Living Sacrifice | Devoted

Are you wondering what it really means to surrender your life to God?
 Do you feel pulled in different directions by the world around you?
 Could there be a better way to discover God's purpose for your life?

Jesus gave His life so you could belong to God with confidence, freedom, and hope. Through His mercy, He forgives our sin, makes us new, and gives us a foundation that steadies our souls no matter what life brings. Romans 12 reminds us that because of everything God has done through Christ, the most life giving response is to offer ourselves fully to Him as living sacrifices, trusting that His ways lead to true life.

This message explores what wholehearted devotion to Christ looks like in everyday life. As God renews your mind through His Word and His Spirit, you begin to see beyond the pressures of this world and discover His good, pleasing, and perfect will. If you have been searching for God's direction, wondering how to grow spiritually, or longing to live with deeper purpose, this invitation to surrender points you to the One who is always faithful.

Scripture: Romans 12:1 to 2

“Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship.” Romans 12:1

“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.” Romans 12:2

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the First Premise Sermon Podcast, where each week we dive into Scripture, wrestle with truth, and discover how faith intersects our lives. God's word meets us where we are, challenging, shaping, and calling us into something greater. No matter where you are on your journey, you belong here. And we're praying that this sermon might help you take a next step in faith towards Jesus. Hey, let's dive into today's message together.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Well, good morning. I had a friend from the 8:30 service who greeted me afterwards. He said, I usually come to the uh 1015 service, but I saw it was going to be in the 90, 95 today. I decided to get in my time with God early in the morning when it was still cool. So, how are you all doing with the heat? Doing okay? I've got some word of hope for you. Only 152 days till Christmas. Here we go. Well, we begin a new series today, and our overall series that takes us through the year in the book of Romans. Uh last week, uh Matt was the one who completed our series through chapter 11, Romans 1 through 11. And now we begin this four-week series in Romans 12 called Living Sacrifice. And our text today is uh verses 1 and 2 of chapter 12. Uh sermon title is Devoted. And uh we're looking forward to seeing how all that God has taught us to this point through Paul in Romans 1 through 11 now issues and transformed lives. Uh the rest of most of the rest of Romans 12 through 16 deals with how we as believers are to live in this world as a result of what God has done for us in Christ. Uh so let me pray for us. We'll read our scripture text and then we'll dig in. Lord, we ask you to uh give us open hearts and minds that indeed you uh use your truth to bring transformation into our minds and hearts that we may uh be devoted to you, living sacrifices, uh willing to do what you say, to go where you will, uh, to live for your pleasure. Bless us now through the reading of your word and the preaching of it. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. So we're looking at Romans 12, 1 and 2. Uh, it's just a short text, so I'll ask you if you want to read along with me as the text is projected on the screen there. Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the patterns 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. Amen. All right. Judson van de Venter was an art teacher, Dutch American, and aspiring artist when he faced the culmination of a five-year internal battle about the course of his life. He was also a part-time evangelist who felt the tug of God to give himself fully to reaching the loss for Christ. And so in 1896, when he was conducting a revival meeting in East Palestine, Ohio, the die was cast. He would give up his whirly dreams of becoming a new Dutch Rembrandt and offer himself fully to Christ. He it is who wrote the words to what has now become a classic hymn of consecration. All to Jesus, I surrender. All to him I freely give. I will ever love and trust him, in his presence, daily live. I surrender all. I surrender all. All to thee, my blessed Savior. I surrender all. Well, what does a fully surrendered life look like? My first glimpse of such a life happened in Saudi Arabia during the summer of 1973, two years before I gave my life to Christ, and what I saw had nothing to do with Christianity directly, but it had everything to do with voluntary surrender. By some twist of fate, I was offered the chance to be a guest for a week of the Prince of the Assir province of Saudi Arabia, a province in the southwest part of the country, the most beautiful mountainous and lush part of the whole peninsula. So there for that week, amid horse races, shooting competitions by the Prince's bodyguards, a sheep roast, hosting some hundred men in the wilderness, a formal dinner in the palace, uh where I learned that uh that uh uh what do you call it, uh, water dipping bowls are not meant for drinking, but for cleaning your hands. Uh and then