Sermon for Sunday May 18th, 2008

FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS by Bruce Ball

Romans 12:1-12:2


When I was about four-years old, we lived in Tucson, Arizona. My dad was in the Air Force there. The story goes that we didn’t have a lot of money, and my dad and mom did not have a car.

But some person they knew gave them on old Ford and said if my dad could get it running, they could have it. My dad was not a mechanic at that point, so he pushed the car to where just the front end was in the garage. And then he went about the task of taking the engine completely apart.

As he dismantled the engine, he would take a part and put it at the back of the garage on the floor, writing instructions on the floor as to where the part came from so he would know how to reassemble it. He did this with every part in the engine, and he did it so that when it came time to put it together, the parts he needed first were nearest the car.

I don’t know what he did once he got it all apart, but he said when he got it all back together again, he had three small parts left over and never did figure out where they went, but the car ran fine for years after that.

I think most of us are like that to a certain degree; at least about just jumping right in and trying to figure things out. Most of us seem to want to do it that way rather than sit back and have somebody else, especially someone we know, give us instructions, and we surely don’t like taking the time to read directions, do we?

I know that when Diana and I are driving somewhere and are not totally sure where we are going, I just hate to stop and ask somebody for directions. It is like I just know in my heart that in a few blocks it will dawn on me where we are or how to get where we are going.

I think we are all like that to an extent in parts of our lives, but if we would just seek direction we wouldn’t end up with mysterious pieces left over, or driving down some road not knowing where we are headed.

And we do the same thing with our spiritual lives. We have a book of very explicit directions, a book that that takes us step-by-step through the process, yet we don’t like to read it and we don’t like anyone else telling us what it says.

When you get a program for your computer, you can either read the entire manual, which is written to where only people like Bill Gates can understand it, or you can put that disc in that is labeled; “Quick Start.” Myself, I have to be honest and tell you I will always reach for the thing that gets me there the fastest.

Today, I want to talk to you about the Apostle Paul’s Quick Start Guide to Christian Living. It is found in Romans 12. The first eleven chapters of Romans deals with a lot of theological discussion, but in chapter 12, Paul gets away from that and gets into some pretty basic stuff …. all designed to help those of us who do not like getting bogged down with technical stuff.

This information will cover three areas in our lives: Our relationship with our heavenly Father, our relationship with ourselves, and our relationship with other people – those in the church and those outside the church.

And all of this information is found in just two verses. I want to read those two verses to you from two different versions of the Bible.

From the NIV –

ROMANS 12:1-2

1 - ‘Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.

2 – ‘Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will.’

From the New Life Version –

1 - ‘Christian brothers, I ask you from my heart to give your bodies to God because of His loving-kindness to us. Let your bodies be a living and holy gift given to God. He is pleased with this kind of gift. This is the true worship that you should give Him.

2 – ‘Do not act like the sinful people of this world. Let God change your life. First of all, let Him give you a new mind. Then you will know what God wants you to do. And the things you do then will be good and pleasing and perfect.’

That is why I read and study several versions of the Bible in addition to commentaries and other study books: Because sometimes a paraphrased word might open up the meaning to a verse just a little more. And the more we can understand it, the better we are prepared to live the life of a Christian.

Let’s go back over what we just read. First, let’s talk about …

1. OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH OUR HEAVENLY FATHER

What a concept; giving our physical bodies as a sacrificial gift to God. But what does that mean? One thing it means is to stop using our bodies as nothing more than a vehicle of pleasure. Our flesh is constantly in demand of sensations. We eat for pleasure sake, we are promiscuous for pleasure sake, and we even do dangerous things to seek the pleasure of the thrill we get from them.

The problem with that is none of it has to do with God. Since we have these bodies because God gave them to us, it would only seem right to honor Him in our usage of these bodies.

We talk about sacrifices. In the Old Testament, worship meant sacrificing the life of an animal on the altar. And when that animal died, with its blood flowing from its body, it became the symbolic sacrifice for our sins. That way, we wouldn’t have to sacrifice our own lives for the sins we committed. When Jesus came, He became the substitute sacrifice for us – again, so that we would not have to go through it ourselves.

But we are to present our bodies to God as living sacrifices. That does not mean we must let the blood flow out of our bodies while lying upon some altar. What it means is that we sacrifice those fleshly desires of this world so we can keep the body He gave us pure and holy. It means we give up something we want, or the pleasures we crave, so that we can offer God a present that He will be pleased with.

Why a sacrifice? Let me give you an illustration of what a sacrifice really means. Some of you will, no doubt, remember that I have used this before.

