would remember. It's been a long day for many of us, for all of us, perhaps. So, I thought we could begin with a testimony in song. We went all the way up to Nami, so I thought, you know, anywhere with Jesus I can safely go. So, hymn number 497, we'll sing all three verses. Anywhere with Jesus I can safely go. Anywhere he leads me in the world, this world below, anywhere without him yours joys will fade. Anywhere with Jesus, I am not afraid. Please sing out. I'm not sure I can sing out much today, but we'll do our best. One, two, three. Anywhere with Jesus I can safely go. Anywhere He leads me in this world below. Anywhere without Him, dearest George, would pay. Anywhere with Jesus I am not afraid. Anywhere, anywhere, here I cannot go. Anywhere with Jesus I can safely go. We're on hymn number 497 as we get ready for the second. I think on the third verse we might have it. Yeah, so. 497. 497. Anywhere but Jesus, I can safely go. Anywhere but Jesus, I am not alone. All together. Anywhere but Jesus, I am not alone. Other ways of healing is still my own. I hope you simply leave me alone. Anywhere I may go, here I cannot go, Anywhere but Jesus I can see. Anywhere but Jesus I can see. Tell them, children, that the Son shall set his child free, that he is the Son who came to build the Lord's kingdom, that he is the Son who came to build the Lord's kingdom, that he is the Son who came to build the Lord's kingdom, that he is the Son who came to build the Lord's kingdom, that he is the Son who came to build the Lord's kingdom, that he is the Son who came to build the Lord's kingdom, that he is the Son who came to build the Lord's kingdom, that he is the Son who came to build the Lord's kingdom, that he is the Son who came to build the Lord's kingdom, that he is the Son who came to build the Lord's kingdom, that he is the Son who came to build the Lord's kingdom, that he is the Son who came to build the Lord's kingdom, that he is the Son who came to build the Lord's kingdom, that he is the Son who came to build the Lord's kingdom, that he is the Son who came to build the Lord's Amen. Good singing. I wasn't quite sure we would have that kind of enthusiasm with the tiredness of the morning tonight. But we've been over land and sea today. God has kept us safe all the way, and for this we give Him thanks. As we get ready to look at the scriptures this evening, I do want to remind you that this Sunday, we will have a business meeting. We will, of course, for the first Sunday in November, we will have the board's table. We're looking forward to Brother Nob sharing in the Adult Sunday School. So please, please be present. Be praying for Brother Nob and see that's happening. Well, we are in Romans, and so I'm going to ask John to take care of the lights there so we can see the screen. But we will be reading Romans 11, 36 all the way to Romans 12, verse 11. So Romans 11, 36 to 12, 11. Here in verse 36, the last verse says, speaking of God for of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever amen We continue in chapter 12 Romans 12 verse 1 I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God they present your bodies of living sacrifice and holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. 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, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we be many. are one body in Christ, and everyone members one of another. Having the gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith, or ministry, let us wait on our ministry, or even teach it on teaching. 8. Or he that exhorteth on exhortation, he that giveth let him do it with simplicity, he that ruleth with diligence, he that sheweth mercy with cheerfulness. Let love be without dissimilation. Abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love, in honor preferring one another, not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. Amen. Let's seek the Lord's assistance as we look at his word this evening. Our Father in heaven, we rejoice that we serve a God who has spoken. He has given us his inerrant word. Your Holy Spirit inspire holy men of old filling them with the Spirit, preserving them from error, giving us a Word which will endure until time passes away. Father, as we see your Word, and we see this evening, that you have a design, a purpose, a plan for us. Lord, that you desire for us to be dedicated, transformed, consecrated, committed to yourself, to your service, to the place that you have put us in your body as your members, the body of Christ. Lord God, give us, equip us to serve you with joy, to serve you with diligence, to serve you knowledgeably as those who recognize our part, others' part, and ultimately your part in powering and equipping it all to happen. Oh Lord, use these few moments together to encourage us, to strengthen us, to help us. And father as we do so we will give you all the praise that you are indeed glorified That you are as we saw this evening