the freedom to roam the grounds outside my guest house. And the other week at the end of the week I was included in a get-together for 40 or so friends of Prince Khalid was his name, uh, there on his veranda in his palace, sitting on Persian carpets, cross-legged in a circle, sharing stories. We were, as tradition has it, uh offered hot tea, sweet, hot tea in uh crystal glasses by the servants, followed after that, as is tradition also, by bitter Arabic coffee in small ceramic cups. By the time of the coffee, the servants had disappeared, and we were all served by uh the prince's chief bodyguard, who held those forty ceramic cups nested in his right hand and a dalla in his left hand. That's a dalla. Uh if you've ever seen those in action, he can pour a very thin stream uh from that uh beak of the Dalla. And there he was, uh doing very skillfully, uh putting the Dalla at the end edge of the cup and going like this, with this huge stream going right into the cup, and then bringing it back and then handing that cup to the guest in front of him, never spilling a drop on the Persian carpets. It was really impressive. But even more impressive was the man himself. A Bedouin of the desert, about six feet tall, clean shaven, leathery skin, keen eyes, aquiline nose, uh, ramrod straight back, athletic physique. He was covered by a mahogany-colored thobe, the traditional male Arab dress, and red-checked kafia. He moved with grace and efficiency. Uh this is not a real photo, AI generated from my memory. Uh almost unnoticeably, in the midst of all of his actions, he would glance back toward the prince, ready to stop, to respond to any new directives from his master. It was absolutely clear to me that this bodyguard lived for the pleasure of the prince and was impervious to the will of anyone other than his Lord. And even today I remember with admiration that remarkable display of loyalty to one man and his kingdom. Now, there are no doubt many reasons one might swear full allegiance to another person or cause. In our passage today, Paul urges this kind of pure surrender to God because of the infinite magnitude of God's mercy to those who confess Christ as Lord. Romans 12 sits uh at the summit of all of the truths of chapters 1 through 11, where Paul has piled up uh instances describing the mercies of God that have been done for us in and through Christ, and why it is completely appropriate that human beings should fully surrender themselves to God and to his will for them. Now, uh, inexplicably to me, the NIV translates uh this word mercy singular, but the Greek is obviously plural. So I don't understand why. It seems to me it makes perfect sense to say, in view of all of God's mercies that we've seen, that you've seen as you've read through chapters 1 through 11, uh, you should offer your lives to God. So here are some of those mercies. In the midst of our rebellion, God has demonstrated kindness, forbearance, and patience, Romans 2. He has expunged the guilt of our sins by wiping them clean through the blood shed by his son, Romans 3. He's declared us righteous by sending his son to die for us, Romans 4. Uh he we now have peace with God because we've been justified by faith in the victory of Jesus, Romans 5. Our eternal hope is secured by the Holy Spirit, whom God has poured into our hearts, Romans 5. God's grace came to us while we were still helpless sinners, unable to offer him anything in exchange for his priceless gift, Romans 5. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are alive in Christ, who belong to Christ, Romans 8. We who were formerly frail children of dust, God has transformed into spirit-filled children of God, who now have the privilege of calling the creator and judge of the universe Abba, Papa, Daddy. Romans 8. We have all become heirs of God's kingdom and join heirs with Christ, again Romans 8. The sufferings of this present age are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us in the age to come. Romans 8. Both the Holy Spirit and God the Son have committed themselves to interceding on our behalf before the throne of the Father, Romans 8. Since God is for us and will withhold no good thing from us, we are more than conquerors through Christ. Again, Romans 8. And then Romans 8 concludes with this tremendous uh pian of praise. Uh I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, this God, the one true God, who is above all pretenders, he is the only one worth committing yourself to in full surrender, Paul would argue. So he says, in light of all that God has done for you and promises to do in the future on through eternity, in who else's hands would you want to put your life? Therefore, this is how you should live before God, Paul says, and he gives us three commands. Offer your bodies to God as a living sacrifice, stop conforming yourself to this world, receive the transformation of your mind and heart through God's supernatural work within you. These commands are then followed by a promise. If you do these, God promises that you will be able to discern what his good, pleasing, and perfect will is for your life. I love the the way J.B. Phillips translates this section of Scripture. I think he captures Paul's meaning better than any translation I've read to date. He writes, with eyes wide open to the mercies of God, I beg you, my brothers, as an act of intelligent worship, to give him your bodies as a living sacrifice consecrated to him and acceptable by him. Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold, but let God remold your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands, and moves towards the goal of true maturity. So let's look at each of these commands in turn. First, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, wholly pleasing to God, your true and proper worship. Paul uses the very concrete term body here. That is who we are in the flesh, who we are, that takes up space in the space-time continuum, as it were, in the rough and tumble of everyday life, at work, in the house, at school, on the road, going out for coffee with friends, shopping for groceries. Offer your hands and feet, your arms and your legs, your physical presence in this world to God is what Paul commands. How? As a living sacrifice. Of course, they were first killed and then placed on the altar for God. Paul envisions us believers as living sacrifices who are figuratively placed or who place ourselves on the altar for God. Of course, the problem with living sacrifices is that they may crawl off the altar, make the decision to do something else with our lives. Paul acknowledges that this is a choice that every human being has to make for himself or herself, and everyone will. You either will live for your own purposes, your own glory, uh, your own vision of life, or you will offer yourself to God. No one can offer your life for you. Every human being has to make this decision. So Paul says, Settle in your mind and heart that you now, as a follower of Christ, belong wholly to God as a living sacrifice, ready always and immediately to serve him rather than yourself or some other master. And this attitude of sacrifice, Paul says, is holy. That is, it's something that sets you apart from the world, dedicated to God's purposes, and it's pleasing to God. Uh this word, I think, means not just acceptable, but it means something that uh puts a smile on God's lips, as it were. He's pleased with those who fully surrender themselves to him. And lastly, Paul says, it is your true and proper worship. True and proper is a good rendering by the NIV of this Greek word, uh, which doesn't have an easily definable one-word in English. Comes, uh, we get our English word logical from this Greek word, and I think uh that's the idea behind this. Uh, because of who God is and how he has made human beings, and how he has shown us the fullness of his life in Christ, the only logical response of a human being is a response of full surrender to God. It's the only lifestyle, Paul says, that really makes sense, that fits with reality if you know who God is and what he has done for you. So that was command number one. Now, command number two, Paul says, stop conforming yourselves to this world. Because of our sinful natures, we are from infancy geared to love this fallen world which has rebelled against God. We live for our own pleasures, our own self-centered dreams, our own priorities, to use some of the language of our culture. We're captains of our own ships, masters of our own fates. We follow the passions of our own hearts, we dance to the drumbeats of the melodies that please us. We are so easily molded by exterior pressures, and we will naturally conform rather than resist the world. In the late 1980s, a social science experiment was conducted involving hundreds of high school and college students. Ten students at a time were gathered in a room and shown different sets of cards with two sets with two uneven lines on them labeled A and B. It's pretty simple. They were told to vote on which line was longer, to raise their hands, which line was longer. Here are three representative slides. Can you tell which line is longer? You got those? Sounds pretty straightforward. The wrinkle in this experiment was that of those ten students, only one was an actual test subject. The other nine had been told in advance to choose the shorter line. In other words, to lie. So experiments start, as test starts, the actual test subjects, the one of the ten, begin by uh rightly choosing the longer line. But they quickly notice that the others in their group all agreed on the other line being longer. And so soon the test subjects begin to hesitate. Instead of putting their hands up right away, they look around to see what the others in the group choose. And then the vast majority of them raised their hands in agreement with the majority. In the end, a little over three-quarters of the test subjects gave in to the pressure to conform. Even though their eyes could confirm easily which line was truly longer, most people chose to go with the crowd rather than to believe in their own capacity to answer the question correctly. Now, if peer pressure can have that impact on something that is so insignificant, imagine, well, you don't have to imagine, we've experienced it, the kind of pressure that uh conformity to the world uh pushes upon us in our desire to follow Christ. Uh the Apostle Paul calls Christians to be non-conformists when it comes to the priorities and pursuits of the secular world around us. When we give in to secular culture, the