Turn in your Bibles to the Old Testament, to 1 Samuel, chapter 12. 1 Samuel, chapter 12. And we will read today from verse 16 to verse 22. 1 Samuel, chapter 12, beginning at verse 16 through verse 22. Congregation, this is God's word. Now therefore stand and see this great thing which the Lord will do before your eyes. Is today not the wheat harvest? I will call to the Lord, and he will send thunder and rain, that you may perceive and see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in the sight of the Lord, in asking a king for yourselves.' So Samuel called to the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day. And all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. And all the people said to Samuel, pray for your servants, to the Lord your God, that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins the evil of asking a king for ourselves. And Samuel said to the people, do not fear, you have done all this wickedness, yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. Do not turn aside, for then you would go after empty things which cannot profit or deliver, for they are nothing. For the Lord will not forsake his people for his great namesake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you his people. And we end the reading there, verse 22, God's holy, infallible, and inerrant word. And now turn again to the book of Romans chapter 12. And we will again read verses one and two, likewise God's word. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Again, this is God's word, if you've heard and received it then, as his word, confess with me by saying, amen. We do come, our heavenly Father, and we thank you for the word preserved for us, given to us, so that in your eternal purposes and decrees, your providence, that it is preserved for us for this day, at this time, and in this place. We thank you that we have this sure word and ask that you would teach us by it and that your Holy Spirit would keep us from error. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, dear ones, I learned in seminary that one of the dangers in preaching, and it can be an easy one to fall into, is that you just talk about yourself and your own experiences. I was also warned against using your family as illustrations. That's a very dangerous thing to do, although I could, boy, could I tell you. But I want to say at this point that there's a reason why we're lingering here at these two verses particularly, because I do think that they are so important for the whole body, this whole testimony of the Book of Romans. And to be honest, because of a specific sort of personal relation to these verses and other similar verses in the scriptures. That is, in case you don't know, when I was in college, as a freshman, I went to a Bible college. And what I found there at that Bible college was that there was an awful lot of unchristian thought, a lot of unchristian behavior. There's a reason why, for example, it was called a bridal college. It was not the most healthy spiritual environment. And I saw in my own experience that in one particular case, my closest friend, it essentially was the catalyst for him to abandon the faith, and he's never returned. For me, it had, in God's good grace, the opposite effect. That is all the things that I saw and that I heard and that it caused me in this point of spiritual crisis to start asking myself really hard questions. What does the faith mean? What does it mean to me in the right sense of asking that question? Am I just going through the motions? Do I really believe? What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to live? Is this just to be an emotional exercise? Is it just an intellectual exercise? What is the faith? Well, I wasn't really finding the answers to those questions, certainly not at the institution where I was supposed to be studying. But there were things that I did read, that I did encounter, that really did inform my understanding of what it really means to be a Christian. And what it means to be a Christian, living as a Christian, are reflected in these verses. I'm going to sort of violate another rule of preaching, they're unwritten rules, but violate another rule in a few minutes and I'll let you know when it's coming, but I hope that you will be edified by it. And you'll note that in the sermon last Lord's Day that we really dealt with only three words here and we're really only dealing with three more concepts here reflected in the latter half of verse one. And the first here has to do with this concept of sacrifice, and particularly in three ways, because the command here, we would say, and I'll explain more about that in a moment, is that you present your bodies a living sacrifice. Now, if you were listening last Thursday, you'll note that I said that that language is very important. Because the way that it is written here and translated for us accurately is that it is not that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice. There's a difference. Present your bodies a living sacrifice, not as though it were a sacrifice. It's a much more significant thing. You are, in this sense, the sacrifice. Your life is the sacrifice. But before we get to that in more detail, it is that you present your bodies. Now, again, I noted last Lord's Day that it was the plural and it's still the plural here, that is, Oddly, we might think, because we tend to personalize it and the plural pronouns don't appear so much in especially modern English, but the idea here is also he is speaking to the Church. There's this apostolic admonition, there's this apostolic expectation, we can say, of the Church of Jesus Christ as a whole. Now, the church is made up of people like you and me, but he's talking about something that is a universal principle. That's the point I want to get across to you here. And not only