the redeemer of mankind and in the fullness of time according to the scripture that's when he came and I am thankful he did amen that that is what Christmas is about praise the Lord all right if you will turn this morning to Romans chapter 12 the book of Romans chapter 12 and past few weeks we've been in a thought there in the book of Luke chapter 2 and we finished that up last week we were looking at the thought of the events of those days meaning the days of the birth of Christ and I'm one of those preachers every preacher is different thank God for that or it'd be boring but I'm one of those preachers that usually what's going on as far as the time of year is what is on my mind and I know God a lot of times leads us to do different things but some preachers in a time of a season they don't preach on a message that lines up with that season and that's the way the Lord leads them but I've had my mind on Christmas like you have for at least the past month or so and this is the Sunday before Christmas and I was praying and thinking this week about what the Lord would have us to bring so I want to give you one more message on the thought of Christmas and you may think now We're in Romans 12. What in the world are you talking about? Aren't you supposed to be in Matthew or Luke? Well, we're going to look at maybe an unusual Christmas message this morning, but I think as we get into it, it'll be a help to you. Very familiar text. Most of you can quote these two verses. But we're going to read them together. If you're able, let's stand together this morning as we honor the reading of God's Word. We'll read Romans 12, verses 1 and 2, and then we'll go to the Lord in prayer. Verse number 1 said, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, 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." Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for this great privilege, Lord, again, to be able to come into your house this morning. And Lord, thank you for the sweet Spirit of God that's here. Thank you for your people that have willingly come out to worship you today. And Lord, let this be a day of worship. If we don't accomplish anything else today, let this be a day of worship. Lord, that we would be thankful in our hearts for You and for what You've done for us, not only for what You've done and what this season represents, but what You're going to do. Lord, when we think about the Christmas season, and we often call it the first Advent, we cannot get away from the thought of the second Advent. And Lord, we know now it's closer than it's ever been at any time before. And I pray we could rejoice this morning over the fact of being saved. And then Lord, would you help us to live for you as close as we can until you come back a second time and take us home to be with you and help us that we may point others to you along the way as much as we can. Father, have your way in the service throughout the day and minister to hearts we ask in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Thank you for standing. I told you I had a Christmas thought this morning, and I do, but we're going to take it from an unusual text. The Lord began to deal with my heart this week. I think I have preached this thought before in some time in the past, but I believe this is where the Lord would have us to be this morning. In the book of Romans, of course, the Apostle Paul is the author, and he's writing this particular epistle to the church at Rome. He's dealing with a lot of issues. As a matter of fact, the book of Romans is probably one of the most doctrinal books that you'll find in the Word of God. There's so many major doctrines that are dealt with throughout the book of Romans of salvation and repentance and justification and just many, many, many great what we would call maybe deep truths found in this book. And this is one of those books, when a young Christian gets saved, that I try to always say, you need to go to the book of Romans. You need to start out in the book of Romans, even if you don't understand it all. Just start reading it. Get familiar with those terms of justification and sanctification, because it's a foundational book. But in chapter number 12, we find the Apostle Paul here in these two verses is going to send out a call or a cry, if you will, for something. And many times throughout the epistles that Paul wrote, he uses the term of beseeching. That word just simply means to call aside or call to one side. Or we might even use it with the thought of begging or pleading with someone to do something. Now this morning, I want to look at this thought, and again, this may be a strange thought for Christmas, but I hope it'll make sense as we get on into it. But my thought here out of these two verses this morning is a perfect present. A perfect present. Now, as Christmas time begins to come along, and usually right after Thanksgiving, everybody gets their mind in the gear of Christmas, and we start thinking about what it is and what it's about, and of course we know the meaning of Christmas is the birth of Christ, and the greatest gift, the greatest present that was ever given was when God gave His Son Jesus Christ. But then we begin to think about presents. We begin to think about those we love, and we try to do a little something extra for them at Christmas time, getting them a gift or a present to express our love to them. We know that Christmas is not about the presents and it's not necessarily even at all about the value of the presents. It's just the fact that you love someone and you want to give to them. Well, I began to think about that this week and I thought about who greater to want