worldly culture around us, we import into our souls the values and desires of this the world around us that end up destroying our spiritual lives individually and as a church community. Well, what are some of these worldly values? If Instagram is any indicator of what the world values, let me share with you a recent uh uh search of the top ten individual accounts uh of Instagram with the most following from 10 on down. Justin Bieber, Chloe Kardashian, Beyoncé, Kim Kardashian, Aronde Ariana Grande, Kylie Jenner, Dwayne the Rock, Johnson, uh tied with Kylie, Selena Gomez, Lionel Messi, and Cristiano Ronaldo. Not surprising with the World Cup just completed. So what val what most influences the world's interests and priorities according to Instagram? Well, two professional footballers, four pop singer musicians, one uh world wrestling actor, and three Kardashians. I think they're in a category all of their own. Perhaps these are not the best models to shape our souls for eternity. But this is an illustration of what happens to the human soul when we conform ourselves to the fallen world, attracted by the sights and priorities and pleasures which it promises, all the while sowing the seeds of spiritual emptiness and desolation into our hearts. So Paul says, stop doing that. Stop allowing the world to press you into its mold, determining your values, setting your priorities, and blinding you to its dangers. Instead, we are to follow command number three: receive the transformation of your mind and heart through God's supernatural work within you. Now it seems rather strange to have a command issued in the passive voice. Normally commands are issued in active terms, do this or don't do that. But Paul here is saying, allow this to happen, to be done to you. It's a recognition that we cannot achieve true spirituality by our own efforts. Now, the term mind here represents the faculty of human uh intelligence by which we discern between right and wrong, or good and evil. Because of sin, our natural capacity for rightly discerning these things is messed up. Conforming to the world around us makes things even worse. Renewed minds and hearts transformed are the work of God. We cannot make them happen. But we can place ourselves in the position of actively preparing to receive what God is so willing to bring to life within us. And this brings us back to the idea of offering ourselves to God as a living sacrifice. We surrender our hearts and minds to God's ways by taking time to listen to God in prayer and to soak in his thoughts through systematic reading and meditation upon his words and the scriptures. And Paul's promise to us is that as we devote ourselves to God in surrendering our own ways in order to pursue his, that God will make his will become clear in our lives. I remember many times early in my life as a Christian yearning to know what God's will was for my life and wondering if there's some secret way to get a quick answer from God. Many treat prayer for God's will in their lives like using a magic eight ball. You may have seen these before, some novelty shop, probably nowadays. You ask a question and then you turn the ball over and an answer bubbles to the surface on the underside of this magic eight ball. I didn't know this, but it turns out there are 20 possible answers, uh not an infinite number. Um are yes answers, uh, five are no answers, and five are non-committal answers. So you may remember some outlook good, the asked question, or don't count on it, or my favorite, reply hazy, try again. But this kind of transactional approach to life with God is not the way that God typically works. He's not some cosmic magic eight ball randomly spitting out answers to our questions. He is the God who calls us into a relationship of grace, of mercy, of purpose and meaning. And he invites us to walk with him in this world in his ways into the future that he has fashioned for his redeemed creation. But we can only walk with God in his ways if we come as living sacrifices. When we offer him to ourselves, offer ourselves to him in that way, we enter into the flow of God's will. And then once we have entered that, we discover rather quickly which decisions keep us in that flow, which ones move us out of that current, or even worse, have us trying to swim against the tide. We learn, as living sacrifices, what is in God's eyes good, pleasing, and perfect. That is, what proves beneficial for your life and those around you? What kinds of actions put a smile on God's face, and what actions lead to the ultimate end of God's goal in his plan of salvation, not just for us, but for his whole world. We learn what maturity in Christ looks like. Well, what would a devoted, fully surrendered life to God look like? Deal Moody, who's a great preacher and evangelist of the 19th century, once said, the world has yet to see what God can do with a fully consecrated man. Perhaps he was right, but I would say there have been some shining examples that helped light the way. One of those is a man named William Whiting Borden, who was born into a wealthy Chicago family in 1887. And though he had all the prospects of an easy life ahead of him, Bill became an ardent follower of Christ. Upon graduating from high school, his parents gave him the gift of a trip