Let’s say that it is cold and snowing outside. You see me out there with nothing but a short-sleeved shirt on. You know that you have an extra jacket, so you give it to me. That becomes a wonderful gift for me, but it is not a sacrifice for you, as you do not have to do without in order for me to have something.

Now, let’s say you see me out there in my short-sleeved shirt and you have a sweater and a thin jacket. You decide to give me the sweater. That becomes a nice gift for me and a sacrifice for you, because you had to give up something you could have used so that I could have something I needed.

And when we give up those things our bodies crave, the things of this world, so that we can keep our bodies pure and holy for God, it becomes a sacrifice that God loves. Why? Because we did without for His sake.

In these two verses, Paul deals with the most important part of our spiritual lives first; our relationship with our heavenly Father. In order to be right with God, our relationship with God must be right. And we can only get it right by following directions; His directions. And once we get the directions down pat, we are ready to deal with …

2. THE RELATIONSHIP WE HAVE WITH OURSELVES

Paul says, ‘Do not act like the sinful people of this world. Let God change your life. First of all, let Him give you a new mind.’

When a sacrifice was burned on the altar, it physically changed. The chemicals in the body oxidized the flesh and it changed from living tissue to carbonized material.

Scientists have studied the Shroud of Turin, the cloth that is said to have been wrapped around Jesus after He died. They wanted to know what caused the negative-type imprint that looks like a man.

Their conclusion was that there was a moment of transfiguration; an instant when Jesus changed from a dead body into a resurrected being. The report stated that at that moment, every molecule instantly changed with such force that it left the imprint on the cloth.

My point is this: We must change. We must stop being like we are, and become like we should be. But there is a problem. In and of ourselves, we have no ability to change. It is only through God that we can change to be the way we should be. Just like Paul says, ‘Let God change your life.’

The world tells us how it wants us to act, and we succumb to its demands. We have such an unnatural fear of upsetting the world around us. That is shown by the absolute fear some have of telling others about Jesus. It seems we would rather die than even begin taking a chance of upsetting somebody by telling them about our Savior.

That is what God wants us to change – our priorities. He wants us to lean on Him instead of leaning on the world. Paul tells us to ‘renew our minds.’ The word ‘renew’ comes from the Greek work ‘renovation.’ If we were to move into an older home, one of the first things we would want to do is to remodel it, bring it up to date so it can look better and be used more. God wants us to be remodeled.

When we sacrifice our bodies to God, He takes them and begins to remodel us to be better and more useful. As we would begin by painting the walls of the house and changing the carpet, God begins by invading our hearts and changing them from the inside out.

He gives us a new mind. He literally refocuses our attention from the world onto His glory. Hebrews 4 tells us that God’s word is so sharp it can slice into us and tell us the thoughts of our hearts. Ephesians 5 talks about ‘washing’ in the Word, because it has cleansing properties.

And the more we are changed to look at God, the more we will be able to look at ourselves and see if we are really pleasing to God. Just as a child begins to learn and understand what you want from him, as he grows older, we begin to learn and understand what God wants from us as we mature in Christianity. And along with that maturity comes a longing; a longing to be like God wants us to be.

Let me recap for you. We need to gives our very lives and physical bodies to God so that He can clean us up so that we can better serve Him. And we are to look at ourselves to see whether or not we are doing what He wants us to do.

So, our relationship with God depends on being willing to serve Him rather than keep serving the sinful world around us. And once we are willing to give our everything to Him, we will have a closer relationship with Him.

And the closer we get to Him, the more we will want to continue looking at ourselves to make sure we are in His will. That is the perfect relationship we are to have with ourselves. Not as people who try and fit in with others, but people who try to serve the Lord our God.

And that leads us into …

3. OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHER PEOPLE

There is an old saying in the church. ‘More of Thee and less of me.’ We are to renew ourselves to be more like God. We are to be the reflection of Jesus Christ, since we, being Christians, are His ambassadors to this world.

Let’s stay in the New Life Version and continue with …

Verse 3, where Paul writes:

‘God has given me His loving favor. This helps me write these things to you. I ask each one of you not to think more of yourself than you should. Instead, think in the right way toward yourself by the faith God has given you.

If I were to paraphrase that, I would say to stop thinking of ourselves as better than those around us. The Bible tells us to put others ahead of ourselves. If everyone tried to do this, there would be less jealousy and dissention in God’s house. There would be less strife in our lives, and there would be even more God in our hearts.

Verses 4-5, Paul continues:

‘Our bodies are made up of different parts, and none of these parts have the same use as the other parts.

‘There are many people who belong to Christ. And yet, we are one body, which is Christ’s. We are all different, but we depend on each other.’