that All things are of you through you and to you To whom be glory but now and forever we pray in Jesus name with Thanksgiving All right, so we have now entered fully into Romans 12. We spent a good deal of time in Romans 9 through 11, and we saw that God's plan boggles our minds. That is, God is keeping his promises, doing his work according to his perfect plan, sovereignly working. He is glorifying himself, He is keeping His Word. He is ensuring that it is all going to come together to the end that He has designed it for. Whether the end of Israel, the restoration there, the judgment of unbelievers, those of us who are the wild trees, the wild olive trees, the first fruits, all of these things God is working. All of these things, truly, if we try to understand them completely, blow our minds. We don't really understand everything God is doing. We don't even understand what God is doing in our own lives a good deal of the time. And sometimes that leaves us a little bit frustrated, a little bit scared, perhaps a lot anxious. But what we see here in this passage is that God is at work. God has a plan for you and for me. God has a design for each one of us. And of course his design is that we as his children, as his body, should be dedicated, should be consecrated, should be set aside for his purposes. So as you look at these first three verses here in Romans 12, what do we see? We see one of these favorite songs from the 1950s, right? In the 1950s, I think it was, a song came out with the lyrics, it took him just a week to make the sun and the moon and the earth and Jupiter and Mars. How loving and patient he must be, because he's still working on me. What we see in these first verses I know it's kind of a tritangle, but we see God is patient toward us. When we fall, when we fail, when we are not as consecrated, when we are not as diligent, when we are not what we should be, the Lord is still working. He's still patient. And so we see here in Romans 12, what did we see? that it is our reasonable service, it says there in Romans 12, 1, to present our bodies as a living sacrifice wholly acceptable to God. And this is going to be a long-term project. It's not one and done. This is something that is going to take the rest of your life. Until you see Jesus, you need to be conforming yourself. You need to be becoming more and more like Jesus as you put on the mind of Christ. And so this is a transformation process. It is a metamorphosis, a caterpillar. The pupa doesn't stay the pupa. The caterpillar doesn't stay the caterpillar. There's some time, there's development before it comes out, that beautiful butterfly. And the same thing is true of you and I. There's a work of transformation, verse 2 tells us. that we need the renewal, we need the transformation, be transformed by the renewing, the cleansing, the informing, the work of the Holy Spirit. So what we see here is God has a design, God has a plan for you to be dedicated, to be consecrated, to be set aside, to be holy. That's his design. That's his plan. That's the master plan. That's the architectural blueprints. This is what God is building into your life with troubles and trials and things that drive you to your knees. And the blessings that make you give thanks. All of these things. are ultimately, as we saw in verse 36, to glorify Him. You are made as a God-glorifying human being. When you were born again, you were designed to glorify Him as a child of God, to reflect name upon the name of God as a child of God. You bear the name Christ, for you are a Christian. And so as you live your life, responding to difficult people, responding to difficult situations in a way that God wants you to, with humility and patience and wisdom and love and kindness, God is seen in his children, because we are the body of Christ. And so what we see is that God has designed He's got tools, he's got a method, he's got a way to actually transform you from what you are now. Where you are now, what you are today, is not what you were 10 years ago or 20 years ago. Hopefully you are much more Christ-like than you were yesterday. Now, sometimes that growth is a lot slower than that. We don't go by leaps and bounds every day. And sometimes it seems like we're not making any progress because we'll take one step forward and fall and it seems like we're going two steps back for every step forward that we make. That's reality. At least that's what my experience. Right? But God still has this master plan. God is still working And even when we stray, when we backslide, when we fall, God brings us back to Himself. God glorifies Himself in lifting us from the miry pit, in bringing us to Himself, in conforming us to the image of Christ, so that we don't stay stuck. So we don't stay depressed or downtrodden or defeated by Satan or self. God has a way to transform us, to make us like himself. And so all of us have need of this transformation. And you see that transformation described