Well, we have learned that Romans divides into two sections. Chapters 1 to 11 is all about doctrine. Chapter 12 onward is the practical application. And I think you learn from this the vital importance of application. You know the difference between a lecture and a sermon. A lecturer gives you a whole bunch of truths or facts and just leaves them hanging. Do what you like with them. That's the lecturer. The preacher is called not to abandon truth, but to take that truth and persuade men and women to do the will of God. And that's exactly the pattern we see here in Romans 11, 1 to 11, and then into chapter 12, where Paul, in this passage, he says, now, if you understand what Christ has done for you, if you understand that you are no longer being saved by your works, your self-performance, that it is Christ's death His propitiatory sacrifice, His blood-shedding on that cross that makes you a child of God and will guarantee your entrance into heaven, no more condemnation, and that you have all the mercies of God flowing into your life because of Calvary and the bleeding, dying of Christ, the Son of God. If that has gripped your heart, if that's what motivates you as a Christian, then Paul says, I beseech you by the mercies of God. lay your life as a living sacrifice upon the altar of service. You can no longer serve self. You must now consecrate your life as a living sacrifice to God. Now, I have endeavored, with all the help that I can find, by prayer, by study, by my own earnest seeking, how do we define, how do you come to grip with this figurative language of laying our bodies on an altar as a living sacrifice? And we have come to these three main points that it will require that we have a gospel mind. We must be controlled by our thinking about the crosswork of Christ. That's a gospel mind. We must also be controlled by the Bible. That's a biblical mind. And then, as we go down into verse 3, we learn we also need a humble mind. Now, you'll notice the link-up. This is not a new subject. This is the apostle Paul, in his very typical manner, stating proving and then working it into the lives and hearts of his reader. That's application. And you'll notice how verse 3 begins, For I say... Now, you have to think about the link up here. Very important. These are not just random things that are coming up. They are premised upon the fact that we are motivated by the mercies of God. That we are being renewed, transformed by our biblical minds. And then he comes to, "'For I say through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly. Note, too, that he's saying this to every man. Nobody can opt out. If you believe in the Bible, that this is God's Word, and you're a Christian who wants to follow the Bible, you can't opt out. Every man, everyone who will claim to be a Bible reader, Bible follower, this includes you. The tendency is to sort of opt out because, well, God's not calling me to be a missionary. God's not calling me to do some heroic task. But you will see that this is the general will of God for every Christian. You don't have to apply to men, women, young people, older saints. Every man is included right here. then what is this sober thinking? It's to have a sound and seeing thinking, seeing thinking. Did you know that in the church of Christ, there's madness going on? Absolute insanity. People claiming to follow the Lord and serve the Lord, and you look at where they're going, it is absolute madness. And there are some young people, and they get it into their head that God is calling them to do certain things, and it's crazy. They need a sober mind. Now, the apostle takes a lot of space to expound and apply this thinking in the remainder of this chapter. And it is my absolute conviction, after spending long hours in this chapter, that everything that comes right down to the end of this chapter is the application of having a humble mind. It is the practical outworking, and many of them are exceedingly difficult. They are contrary to the flesh. They're contrary to our human desires. They are things that many of us would rather run away from, but they become the practical outworking of the Christian life as a living sacrifice. Now allow me to take up a few of them. I'm not going to try and expand every detail in this, but let me take up a few of them. And if I pray to be a living sacrifice, that's my prayer. Lord, let me have a surrendered life and live a sacrificial life for God. Then these are the things that I must take note of. The first one here in verse 3, the first thing to notice, that as a living sacrifice with humility, you need to remember that we're all cut to size. Verse 3. Not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. Now, all our gifts and all our talents come from God, but there's no two of us with the same gifts and the same talents. We have all got them in various degrees and measure. Some of them are our weaknesses, and others, they are their strengths. But let us not all think that we have all, all of the time. It's like the man who tried, after successfully going to the well with two buckets, tries to do it with three, and you can just see the problem. He's got these two peels, one on each arm and hand, and he's walking very successfully, and he sees this other bucket. Oh, I could take three. And so he dips it into the well, and he tries to carry three. And this arm is breaking, this arm is unbalanced, and the third bucket becomes the downfall. and how often that happens to a Christian. They