Christians are like the parts of a body; there are different kinds and they are in different locations, and none of them work alike. But when all of them are doing what they are supposed to do, the body works perfectly fine. Does your foot argue with your arm? Of course not. And each of us should never say or do anything that would disrupt a cohesive relationship with other Christians, because if we do, the whole body of Christ will suffer to some extent.

Every person on earth has a natural tendency to use our words to hurt other people. So why do people say Christians are worse than anyone else if they really aren’t? It is because everybody knows that Christians, above all, should never talk that way, and when we do it stands out more so than someone else doing the same thing. That is why it is so important for Christians to be ever watchful of what we say and what we do.

Our mantra should be: “WORK TOGETHER AS ONE!” We are all parts of one body, and each body has a specific function. What is your specific God-anointed function? It might not be a glamorous duty, but it is a necessary duty. It might be visiting the sick, or it might be cleaning the church, or it might even be spending time on your knees each day praying for others.

In verse 6, Paul says,

‘We all have different gifts that God has given to us by His loving favor. We are to use them. If someone has the gift of preaching the Good News, he should preach. He should use the faith God has given him for the purpose God has given him.’

I have said that all Christians are called to preach, but only very few are called to do it from a pulpit. We are called to live the life of a Christian, and to tell others about Jesus – as God puts them in front of us.

Some Christians are gifted with encouragement, others with teaching. Whatever your gift is, develop it by using it and don’t just wish you had another more glamorous gift. Your gift is as important as anyone else’s, so be the part of the body of Christ that you were made to be.

And we must use our gifts to help others, not glorify ourselves. Let me explain. Prophesying is a biblical gift. It can be used to tell somebody what God will do and what that person must do to get ready for God’s work. But I have seen some people who use prophesy to make people give money to them, under the pretext that the more money they have, the more effective they can make their ministry so people can get ready for whatever is going to happen.

And speaking of giving, that is also a gift. There are two ways to give. One way is to give what somebody needs while expecting that person to give us something back. That is not a free gift. It has more strings attached to it than a kite has attached to it. Whatever you do, do it out of love, and do it as if you were doing it for God.

When we learn that our goal is to get ourselves right with God so that we can keep ourselves right, then we will be able to put other people above ourselves in the list of priorities.

Jesus never told us to take care of ourselves first. In fact, He told us to love our enemies enough to pray for them. So if we expect to have a close relationship with God, we must also try to view others as He would view them and not how we tend to view them. After all, would we really want God to think about us the way we often think about other people?

Verse 10 tells us to honor one another above ourselves. That means to show great respect towards one another – even when they don’t do things the way we would do them.

Verse 13 tells us to share what we have with other Christians who are in need, evening giving them a place to eat and a place to sleep. Now that is a new idea, isn’t it? Inviting a less fortunate Christian over to your home to eat dinner with you and stay in your spare bedroom for a few nights. Mind you, it doesn’t tell us to do that with everyone; just Christians.

What am I trying to get at here? As Christians, we need to start forming bonds with one another and not just being cordial during our church services. As God starts to shape our characters from the inside out, we begin to act appropriately for whatever situation we are in. We are not all called to be the same. And we don’t always have to be glazed over with a happy face. It is okay to feel different emotions, but it is not okay to treat fellow Christians negatively.

For instance, the Bible tells us to bless those that curse you. It does not tell us to get even with those who have hurt you. We should all behave in a way that brings approval from those outside the church as they look at us.

Mahatma Gandhi, the late ruler of India, one said that the only thing that kept him away from Christianity was Christians. Do you think the Christians he was talking about were trying to glorify God in their actions or not?

Will the praise team come forward, please?

Let me draw us to a close by saying it isn’t always easy to be nice to people when they are not being nice to you. But if we have a problem with someone, rather than say bad things about them, we need to pray for them. We should be slow to anger and quick to love. Slow to honor Satan and quick to honor God.

Finally, I want to take a moment to bring us back to verse 1. Even though the word “worship” doesn’t occur in the Greek – it is implied and it fits. I want to say this things about worship – it is more than just what we do here on Sundays but how we live our daily lives everywhere we go, and

Worship isn’t singing songs in church by reading the words on the PowerPoint, but by singing them as your own personal prayer to God. In the way we sing them, we should be showing that we understand who God is and that we have made a choice to follow Him.

Have you made that decision yet? Are you following God today because that is just what you do, or because that is what you have chosen to do? I want you to lean on our Lord this morning as we sing. I want you to seek His desire for you this morning.

Does He want you to have a closer walk with Him? Does He want this to be your day of decision? Your day to either decide to give yourself to Him, or maybe make a decision that starting today, you will no longer be lukewarm, but hot as fire for Him?

You have an opportunity right now to start following the directions you have just read in the Bible. You can come up here to me right now – as we stand and sing.