to give something to than the Lord. I mean, He's given us everything. Everything we have and everything that we enjoy and all of the promises and the hope that we're looking forward to in eternity is because that God began and initiated salvation and gave His Son. And because of the gift of Christ Jesus to a lost and dying world, you and I this morning are enjoying the goodness of God. So I thought about in return, I know we cannot buy our salvation, and I know what we give God doesn't cause him to love us any more than if we don't, but what a great thought I was thinking this week about giving the Lord a present. Now, what would you give the Lord? The Bible says that he owns cattle on a thousand hills. The Bible lets us know in Revelation chapter number 5, Jesus Christ is going to give that title deed of the earth in the days to come. And of course, we know he is the owner of the earth. He's the creator of the earth. We can go back in the book of Genesis and find where he spoke everything into creation. So what would you give the Lord? I mean, would you give him money? Well, he's got plenty of that. He's got everything in his hands. Would you give him land? Well, he owns the whole world. Would you give him houses? Well, everything again is in his hand. So what would you give the Lord? Ask yourself that question this morning. What would I give the Lord if I would give the Lord a present? Well, I think the Apostle Paul illustrates that here in these two verses. And I want to just give you a few things on that thought this morning on the perfect prison. Now, the first thing I want you to notice found in verse 1 is a plea that goes out. I've already mentioned to you the word beseech is used here, and that's Pauline terminology, I guess you would call it. That's terminology of the Apostle Paul to use that word beseech. Several years ago, I did a study on that, and I went through the Strong's Concordance, And everywhere the apostle Paul used that thought of beseeching, I preached a message on that. It's very interesting. I think there's several, probably, oh, I can't remember for sure, but probably 12 or 15 times throughout the church epistles where Paul said, I beseech you, therefore, brethren. I beseech you, brethren. So it's a special call that God is sending through this apostle. Now you notice this morning he's crying out for a plea, and we know that Paul is the writer of the book of Romans, but we know the Holy Spirit is the author of the Word of God. So we could say this morning that this is not a plea from the Apostle Paul, but it's deeper than that. It's a plea from God Almighty. It's a plea from the Spirit of God calling out to the people of God concerning something. Now you notice in verse 1, the Lord's desire. Notice that word, beseech. He said, I beseech you therefore brethren. As you look at that word again, it means to call to one side. The Lord's desire is to draw us unto himself. Matter of fact, that's the whole thrust of the gospel. That's the whole reason why Christ came, was to save sinners and draw us unto Him. Because of sin and because of the events that took place in the Garden of Eden, mankind was separated from God. Mankind, the Bible said, was at enmity with God. And that simply means that man, because of his sin, became an enemy to God. I know we don't like to think that way, but that's Bible terminology. If you happen to be here and lost this morning, whether you believe it or not, you are an enemy to God. God does not want you to remain an enemy. He does not want you to stay an enemy. He wants that reconciliation. He wants that redemption to change your position. So here Paul is making a call here, a desire to draw one unto the Lord. Now, we look at that thought with salvation, and this is not a verse on salvation, but we look at that thought with salvation as God calls, as He initiates salvation. John 3, 16, "...for God so loved the world that He gave." You see, it was God's love that initiated salvation. It wasn't man's love for God, it was God's love for man. It was that God loved the world so much that He was willing to give Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, that we might be saved. That's the initiation of salvation, and that came because of the love of God. So here Paul is calling out, and we're going to see who he's dealing with here in just a moment, He's calling out to the church concerning the Lord's desire. He said, I beseech you. And then notice the Lord's direction. Who is He talking to? Anytime you look at a scripture, if you're going to get the good out of that scripture, if you're going to get what it's talking about and get the message that it's trying to convey to you, you have got to ask yourself the question, who is He talking to? Throughout the Scripture, God is not always speaking to the same group of people. You can go back in the Old Testament and you'll find where he's speaking specifically to the nation of Israel. Now, we can glean some things from it and some practical truth, but there are some things in the Old Testament that is directly given to the nation of Israel. You cannot apply them as far as direct interpretation to any other group of people. Then there are places in the Word of God where he's speaking directly to sinners, those that are lost, those that don't have a relationship with Christ. And what he's dealing with there is pointed to them. And here we're going to find out, if you don't know already, we're going to find out he's speaking to the church. He's speaking to believers. These epistles, these church epistles as we call them, is where the Lord is speaking through the Apostle Paul to the local churches. And