there in verse 2. This is the renewing of our minds. How are our minds renewed? You've got to put things in there. A blank slate doesn't get better. Right? You are not a tabula rasa. You are not a blank slate. Just ignoring everything, that's not going to help. You need to put in your mind the word of God. Meditate on the scriptures. Read the scriptures. Think upon them. Learn them. Live them. Thy word have I given in my heart that I might not sin against God. Right? This is the agent of cleansing. This is the agent of transformation. This is the milk that nourishes us, that builds our muscles, that builds our bones. This is the meat that we chew on to give us the wisdom of God. And so the Spirit of God has given us the Word of God to train us, to teach us, to inform us. But there's not only that. The Holy Spirit himself is using his word. The Holy Spirit is explaining these things to us, illumining our eyes, giving us understanding, saying in our ears, this is the way. Walk ye in it. And so this transformation process is continual as we continue in the word of God, as we heed the Holy Spirit's promptings. and we are being washed, we are being transformed, and so that means we don't leave anything unexamined, unwashed, untouched by God. It's not like, you know, I'm giving, you know, my head and shoulders to Jesus, but, you know, my hands, I do whatever. We don't set apart stuff for ourselves or set apart things for our own use. We are vessels of God. We belong wholly, entirely, completely to Him. If anything does not belong to Him that is yours. It is an idol. It is something that you have stolen from God. Because you are His. He has redeemed you. He has bought you. He has made you. How dare you keep anything from Him? But we find ourselves doing that, don't we? It might be our time that we reserve. It might be bad habits. We say, this is mine. This is my way. There may be things that we, idols that we refuse to give up. But what, nothing should be left. that is apart from Him. So notice that we are a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God. That's verse 1. Every part of us, our bodies, our minds, our souls, it's all His. There's nothing that should not belong to Him. It's all His. All for Jesus. All for Jesus. It's easy to sing it, it's a little bit harder to do. Not only does everything belong to God, not only is everything set aside for Him, for His service, but we must, by God's grace, be so careful if you and I, if our bodies are vessels of the living God, if we are consecrated to Him, That means we must be careful not to defile these bodies. Why? Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you. And those who destroy the temple of God will be destroyed. Now that doesn't mean you have to go crazy with physical fitness and other things, but it does mean your body is a temple. Take care of it. And I'm preaching to myself here. Alright? That means that we don't give ourselves to drunkenness or to slothfulness, we'll come to that soon, or our bodies at the temple. So nothing should be allowed to desecrate it. Where do I get this? In verse Notice that we are to be holy, that you may prove what is good and acceptable and perfect. So we, therefore, are living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God. That's where we're getting at. All right, so this is God's design for you to be dedicated, set apart for God. You are His body and soul. And then as we come on to the following verses, that doesn't mean you have to do everything. Because Brother Nam has talents and abilities and experience, I haven't. As a military man, with Korea, there are many things Brother Nam can do, I cannot. And that's true of each and every one of us. And so what we see in verses 3 through 8, is that not only does God have a design for your dedication, but he also has a design for your duty. You are equipped. You have what God means for you to have. The way that Paul puts it is you are a member of God's body. Some of us might be the mouthpiece. to prophesy, exhort, and this kind of thing. Others of us might simply have the gift of service. We put our hands here, we clean the toilets, and that is a wonderful gift. Without plumbing, we would be in trouble, right? It doesn't matter what God has, what God has gifted you, enabled you to do. That is your job description. That is your equipping. And so notice here, if you are spectacularly gifted, and some of you are, don't think more highly than you are, verse three. But verse three ends, think soberly. as God has dealt with you. So you've been dealt a certain hand. You've been given certain gifts. And so if you have these gifts, don't neglect them. Remember the parable that Jesus gave about burying the talent in the ground? How the master was not pleased with the burier, the person who put that thing in the ground and did nothing. The one that he was happy with was the one he might not have had as much to, but he put it to work. If you've got