is it not just for this person over here, that person over here, where we would fall into perhaps a medieval mindset to say, well, those who are off on the mountaintop in the monastery, they've given up all their earthly goods and they spend their time in prayer and in other activities in the monastery, those are the ones who are really sacrificing. Those are the ones who are living a life, a sacrificial life. That's not what the apostle is saying here, explicitly so. This is an expectation on you as a Christian. It's an admonition to you as a Christian. And not only that, but to reinforce that point, it's active, it's purposeful. You see, he's not saying that you have to find someone else to do it to you, this is active on your part. Present your bodies. You do it. You do it. Now we might recoil at that a little bit and think of, oh, God is sovereign, those kinds of, yes, that is all true. And there's also your responsibility. When you believe, you are believing. When you obey, you are obeying. And that does not deny the Holy Spirit's empowering, that does not deny God's providential care for all things, that does not deny God's sovereignty over all things, but you are to act. Indeed, that's, we might say, the theme here in chapter 12 and beyond, an active, purposeful action on your part. And it's not that you just do something, but that you do something very specific, that you present your body a living sacrifice. Now, something that does not appear so much here, and it's very powerful in the original, is that this is, you know, pardon me, if you're grammar geek, you'll love this, it's an infinitive. And the infinitive is that you, that the idea is that you are supposed to do this. that you present your bodies to this, to this action. And it gives it a sense of, and it's linked to the exhortation grammatically. That is, there's this continual plea, this continual exhortation that you do this as a continual action. It's not just, well, after I was converted for that first month or so, I really just threw myself into this Christian life and so, and that's it. I'm all done now. I did it once. No, it's a continual thing. So it is active that you present your bodies as, I almost fell into it, didn't I? You present your bodies a living sacrifice. It's easy to do that. Now, this is also very important here because elsewhere in the scriptures and even in the book of Romans here, we find the apostle speaking about the flesh. We find, for example, in Galatians, talking about those actions of the flesh, those fleshy things, those things that are contrary to the Spirit of God. Well, that's a particular word. This is a different word here, again, in the original. It's not talking about the flesh in that sense. It's talking about your body as an entire thing, as a whole. And in a particular way, that is, it's not here a sense of a moral reformation, we might say, which, of course, that's part of your conversion, that's part of the Holy Spirit's empowering, that we have a different view of the world than ourselves, that's all true. But here the focus is different, it's talking about your entire being. Everything that makes you, you. So this is not unusual, especially with the Apostle Paul, who in 1 Corinthians 6 and verses 19 and 20 says, or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you? That's that same word. Whom you have from God. Ah, and then what else does he say? You may have this memorized, right? And you are not your own. For you were bought at a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's." It's the same doctrine, the same teaching in a different context. You're indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and he says that your life ought to reflect that indwelling of the Holy Spirit in all of your being. Yes, in your physical body, but also in your mind. For example, which is where he goes in the next verse, isn't it? Back in Romans 12. So if you belong to God, if your body, if your entire being is the temple of the Holy Spirit, well, what does that mean? Well, from the apostle, in spite of the Holy Spirit, from his perspective, you're not your own. You do the will of another. You set yourself to sacrificing your own desires, as it were, upon this service of God. And that leads us to that term, service, which we'll get to at the end. the imperative given to us as an exhortation, as the apostle comes alongside us, as I noted last Lord's Day, comes alongside and puts his arm around us in a spiritual sense. And he says, here, this is what you ought to do that is a living sacrifice. Now, there are a couple of things that ought to jump out to us here. And the first is that sacrifices of the Old Covenant, with very few exceptions, were slain. That's the nature of a sacrifice. If it's not slain, then it is out of your possession then. You might even say that, and especially in the later economy of the Old Testament, that sometimes you could use money in the place of an animal sacrifice, and that was an acceptable thing. That is, you could redeem the sacrifice with gold, for example, and rather pay the money, the cost of the sacrifice. That was a possibility. But something was lost. That's the nature of the sacrifice. But the sacrifice that you're exhorted to bring, that you're, in a very gentle way, commanded to bring, is not slain. It's not lost. it remains alive or by figure remains in your possession. And that's because the Lamb of God was slain for you. And that's because the Lamb of God who was slain for you fulfilled the shadow of the law. The significance of the shadow of the law and the bloody sacrifices and the blood, if Israel was sacrificing as it should, the blood would be flowing constantly But all of that blood, all of the slain beasts, all those things point to what? They point to Jesus Christ. They point to your sin and your need for