of course, we carry that down to where we're at today, and we use that for our church discipline, our church doctrine, and how to operate the local church. So here we find he's speaking to brethren. Look what he said. He said, I beseech you, therefore, brethren. So we find in this plea this morning that it's the Lord's desire to address His people. It's God's desire to reach the heart of His people. Now I think it stands to reason this morning that if we are saved, God ought to have our heart. If we're a child of God, our hearts should be turned to the Lord. But I think we could all agree this morning that even after salvation, there are times where our hearts stray. There are times where we're not in tune with the Lord like we should be. We're not focused on Him. We're not walking with Him as He calls us to walk with Him. As a matter of fact, in the book of Revelation, in the seven churches of Asia, that are dealt with there, you find the church of Ephesus, their major complaint from the Lord was that they left their first love. Now they were a tremendous church and had many positives and many great attributes in them, but the fact of the matter was God knew their heart, and God knew that they had left their first love. God knew that there was something there, there was a weakness there in that relationship, so he calls them out. So here in this epistle to the church of Rome, we find that the Spirit of God is speaking through the Apostle Paul in the direction of believers. So if you're a believer this morning, this message applies to you. If you're a child of God, then he's talking to you this morning. If you would have been alive in these days, about AD 60, if my timeline's right, if you'd have been alive and been a member of the church of Rome, then this would have been the message to you. And of course, the Spirit of God and God put these in the canon of the Scripture, so it's to every believer nowadays. So we find that direction there. God is speaking to His people. And I'm glad this morning God still speaks to His people. I'm glad He doesn't just save us and cast us out there and say, do the best you can and I'll talk to you when you get home. And I'm glad He's always communicating with us and working on us and drawing us closer to Him. So you find in this plea the Lord's desire. It is the desire of God to draw His people close to Him. And then you find the direction of this plea, which is to the brethren, the people of God. But then notice the drawing. We might call it the drawing power this morning. How is the Lord intend on drawing His people unto Him? He said, "'I beseech you therefore, brethren'..." Notice the next phrase in verse 1. He said, "...by the mercies of God." Now, if you're a Christian this morning, you can think about the mercies of God. You understand a little bit about the mercies of God. You may be a very young Christian. You may have just been saved recently, and you don't have a long time of walking with the Lord. You don't have many years like some of us do of being saved and examples and year after year and time after time where God has shown mercy on us. But even as a young Christian this morning, one that's just birthed into the family of God, you understand a little bit about the mercies of God. The reason you're saved today, the reason I'm saved, the reason we can enjoy peace and an assurance in our heart that heaven is our home, because of the mercies of God. It's because He loved us. It's because He showed mercy to us. It's because He extended His love and His grace, and drew us unto Himself, and allowed us to hear the gospel, and according to Ephesians 2, even gave us the faith to believe. Do you know that the faith that you had to believe was not of yourselves? That's what He tells us in Ephesians chapter 2. I mean, it doesn't get any better deal than God drawing somebody, convicting somebody, drawing them unto Himself and then saying, here, I'm just going to give you the faith if you'll exercise it to go ahead and seal the transaction. Now, that's a give me, amen? That's like the teacher giving you the book and saying, use the book and take the test. That's an easy one to pass, isn't it? That's what the Lord did, the mercies of God. He loves us so much that He's done everything possible for us to be saved. The only thing we have to do is realize we need to be saved and then believe on Him and trust Him and be saved. So God so loved this world that He extended those mercies. And that's the drawing that the Apostle Paul is illustrating here. He said, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God. Paul is telling us that God is standing without stretched arms. The Lord is looking our way. The Lord has turned our direction. And He's drawing us by His mercies. If you've been saved, you think about the mercies of God. When I think about what would cause me to want to love the Lord and walk with God and serve God and give Him the greatest Christmas present I could ever give Him, it would definitely be because of His mercies. You know why you give natural presents to people you love? Most of the time it's because there's a connection there. Occasionally, we'll give a present to a stranger. That's good. We ought to do that. I think that shows the spirit of Christmas. But most of the time, it's those we love. It's those we have a relationship with. It's those that have been good to us many, many times. When you think about parents, or you think about children, or grandparents, or relatives, or co-workers that you've had a relationship with. You've spent some time with, you've enjoyed some things together, therefore you give that Christmas present