begin to think more highly than they ought to think, and they enter into ideas and grandiose notions that end up becoming their downfall. So the first part of being a sober mind, sane thinking, humility is that I'm cut to size, and I ought not to think that I am greater than really God has equipped me. The next thing in verses 4 and 5 to remember in humility is that each Christian is one among many—each Christian is one among many—serving the Lord in the church. For we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office or function. So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and everyone members one of another. Think of the bees that serve the queen in the nest. There may be hundreds and thousands of those bees and they leave the nest and they find the nectar. They come back to feed the queen and serve the queen. And that colony of bees becomes successful because every single bee does its task. They are one among many. And as Christians in the church, we must always be mindful of the many. And we must always work for the good of all. It's not all about me. It's not my way or the highway. It ought to be how may I Dedicate, lay down my life for the service of the Lord's Church, His people, which are many, and make my life a life of service to them." So Paul tells us to climb up on the altar of self-sacrifice. Become a living sacrifice. Set aside your own agenda. Set aside your own preferences. Be willing to give up your own time and opportunities to serve the Lord and His church and His people. Think of the many that built Solomon's temple. Thousands of workers that went into the quarries to cut the stone. Or the lumberjacks that went into the forest to cut the lumber and then to float it and draw it right to the mountaintop of Jerusalem, that it may be built into the temple." Every man had his job, and everyone was serving the Lord to build the temple. And so the question now is, will you give up your own ambitions Will you give up your own self-centered thinking that you might become a member among many to serve the Lord in his church? That's the challenge. And Paul says that's a very big part of becoming a living sacrifice. You know, the world would ask, why would you want to be identified with that church? Those people are odd. Those people are peculiar. Those people are holy. You're really narrowing yourself by being a part of that church fellowship. Well, that's a part of living the life of self-sacrifice. Then moving to verses 6 and 9, you will see that as a living sacrifice with humility, you're to remember we're to use our particular gifts to serve the body of Christ. Paul goes on here to talk about these differing gifts, having then gifts differing. according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith our ministry, let us wait on our ministry, and he that teacheth on teaching." And then verse 8, exhorting, simplicity, ruling with diligence, showing mercy with cheerfulness, and then let love be without dissimulation. So we'll put all of those under the heading of the particular gifts that we should use. And Paul begins to list these differing gifts as they are to be used. And if you remember the parable the Lord taught of the the man who was given ten talents, the man who was given five, and the man who was given one, and the one man. The problem was not that he had just one gift. The problem was that he hid it. That was the problem. It's not that he said, Well, this is so insignificant, why bother? He hid it. If he had invested and used it as the others did, in proportion to as was given him, he would have glorified and honored the Master. Now, whatever gift God has given you, you have no right to bury it, whatever that gift is. Put another way, the church needs every gift that God bestows upon His people. You're not to be on the sidelines. You're not to refuse to use the gifts, the talents, the opportunities that God gives you in His service. It's going to cost. It's going to require time and effort and energy, but it's all part of living as a living sacrifice. See how to be almost easier to be a martyr, to die once and it's all over? We're not called at this point to be martyrs, we're called to be living servants, sacrificial servants of the Lord Jesus. Six weeks ago, when Beulah and I were back in Ulster, we visited a good number of churches. I preached in four or five different services. And on a Sunday morning—the first Sunday in September—Sunday morning, we went to Armagh Free Presbyterian Church. Now, the city of Armagh is sort of the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland. It was the place where Patrick is said to have had his HQ, and the Anglican church has their cathedral there, their own Catholic church has their cathedral. And as you look around the city on these various little hilltops, there are huge churches and spires, and right there, there is the Free Presbyterian Church. Now, Dr. Paisley, he used to boast that the Free Presbyterian site was higher than all the other church sites. I don't know why you could do that easily now with instruments, but he certainly made that claim without any compunction. And so, it is true that as you go up to the church, it is a steep roadway, and then a steep driveway up into the car parking lot, and then it plateaus at the top where the parking area is. Now, as usual, when you're a guest preacher, you're close to the last leaving after the service is over. And so, when Beulah and I were driving out of that parking lot, heading