one or two talents, use those one or two talents for his full heart. If you've got billions of talents, and some of you it seems like hundreds, or whatever you have, utilize. Put it to work. So, this does require some discernment. you to be able to look in the mirror or to look around and say, oh, that person's able to sing well. I think she should be in choir. Oh, that person plays the piano. Maybe Pastor Bright should be playing the piano. Right? So if we have gifts, we use the gifts we have. And if we don't have gifts, maybe that's not something we should be looking to try to do. I mean, if you're not gifted and you try to do it anyway, that might be good, but you're going to be miserable. And you may not be that successful. I think I've told you this story before. I used to volunteer in my Indian program. We went out every Sunday to minister at Welcome Baptist Church there in central South Carolina. We would do the Sunday school. One of us, there were two of us, one would do Sunday school, the other would lead singing. And so one week I would do one, and then the next week I'd do another. And one week, I said, you know, I have a song I want to sing. Let's sing, May the Lord Find Us Faithful. And so I got up, and they played the piano, and I sang. I was blessed. But, you know, the pastor, kindly, you know, shaking hands afterwards, said, Brother, thank you for singing. Very, very kind. I said, you know, you don't have to do that. That was not the best ministry for me Okay, and that that was a fair comment So discern how God has equipped you or equipped you to serve him by serving his people Is this be sober here think soberly? I Don't have an inflated view of yourself, the first part of the verse says. Don't think more highly than you ought. You know, none of us are okay. But recognize how God has dealt with you. What God has given you. And God has given you something. That's a part of being a member. Discern not only your own role, but try to discern what God has done in the Bible. And so, I mean, Mrs. Atlee is great with food and with kids. I mean, the Atlees help with the children's church. And so, Brother Atlee is a veteran of Gulfside Baseball. And so, we see these kinds of things, these talents and abilities, and when we see those and discern those, we put them to work and know where to go for help. I know that to repair something, generally, it's not the best idea to try to do it myself. Why? Because, you know, I'm a reader, I know how to fix it. I try. You know, I can change a label. So discern where you go for help. You know, I've got two sons, and if I want some good food, I'll go to one, and if I want some piano to play, I might go to the other, right? Not to be too personal. But discern the role, notice especially, what does God have for you? You see what how you can get help from others if you see someone who is wise and able to apply the scriptures. You might go to them for counsel or for advice. And so look at some of the ways that God has equipped different members. We see seven different things listed here. What kinds of things does he do? What kinds of gifts might you have among these seven? These are not exhaustive, but they're beginning in verse six there. Having notice gifts differing Not everyone has all of these That some of you may have a different one things on this list. All right. This is not exhausting Differing gifts according to the grace, right? It's all of you the Holy Spirit's and what it is. And what do we see? We've got things like prophecy or you're able to proclaim God's what? word with power and unctions We do that by date, according to the proportion of faith there in verse 6. Ministry or service. That's, some of you just have hands that are so good, you can do almost anything. You know, if a podium breaks, you know where to go, right? Or teach it on teaching. There are some people that are well-equipped that way here at Seoul Latin Church. Exhortation. Do this. There are some great X orders here. I've got all of them in there. All right, exhortation. Giving. You've got a big wallet. Or maybe you're able to give in such a way that you see means that others don't. It might be giving your time. It might be giving in such a way, tactful way, that you don't hurt the person you give to. There is a special way of giving. Giving, simplicity, you know, not with trumpets or, you know, simply with humility. Ruling with diligence. So administration is, again, ruling. diligently, showing mercy. You know, some of us are more, thus saith the Lord, righteousness, justice, you know, others are more merciful. Mercy, showing mercy with cheerfulness. All right, so God has designed you to be dedicated to His service, to be consecrated, to be holy, He has equipped you with certain talents and certain gifts. Wonderful. Now, well there's a sphere to do this in. There are, what we see is that God has designed for you to delight in dedication. For you to delight in the use of