to them as an expression of love and many times even an expression of gratitude for them being in your life. So here Paul is sending out a plea, really God is sending out a plea through the Spirit of God pinned down by the Apostle Paul Not only to the church of Rome, but to every believer that would ever read this passage of Scripture. So you find that plea. Now, we're going to get to the present. Some of you may not know where I'm going yet, but we're going to get there, okay? Just hang on. I promise you this will make sense here in a moment. We're talking about the perfect present. Now, also in verse number one, I find the present. Now, I have no reason to believe that when Paul penned down this twelfth chapter of the book of Romans that he was thinking about Christmas. I have no reason to believe that. But the thought is still here, the thought of giving, the thought of presenting. What do you do with a present? You present it, okay? You can buy a present, you can hide it in the closet or wherever you might hide it, you know that they don't find it. Y'all have been in our house through the years trying to hide presents from nine children, amen? I'm telling you, just about needed somewhere else to go to hide them. Probably a lot of times it didn't work out. But nevertheless, you try to hide that present, don't you? You try to keep it secluded until a time when you're going to give it. Well, notice what verse number 1 teaches us about the present here in this text. I want you to notice the willingness that's requested here in verse 1. He said, I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God. Now here is the present. A present is presented. And I was telling you about hiding that present. If you go buy a present and you hide it, that's great. But if you never present it, it does nobody any good. If you hide a present somewhere, and then Christmas Day rolls around, and you never took it out, you never wrapped it up, you never gave it to that one that you intended it for, is it really doing any good? Well, it's not doing any good. And sadly, many times, that's what we do as a child of God. Whether intentional or unintentional, we hide what God has done for us. We hide how good God has been to us. So Paul here, under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, is beseeching, begging, pleading for us to give the greatest present we could ever get. Notice it, first of all, we find there's a willingness here. He said that ye, that word ye is a personal word, that means you. That doesn't mean just in general, that means you in specific. He said that ye, speaking about brethren, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice. You say, Bridget, what's the greatest present I could ever give the Lord? Would it be money? No. I think we ought to tithe, give to missions, we know that, but that's not the greatest present. Would it be my talents? No. Now, I think if you've got a talent, you ought to use it for the glory of God. He gave it to you for that reason, to edify the church and to be a blessing to others, and you ought to do that, but that's not the greatest present you can give. Well, maybe it's my Bible knowledge. You know, I can quote Scripture and God would be so impressed with me. Well, that's good. I hope you have great Bible knowledge, but that's not the greatest present. Paul illustrates to us here in verse number 1 what the greatest present is. And if you want to know what the greatest present is that you can give to the Lord, then as you go out to church this morning, if you'll make a little bit of a left turn back there and stop and look in that mirror, you will find the greatest present that you could ever give the Lord. You know what He wants this morning? He wants us. You say, wait a minute preacher, I thought if I saved you already had me. He wants all of us. Amen? Every bit of us. Lock, stock and barrel. Notice what Paul said. He said that ye present. There's that willingness there. You know nobody can force you to give a present. And if they do, it's not really a present and it's not really the right motive and the right attitude. And this morning, nobody's going to force you to present yourself to the Lord. Nobody's going to force you to give your life totally to the Lord. I realize when we get saved and we go to that altar or wherever it is when you get saved, we cry out unto the Lord, we repent of our sin, we ask God to save us, but I don't think any of us understood the fullness of Him being our Lord. And I believe that's what the Bible teaches, that Christ should be our Lord. Not just our Savior, but our Lord. We're to give Him our life. He is to become our Lord. We're to submit to Him as not only Savior, but also as Lord. And that's what Paul is dealing with here. He's dealing with the willingness, in verse 1, he said, that ye present. You know, I can't present you for yourself. I cannot present you to the Lord. You cannot present me to the Lord. The power of presentation lies within one's own self. We are the only ones that can present ourselves to the Lord. I cannot make you serve God. I learned that a long time ago as a pastor, and thank God for the day I did. Amen? Because I'm telling you, when I first started, I thought it was my responsibility to get everybody saved and make everybody live right. and about went nuts over that, just to be honest with you. And it was a great day in my life where I realized I had a position and a place and a work to do, but there were many things that the individual was going to have to be responsible for. I wish that everybody would get saved, but I can't make them get saved. I wish that everybody would serve the