fear. We have peace with God. We have a future reserved for us in heaven. We have a disease free body waiting for us when this old one wears out.

Listen, Jesus Christ is the beginning and the end of our faith. He will walk with us through 2012 and beyond, through whatever trials and tribulations that may lie ahead. He said “I will never leave you nor forsake you. And I will come again for you, that where I am, you shall be also.” This is our hope. A hope grounded in the written promises of God. A hope that perseveres beyond the grave. Jesus said, “Whoever believes in Me shall never die.”

We are starting off the New Year at the Beach Fellowship in our Wednesday evening Bible study with the book of Romans. I hope that you will make a resolution to participate with us this year in this life changing study. Happy New Year.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Luau December 21, 6:30 pm. The Dyer's house, 29460 Cedar Neck Rd.

Christmas Day Service, December 25, 8:00 am. Celebrate Communion with us at the beach.

got faith?

It should be universally recognized, at least in evangelical circles, that “without faith it is impossible to please God.” But in spite of it’s essential nature in salvation, there can be a lot of confusion as to exactly what faith is. Hebrews 11:1 gives the classic Biblical definition of faith: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.”

Maybe it would help to state what faith is not. Faith is not a tradition passed on from generation to generation. You cannot be born into saving faith. You may have been born into a family that traditionally practiced a certain form of religion, but you cannot be born with saving faith. Faith is not a lifestyle choice: it’s not belonging to an group of nice, morally good people and joining a local denomination.

Faith is not a positive mental attitude that by possession will accomplish what you want to happen. It is not the power of positive thinking. It may be a good idea to be positive, but a positive mental attitude is not Biblical saving faith.

Neither is faith dependent upon the immensity of our mental focus. It’s not the size of our faith that matters, (remember the tiny mustard seed?) but the object of our faith that is important. It’s not faith in the act of faith. It’s not hoping real hard. It’s not a feeling.

Biblical saving faith is simply trusting in the promises of God. And then living in response to those promises. Faith is not simply believing in God, but acting in response to that belief. The Bible says the “devils believe and tremble” and yet the devils aren’t saved are they? No, they believe and yet rebel against God’s word. So we too are saved not simply by believing in the existence of God, or even in the orthodoxy of scripture, but acting in obedience to God’s word.

The writer of Hebrews through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit gives several illustrations of faith in action in chapter 11. Abel had faith, and so he worshipped God, bringing an acceptable sacrifice. Enoch had faith, and so he walked with God. And his walk was pleasing to God. Noah had faith, and so he built an ark in the middle of a wilderness in response to God’s promise that it was going to rain and flood the earth – in spite of the fact that he had never seen rain.

Noah could have believed all that God said concerning the corruption of the world and coming judgment and if he had done nothing further he would have been destroyed along with the rest of the world. But Noah heard the word, was obedient to the word, and as result built the ark. His actions proved his faith and were a testimony to the world. Noah is called a preacher of righteousness in 2 Peter. And for a 120 years, he preached a daily message of obedience to the promises of God. And as a result, his life still preaches to us, thousands of years later.

Let us be men and women of faith; doers of the word, not simply hearers. As James warns, “Faith without works is dead.”