your gifts. And the way that you most often employ the gifts God has given you is God has given gifts to edify the church, to build up the church. That's where probably 99% of the gifts go. Some are evangelism and some are those other things. So God expects dedication. He expects discernment. Remember, we just said know what your gifts are. Recognize others' gifts. If you know what you should be doing or what you have the ability to do, do it. But do it with a heart that is full of love for God and for your neighbor. And so we pick up at verses 9 through 11. In verse 9, it says, let love be without dissimilation. What are we talking about? It's not talking. No. It's genuine love. It's the real deal. It's not mouth service, hypocrisy, or mixing it with mixed motives. This is genuine, real deal, First Corinthians 13 kind of love. All right? Let it be without dissimilation. And so what does that mean? It means that For people, you abhor what's evil. Anything that would hurt someone. If someone you love is doing evil, you abhor that, and you seek to exhort, perhaps, if you've got that gift, to mend their ways. To repent. And so, you abhor what's evil, you cleave to that which... What are we saying here? Our service to God will be a delight. Something we love to do. Why? Because we love God. Because we love those we are serving as we serve God. So it's a delight. And so it says, let love be without this. We're going to be loving God. We will be loving his children, genuinely, sincerely. And as we genuinely, sincerely love, what else did I think? We delight in the one we love and we delight to love. Does that make sense? It is love takes delight in the object of the love, right? You love your spouse, you love your kids, your grandkids. But love not only delights in that person, but there is a joy and a delight in the act of love itself, right? And so as you love, you will delight to love God and to love one another. And so what we see is love for God and his children, of course it's got to be real. It's not just hypocrisy or talking love. And it's going to show itself because love is a verb. It's an action. It's a choice. And so it's going to express itself in good deeds. And so you see that love kind of fleshed out and cleaving to what is good. So you want what is good for the person you love. You want their success, their spiritual success, their physical health. You delight in the good in others that God is doing in them and glorifying himself in them. You delight in good things. And so it says, verse 10, Kindly, affection to one another with brotherly love. See, it's all about love here in this section. As it hates evil, we're going to express kindness and brotherly love. Not the brotherly love that whacks one another in the head with a little bit of it. But the brotherly love that, well, you know, that expresses kindness and stopping bad actions. But the brotherly love that when anyone else attacks, when anyone else slanders, who's the first to stand up? It's a brother. Who will defend the reputation, who will stand in against the bully, be kindly affectionate toward another brotherly love first. And so what is it? What would you, in honor, prefer in one another? Right? Me first? You first. Go ahead. You can go first. You can have first place. You can have that slice of bread in your mouth. Verse 11. Not slothful business, because love is hard work. Loving those Christians there in the church. If you just stand by, things fall apart. Love takes work. You can't be lazy and love what? An untended relationship is a relationship that is on the rocks. Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving. So serving God, serving others will be done acceptably. Notice it says, we said earlier that we were doing this acceptably. Diligent, not slothful. That's right. Lord, in such a passage, It's easy to read through this very quickly. It's a lot more to think this out. Lord, you know that we fall short. There were those that were commended for first giving themselves to you, then giving themselves to others. And sometimes we miss that first step. We get focused on business, we get focused on other things, and so we lose out. We achieve things without that. But Father, when we put you first, when you are our all in all, When we serve you as a living sacrifice, where our lives are basically offerings that come as a fragrant offering to your nostrils, Lord, we're able to use the talents and gifts that you have given us in such a way that others are blessed. that others are encouraged, that others are built up, that others are strengthened. As we give ourselves to the ministry and give ourselves to you, Floyd, you are able to say, well done. And through you, in you, your people, who are fond of you, we thank you for the privilege of being your children. We pray that you would help us, as equipped children of God, to go forth to bring credit to our Father's name. We pray in Jesus' name, we thank you. Amen.