around the world hoping to broaden his horizons. That trip served to fire his passion to reach the lost, of whom he saw so many. He returned to enroll at Yale University, and there he started a prayer and Bible study ministry with one fellow student. His own devotion to Christ was reflected in a personal journal entry: Say No to Self and Yes to Jesus every time. By the end of his freshman year, because of his own example and leadership, 150 undergraduates were involved in these meetings. By his senior year, a thousand of 1,300 undergraduates at Yale were engaged in these weekly gatherings. But Bill was not interested just in Bible study and prayer and the sharing of the gospel. He was also concerned with the needs of the downtrodden and the poor. While at Yale, he provided from his own wealth to start the Yale Hope Mission and could often be found in the evenings, not in his dorm room, but down in the lower part of the city, bringing people off the streets for a meal, hot meal, or to a safe bed. So impactful was his ministry, not just at Yale, but in the surrounding community, and word spread, that by the time he enrolled the next year at Princeton Seminary to achieve his goal of becoming a missionary, he was invited to serve as a board member of the National Bible Institute in New York, as a director of the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, and then a member of the North American Council of the China Inland Mission. But his heart was not on serving organizations and committees. He wanted to reach the lost where no one had yet preached the gospel. Back during his freshman year at Yale, he had gone to a student volunteer movement conference in Nashville, Tennessee, and there he had heard Samuel Zweimer, by that time an accomplished missionary to the Muslim world, preach a message in which he had said that there were over 15 million Muslims in China to whom no missionary had ever been sent. Bill Borden resolved that he would give his life and resources to reach the Hueye Muslims in the Gansu province of Northwest China. In December 1912, a few months after he had graduated from Princeton, he sailed off to Cairo, Egypt, where Samuel Zweimer was to study Islam and Arabic from Zweimer himself. But unfortunately, in less than four months there, he contracted spinal meningitis and died. And his legacy continues. Between the monies he gave to various causes while in college and seminary and the fortune that he bequeathed in death to the China Inland Mission, it's estimated that in today's dollars, he contributed over $235 million to spread the love of Jesus to the world. A living sacrifice. What a statement. Whether short or long, that's what a life devoted to Christ looks like, in my opinion. You don't have to be a millionaire. Most of us aren't. You don't have to go to China. Most of us won't. All you need is where you are today to offer your body, who you are, as a living sacrifice, where you live, in the midst of the people who surround you, in the midst of the opportunities that God has given you. Take my life, Lord. I hold nothing back. Let me serve you as you desire, whatever that entails. If you're willing to do that, if you make that kind of a commitment to God, then hang on. Because Jesus will take you. Where others reflecting on your life will later say of you, apart from Christ, there is no explanation for such a life. And imagine if a church of three thousand deployed such devoted followers of Jesus into our city. What kind of impact would that make? Wouldn't it be a great, wonderful testimony to hear residents of Colorado Springs say, apart from Christ, there is no explanation for such a church. May we as individuals become living sacrifices devoted to Jesus. May we as a congregation live in such a way that the world has no explanation for us apart from Christ alive in us. What a transformation that God would accomplish through us living sacrifices, non-conformists devoted to Jesus. May it be so. Would you pray with me? Lord, what a tribute. If others were to say of us apart from you, there's no explanation for our lives. May we be so moved by all of your mercies that we yearn to place ourselves in your hands to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice to you. Oh Lord, let us not live futile lives conforming to the world, but let us open ourselves, help us open ourselves to be transformed by your spirit, by renewed minds and hearts, that we may indeed live out your will for our lives, and for this world that you love so much. We pray, Father, in Jesus' name.

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Amen. Hearing God's word is just the beginning. What connected with you? What challenged you today? Maybe it's surrendering something, stepping into community, or simply trusting Him more deeply. Whatever it is, don't leave it for later. Act on it today. We're praying that this message moves you closer to Jesus. And we'd love to walk with you in that journey and answer any questions you've got. Connect with us by visiting firstprintscos.org. Hey, if today's message encouraged you, take a moment and subscribe so you never miss an episode and share it with someone who needs to hear it. Check in next week and we'll continue to grow in our faith together. See you next time.