down that steep driveway, we noticed one of the church elders. And he had under his arm a bundle of white communion tablecloths. And they had communion that morning. We sat back and enjoyed that. But here was an aged saint of God doing his little task. I'm not sure if he did it every time. I'm not even sure if he had a wife at home to wash those cloths. but it was evident to us there's someone doing his task. Just a little thing, but he did it and was following, going down that hill, well, with a little bit of difficulty, but he was going to do the task for the Lord. Verse 9, Paul said, without dissimulation, without dissimulation. It means with a genuine love, genuine love. It is the Greek word agape. It is that sacrificial love. It's the love, the same love that took our Savior to the cross. It was the love that he had for his church, his people, when he was willing to suffer in agony and bleed on that cross. I will do it for my people. That was the love that motivated him. And there ought to be at least a drop of that love in the heart of every Christian that wants to serve sacrificially, doing the least of he must, but doing it without dissimulation, without protest, without grumbling. Now, love hurts. It hurts to love. Did you know that? It's true when death comes. But we know it's better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all. And it will hurt to love. And if you really love the Lord and you really want to serve Him, it's going to hurt. You've got to be willing to serve with all your heart. I think what the church needs today is a great dose of reality. Reality. The church is not the sandbox in the playground. The church is the workplace to serve the living Christ. We are workers called to serve. We are to lay down our lives on the altar of service, and that will lead us in doing God's will. Then in verse 10, a living sacrifice with humility. You need to remember that we are to prefer or promote our brethren and sisters. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love. In honor, preferring one another. Literally, it means to lead the way for others. Helping them in their service for the Lord. And that's what it will take. When others are in authority over you or are promoted above you, you will prefer their promotion to your own advancement. Not everyone in the church becomes elders or deacons or Sunday school teachers. These are all offices to serve the people and teach the Word according to God's order. But church problems come when people think of themselves better than the other. Oh, I could do a better job than he does or she does. And they enter into what we can only call a self-appraisal of themselves. Did you know that no Christian can do that? You cannot appraise your own spirituality. What will it lead to? Pride. You cannot say, I am a good enough Christian. You may allow others to say that about you, but you cannot promote yourself. and say, I am a good enough Christian for that task. And so, rather than preferring self, you promote others, and you are willing to become the least. And of course, when others promote you, that's the voice of the church, that's the agreement of God's people. They see those gifts, they see those talents, they see those abilities in you, and they say, we want you to take that task. We want you to stand for that office. They want you to serve Christ in this way. And that now becomes the agreed testimony of the church, that this is right for you. But no man can stand up and protest and say, I must have that job. No one else can do it like me. Oh, how sad that attitude becomes. And so lay your life on the altar, and the Lord promises that if we humble ourselves, He will exalt us. That's God's way. The way up is down, and the way down is when we push ourselves up. And so if you want to be used of God, if you want to be a living servant of the Lord, consecrate yourself. Lay your life on the altar, and in due season the Lord will exalt you. Verse 12, we come to the next one, and that is patient in tribulation. Now this patience is to endure joyfully in the face of trials, and how hard it is, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer." Now, here I ask you, does God really ask His children to do exceedingly hard things? Some people in the prosperity mindset would say, never. God always makes life a cakewalk for His children. Would He ask His own little dear ones to endure pain and agony and trial? What kind of a God would He be if He planned a path of trial for His own children? What father would do that? Well, the answer is yes. Just ask Job. In our youth meeting last Sunday evening, we had a quiz on Job chapter 1, and what a story it is. Job, the most perfect man on the face of the earth, who eschewed evil—and you know what eschew means. It doesn't mean to chew food. It doesn't have anything to do with chewing. It means to shun. Job shunned evil. He had a wonderful testimony. And yet he came in the drama between God and the devil, the man who would demonstrate his loyalty and his love to God right down to his skin and his bones, and demonstrated through hardship that he would not curse God, but rather he said, Bless God, the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Ask Paul, ask the Lord Jesus, God's own Son. And God appointed him to die on the cross. And so Christianity is all about taking up that cross and bearing its shame and its curse in joyful endurance. That's the wonder of this. We don't have a martyr spirit of, oh, pity me. But you're