The Believer's Supreme Act of Spiritual Worship
Romans 12:1‑2
We come together tonight as always on the Lord's day with eager hearts to dig into the Scripture. And I want to invite you to open your Bible to the twelfth chapter of Romans. And we're going to look together at verses 1 and 2...Romans 12:1 and 2, the supreme act of spiritual worship.
The text says, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God which is your spiritual worship. And do not continue to be conformed to this world but be being transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may approve what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."
A young lady approached me last week when I was at a conference speaking, and she was very tearful and very distraught. And she said to me essentially what I have heard in different words many times in my ministry. She said, "I just can't seem to live the Christian life the way I should." She said, "I am frustrated. I am without victory, without a sense of accomplishment. I struggle seemingly with the very simplest forms of obedience in my Christian walk. I'm constantly defeated. Can you help me?"
I said, "Well, what has been your approach to solving the problem yourself?"
She said, "I have tried everything." She said, "I...I've been going to a church where they speak in tongues, where they have healings, where they have all kinds of spiritual experiences." She said, "I've entered into all of them. I've spoken in tongues. I've had certain ecstatic experiences, gifts of prophecy, certain supposed miracles. I've been slain in the Spirit. And in spite of all of this, I am not pleased with my life." And she said in a rather telling remark, "I've tried to get all I could get out of God."
And I said, "That's your problem." 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 and 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.
Having concluded eleven chapters of profound and thrilling doctrine that defines what God has done for every believer, Paul does not say, "Now here's what you need to get." He says, "Now here's what you need to give." The key to powerful living is not getting something more, but giving all we have. And I'm somewhat admittedly frustrated by that particular idea that is so prevalent in Christianity that what you need to be successful in living the Christian life is to get something...when the real issue is to give.
You remember, don't you, back in John chapter 4 that Jesus said, "The Father seeks true worshipers." He redeemed us in order that we might give Him glory, that we might give Him ourselves. Paul writing to the Philippians in chapter 3 verse 3 defines a Christian as one who worships God in the Spirit, who rejoices in Christ Jesus and has no confidence in the flesh, one who worships. Peter writing in 1 Peter chapter 2, a monumental statement that all of us need to be very aware of, said, "You are living stones, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ."
We are a spiritual priesthood. Every much...every bit as much a priesthood as was the Aaronic priesthood, the Levitical priesthood. We are every bit as much a priest as was Melchizedek. We are priests under the Most High God. We are a kingdom of priests whose goal is to offer up spiritual sacrifices, even as priests of old offered up physical sacrifices of animals before God.
Now as spiritual priests there are many kinds of sacrifices. Scripture talks about the fact that we can offer the calves of our lips, Hebrews 13, the calves of our lips which is praise and thanks unto God. It says that we can offer God our petition and our prayer, that we can give to