a savior. It's all fulfilled. The shadow of all those things is fulfilled in Christ. But the sacrifice that you bring, even though it is fulfilled and the shadows are fulfilled in Christ, and even though it is a living sacrifice, it is, in fact, a sacrifice. It is the nature of sacrifices that the sacrifice costs something for the shepherd, for the farmer, even for the businessman who still had to bring the sacrifices, and sometimes would have to purchase the animals for sacrifice in order to bring the necessary sacrifice. All of those things point to us to the truth that it costs something. It costs the one who brings it, sometimes a significant personal cost. Now, we have to deal with this. It's very easy for us to simply rest, and the rest is good, but never look at the next thing. We take our rest in Christ, and then what? We rejoice in the grace of God, but then what? And rightly so, but then what? Well, the apostle says, because of the mercies of God, you present your bodies a living sacrifice. Now I mentioned at the very beginning that as a college student, young, immature, spiritually and otherwise, college student, I struggled mightily, mightily. I said, there has to be something more. There has to be something more. And then I read something. And this is where I'm violating the rule, just to let you know. I'm not even sure where I found this, not even sure how it came into my possession. I don't even remember that. You may recognize it, but I want to just read just a short little bit here. Cheek Grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance. Baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship. Grace without the cross. Grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. Costly grace is a treasure hidden in the field. For the sake of it, a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble. It is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow. And it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it costs God the life of his Son. You were bought at a price. And what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon His Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered Him up for us. Costly grace is the incarnation of God. Now, there's much more that was written. In case you didn't recognize that or some of those words, most people don't read the whole, that whole portion that was written, interestingly, by a Lutheran. Not only a Lutheran, a martyr for the faith. in my judgment, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Now, there's a lot that I disagree with Bonhoeffer about. His Christology was kind of a mess, and his ecclesiology was kind of a mess, and yet he wrote those words. Now, if you know anything about Bonhoeffer, you know that he died, he was executed, and that's not really the point of the story, other than the fact whatever theological problems he had, he nailed it. He nailed it. And if you know about his life, and there are a lot of good biographies about him, you know what it meant for him. And he was asking a lot of the same questions that I was asking, is this all there is? Because what he saw and what his experience was, was a shallow, impotent faith. And so in reading that, it was one of the ways in which the Lord sort of made the light go on for me. And so, in case you ever wondered here, again, if I might be permitted here to speak a little more personally here, that's why I add, for example, at the end of my emails and other correspondence, all for him, because of what I just read. So, when it talks about sacrifice, when I talk about cost, I'm not talking about it in the ordinary way. I'm talking about it in sacrifice of what your will is in place of the will of God. I'm talking about sacrificing for the sake of following Christ. And when Jesus called his disciples to himself, he said, come, follow me. And they left the nets, or they left the tollbooth, and they followed him. And it was a life of hardship. It was a life of death. It was a life of also joy and fulfillment because they had actually given up all to follow him. So when we read about the substance of the sacrifice, this is the kind of substance, I think the scriptures are talking about, it's the kind of substance that I would intend for you to understand. But that's not all, is it? that we're told to present our bodies, our entire being, as living sacrifices, but there are conditions. That is, holy, acceptable to God, for example. Now again, this term that a lot of times we hear the word holy, and even if we don't mean to, we might have sort of a weird idea what holiness means, but the holiness of the sacrifice is not that sort of soft-focus holiness of popular culture. It's a holiness which is a set-apartness, if I could perhaps construct a word there, of the sacrifice. It's set apart. It's not common. It's not worldly. There are many animals in this world who will be slain today, and they'll be slain for ordinary reasons, so that you might enjoy steak dinner sometime this week. That's the way of the world. That's the way of this fallen world, particularly. And it is neither good nor bad in the sense that we might think. But the idea of a set-apart sacrifice, the slain sacrifice under the old covenant, was not ordinary. It could not be ordinary. It had to be perfect. It had to not have a blemish. And in particular, as I made the point about the freewill offering, while there might be not quite perfect for the freewill offering, still, there were conditions upon that. It could not have died in a certain way, for example. You couldn't take, as we might say in our own terminology, roadkill for your freewill offering. but it is set apart, it's not the ordinary slaying, it's not the ordinary part of life, it is a different thing, it's a different category of thing. And so when he's speaking here of a holy sacrifice, It is, as example, what he is referring to in Colossians 2, verses 20-23, where we read, therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations? Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle. which all concern things which perish in the using, according to the commandments and doctrines of men." That is, in contrast, he's saying there's all sorts of things that we might say, well, I'm going to sacrifice this. And I, honestly, myself, I'm somewhat entertained by all the Lenten practices and people talking about, well, I'm giving up, you know, this particular television show for Lent. Kind of nonsense. No, that's all just outward appearance according to the commandments and doctrines of men. But he goes on to say in verse 23 there, these things indeed have an appearance of wisdom and self-imposed religion, false humility and neglect of the body, but they are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh. And he explains here that there's a difference between what the world considers holy, what the world considers that which is set apart, and we do. Now, that's further expanded in the next verse, in verse 2, which Lord willing, we'll get to next Lord's Day. But not only is it holy, not only is it set apart, it's not common, but it is acceptable to God. So not all sacrifices are or were acceptable. Well, the question then arises, how do we know which is and which is not? Well, we actually have that information in the Scriptures. You'll notice when I read these couple passages here that there's this relationship of life and living and putting to death the old man in Romans 8. Here in the book of Romans, verses 12 and 13, it says, therefore, brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh. There's that distinction there between flesh and body. To live according to the flesh. But if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if the spirit If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. What is an acceptable sacrifice before God as you as a living sacrifice? As you present your body as a living sacrifice. Well, first of all, it cannot be according to the flesh. has to be according to the Spirit, or we might even say that which is according to what the Spirit has revealed in His Word. Elsewhere, Colossians 3, chapter 4 and 5, when Christ, who is our life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. great promise there in Colossians of our hope of eternal life, our hope of the resurrection. But the next verse says, therefore put to death your members which are on the earth, fornication and cleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. See, that's at least as a basic answer to the question, that's how we determine what sacrifice is acceptable before God and which is not. Now remember, even as we confessed here very recently in the Belgian Confession of Faith, that these works, those things that we might do, this is from Article 24, as they proceed from the good root of faith, are good and acceptable in the sight of God for as much as they are sanctified by His grace. And it goes on. Are they rooted in faith or are they fleshly? Are they rooted in God's word revealed to us? That is, are they spiritual? It's in that way that we know what's acceptable to God and what is not. So the question really is, shall we bring a sacrifice that is our lives, that merely pleases us? Shall we worship in such a way because it pleases us? Shall we live in such a way merely because it pleases us? See, the scriptures are very clear about this. They're unambiguous about this in answering this question. You may remember, even from Sunday school children, listen up, Genesis 4, verses 3 through 5, and in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord. You remember that story, children? Cain and the sacrifice, or so-called sacrifice, The next verse says, Abel also brought the firstborn of his flock and of their fat, and the Lord respected Abel and his offering. But he did not respect Cain and his offering, and Cain was very angry and his countenance fell. And you know, if you read on, the conversation between Cain and God is not a particularly edifying one from that perspective. Cain is kind of a snot-nosed little brat before God. You remember that story, children? Yeah, you remember that. So that story tells us something. It tells us about what is acceptable to God and what is not. Cain knew what was acceptable. It had been revealed to him that he needed to bring an animal sacrifice. Abel did it, Cain did not. And of course we know, as Paul Harvey said, the rest of the story. Likewise, in Leviticus chapter 10, there at the beginning, first three verses, Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. So fire went out from the Lord and devoured them. And they died before the Lord. And Moses said to Aaron, this is what the Lord spoke, saying, by those who come near me, I must be regarded as holy and before all the people, I must be glorified. So Aaron held his peace. Well, it's the same story and it's the same lesson. See, God is the one who determines what is acceptable in his own sight. He's the one who has revealed what is acceptable in his own sight. Now we may wonder from time to time at a moment's notice, shall I do this or not do that? And sometimes the answer to that question is difficult, but the spiritual, the truly spiritual Christian self-sacrificial reaction to that is simply to ask the question, is this what the Lord has revealed for me to do or not? There are many things which fall in the middle and there are an awful lot of things that do not. But why then? Is all this necessary? What is the reason for the sacrifice? Well, we have been given reasons already, of course, by the mercies of God. That is, according to those mercies, because of those mercies, we might even somewhat loosely express, it says here, that