taking up that cross with joy and enduring those difficult things because for whatever mysterious reason in the sovereignty of God, He is calling you to walk that way of suffering for His glory. That is so often the will of God for us, and we've got to do it patiently with joyful endurance. That's why what I said a few weeks ago about the two crosses by A. W. Tozer, the cross that men think is meant for gain versus the cross that brings pain. Which one is it that you came to for salvation? When you came to the cross of Calvary and you bowed at the knee of Jesus, did you look to the One who was in pain? And He called you to take up His cross and suffer for Him. This is what it means to be a living sacrifice. The next one in verse 14, bless them which persecute you. This gets harder all the time. It gets more specific. Christian life is not a cakewalk. It is a way of trial. It is a way of tribulation. And there are enemies and those who persecute. And here is now my response as a living sacrifice to bless them. and curse not." Boy, is this ever a hard one. We know our old nature well enough, don't we? We know the immediate thoughts that come into our mind. I'm going to get my own back on that one. There is within us the immediate instinct of revenge, and the very person that is cursing us, our shimmy-eye. You remember how old shimmy-eye stood on the other side of the river and shouted over to David and cursed him? And David's armor-bearer said, Shall I go over and cut his head off? And David said, No, leave him, leave him. This word here, to bless, it's actually the word for which we get eulogized. So we're to look for the good in our enemies. Instead of looking at all the faults and all the failures and all the wrong, we should look for what's good. Number one, they're a living soul that one day will stand at the judgment and pay the awful price for every sin. Secondly, if they're a professing Christian, they have a testimony that we must care about as much as He. If they're living in bitterness, We've got to pray that God delivers them from that bitterness, because we know that bitterness is like acid that destroys from the inside out. And how often we see people just destroy themselves. So we need to pray instead of persecute. And it was this loving enemies that made Christianity so revolutionary in the first century. That's what made it prosper, because Christians left payment with God. And then you need to accept the reality that as a Christian, you're sent to love your enemies and Christ's enemies, that God may turn them and draw them to the good. One more to go, verse 18, and you'll notice here, if it is possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. It's easier to run from the altar of sacrifice. It's easy to throw off the life of self-surrender, but we're called to be self-sacrifices. And that means that we engage for the good of the body of the church of Christ. We do nothing that will cause strife, and we do everything that will work for peace. And we pray for that unity of the Spirit, that anointing of the Spirit of God. And we have that picture in Psalm 133, where the oil was poured down upon the priest that affected the whole life of his intercession. how you and I need that anointing of the Spirit that we be men and women who work for peace and unity in the church of the Lord Jesus. We think of the great unity that was in the early church because they had the mighty anointing and demonstration of the Spirit. Now, I have run down this chapter very quickly because that's my allotted time today. I cannot take more time. But I do need to ask you, are you willing to be a living sacrifice bearing these things in mind? Are you really willing to lay your life on the altar of service and say, Lord, whatever it costs, whatever the pain, whatever the shame, I'm willing to take up the cross and have you use my life." Now, why in the world would you ever pray like that? Because Christ is worthy. He made himself a sacrifice for us. And the Christian gospel beseeches us by the mercies that flow to us from the cross to become a living sacrifice. There's another reason. Because if you pursue happiness, you will be miserable. That's a given. The man or woman who says, I'm going to be hedonistic and fall after happiness, they never find it. They end up in misery. The only way for a Christian to be happy is to be holy. Come and lay your life down at the feet of the Lord. And of course, without the cross, you'll never see heaven. Maybe there's someone here today and you're not saved, you're not a Christian, you've never come to the cross, and you've said, why should I after all that I've heard today? Because it's the cross that leads to glory. If we suffer with Him, we shall also be glorified together. Romans 8, I pray today that God will make us living sacrifices. I would long to hear you praying that. Would you come to the prayer meetings of our church and pray in this manner? Come with your Bible open at Romans 12 and say, Lord, I'm asking that you make me a living sacrifice. And do it as an encouragement, an example to your brothers and sisters. And let this church be filled with men and women who are praying that they so live and so serve as living sacrifices for the Lord Jesus. Final argument, it's your reasonable service. It's your reasonable service. There's not a reason in the world why you shouldn't If your soul has been saved and you're going to heaven, it's your reasonable service. May the Lord help us and make it so.