we do these things because it is, or which is, as the New King James renders it, your reasonable service. Now, depending on which translation you're familiar with or which translation you may have in your lap even now, it may say spiritual worship, reasonable service, or some combination of those things. And again, I'll beg your indulgence here for a moment. The first thing I want to say, though, about this is you will note something that is missing, and it is not that it may become so, but rather that it is. It is. And so the spiritual here, the spiritual sense of the word is not contrary to reasonable, but it is a reference to the inner conditions of your soul. This goes to the whole issue of translations, moving from one language to another. Both translations are equally valid. in one sense. Then the answer to the question is, what do we do with this? How do we translate this? I think the context is what determines it. It always does in these questions. And so what we say here, is this a spiritual service or is this a reasonable service? What is going on here? In this sense, both are actually true. When we understand that this has to do with those inner convictions of you, How do you perceive the mercies of God? How do you react to the mercies of God? What is your inner conviction regarding that blessing that you have received? That inner conviction ought to be, well, this is the only reasonable thing to do, is simply do what the Lord has given me to do, to present myself a living sacrifice, my whole being. And if I might say here, it is in contrast to the merely outward. See, it is possible for you to do all kinds of things in whatever course of life that you have that you might set aside your own desires. Some of them might be good. But if that's not the conviction of your soul, if that's not your heart conviction, then it is just that merely that outward action, well, this is just what Christians do, so I guess I better do it. And here, particularly, the word here that's translated reasonable, It's only used twice in the New Testament, so that makes it a little bit difficult, but interestingly, it's used by Peter in 1 Peter 2.2, and it's translated there, word, as in the sincere milk of the word. That's because the word word there has to do with the logical arrangement of an idea, a concept. That is why I say the conviction of your soul, this is what you've been taught. What is the conviction of your soul regarding these mercies of God and your sacrificial living? That is, it's the normal, natural response to what you have received in Jesus Christ, and it is your reasonable, rational conviction response in your service or worship to Him. Now, corporate worship is indispensable. You know that's the conviction we have here at Providence Reform Church. You know how significant that is in our own history. We are called together to worship. And in God's providence, sometimes because we travel, because of illness, we're not together. That's in God's providence. That's a corporate worship. But mortifying the flesh, striving to live in a manner pleasing to God in the way that he has revealed to us, is also a form of worship. And it is genuine worship. as you live before the face of God. And it is eminently spiritual, even though it is almost always ordinary. That is, even those little tiny things in life that we don't think too much about—honesty in business, charity, in conversation, all of these kinds of things as we do so as an act of worship, setting aside what we might want to do or might think or desire to say. All of these things are part of our discipleship that is our casting aside of all that we might desire that is of the flesh and rather seeking to do what the Lord says and for his glory. So yes, it's our reasonable service. It's a spiritual worship, even the ordinary things of life. And so the question then that I would pose to you, are you falling into the trap of thinking that you have nothing to give? I don't have very many talents, or I certainly don't have the talents that other people have, or I don't have very many resources. I have no sacrifice to bring. Although we are told in the scriptures not to appear before the Lord with empty hands. You see, you have been given something. If you don't have the world's resources, if you have not been gifted with those external gifts that some people have been given, you have something to give. You have your life to give. You have everything that the Lord has given you to give. So then the question would be, are you actually serving and worshiping God with your life? And sometimes that means your resources, sometimes it means your money, sometimes it means your talents and your skills, sometimes it means your time. But you need to ask, even as I'm asking you, am I serving and worshiping God with my life? Or are these areas of my life where I say, well, no, that belongs to me. Are you living out, in fact, the implications of the doctrines of grace every day? That's the context here. Ignore that chapter 12 mark there. That's the context. Election, doctrines of grace, God's mysterious working in history, bringing a people unto himself, even in the casting aside of Israel, the engrafting of the Gentiles, all of these things are true. And oh, and by the way, are you then living out the implications of the doctrines of grace every day? If there's nothing else that you come away with today, I would greatly desire, I would indeed exhort you to consider these questions. Have we fallen into that trap? Are you actually serving and worshiping God with your life? Are you living out those implications day by day? And if the answer is no, well, it's not too late. Repent of that, ask the Lord to both forgive you and to strengthen you to do so, and he will answer your prayer. And when you have done all, Give Him the glory. Amen.