Lord, but I can't make that happen. That is your responsibility. That's a present only you can give. I have to give my present to the Lord. You have to give your present to the Lord. And Paul is telling us here there must be a willingness. Everything in the Christian life hinges on a willingness. Do you know if you're saved this morning, it's because you were willing to receive Christ? You were willing to accept Christ? Nobody ever got saved by God strong-arming them. You won't find that in the Scripture. Now, I realize that He woos us. I realize He convicts us. I do realize in most of our lives we can testify to this, that God gets us in a position and orchestrates events in our life to where we get to the place that we do see our need of salvation, and we do realize we need to be saved. But the fact of God making someone get saved, that's just not biblical. It's not that way. You have a choice. You have to come to that place where when everything is presented and God has dealt with your heart and you realize you need to be saved, you have to come to that place where you say, yes, Lord, I'm willing to receive you. John chapter 1 verse 12 said, As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God. Has to be a willingness to receive. And so it is in your walk with the Lord. If you're going to give the Lord the greatest presence you could ever give Him, you are going to have to be willing. You are going to have to come to a place in your life where you say, Lord, I want to give myself to you. And I know many of you have done that this morning, but there's probably some of you that haven't. And by the way, it's not just a one-time thing. This is a daily thing you got to do. See, I can give myself to the Lord this morning. That's what I did. I got up, I prayed this morning, I had my mind on the Scripture, and all through the day I'll have my nose in the Word of God, and I'll be in prayer a couple more times. Today, the Lord's day, I'm giving this day to the Lord. I do that every Sunday. But then I'm going to have to get up in the morning on Monday, and I'm going to have to give myself to the Lord again. And Tuesday, I'm going to have to give myself to the Lord again. It is a continual desire or choice to give oneself to the Lord. And Paul is calling us here. The willingness is illustrated. Look at something else about the present this morning. The what? You may ask, what do I give the Lord? Well, here it is. He said that you present your bodies a living sacrifice. That's what Paul said. What does the Lord want from you? Does He want your money? No. Does He want your time and talent? No. Not necessarily that within itself, but what He wants is you, your bodies, who you are. Man is a tri-part being. Man is made up of body, soul, and spirit. And that body, that soul, and spirit are together while we're alive on this earth. And what Paul is telling us here is that God wants us to give ourselves to Him. The greatest present that we can give the Lord is who we are and everything about us. Our body, our soul, and spirit. I hear people say sometimes, ignorantly, well, God saved my soul, but my body's mine. Wrong answer. The Bible tells us you're bought with a price, you're not of your own. The moment you got saved, the moment you came to that place of receiving Christ, you were to give yourself wholly and completely unto the Lord. You're to take your hands off and let Him be the master of your ship. Paul is telling us that here this morning. He said that you present your bodies. He said, what's the greatest present I can give to the Lord? It's who you are. It's everything about you, your life. Your thought life, the works of your hands, where your feet go, what your eyes look at, what your ears listen to. Everything about us and who we are is to be submitted to the person of the Lord. It's the greatest present you could ever get. You know, when you got married, for us that are married, when you got married, you went to that wedding altar one day, and you looked at that spouse, and you said, I'm going to give you the rest of my life. I'm going to love you, and richness, Pour and all that good stuff, all those vows you said. It's been 30 years ago, so I don't remember that. All everything I said. My wife said for the longest time she didn't even remember getting married. Amen? That's bad, ain't it? She remembers it every day when she looks at me. Hallelujah. I don't know if that's good or not. But you know, when you went to that wedding altar, that's what you did. You looked at that other person, you said, I'm going to give you my life. I'm going to be faithful to you. I'm not going to be after anybody else. I'm not going to show my affection to anybody else. You're the one I'm putting my life into. You know, that's what the Lord wants for us this morning. That's the greatest Christmas present you could ever give the Lord, is just to give Him yourself. Your affection, your love, your honor, your reverence, just everything about you should be presented to the Lord and given to Him. So you find that what is answered here. He says, our body. He said, present your bodies a living sacrifice. And then the way. He illustrates the way. How do we give that present? Now, when we give a present to a loved one, We're going to get together, if you haven't already, most people are going to get together in the next few days and we're going to see one another and we're going to give them that present. We're going to hand it to them in a physical way. Well, Paul tells us here how that we give the greatest present to the Lord. How do we do that? The Lord is in heaven, we're here, we can't just go to heaven and we definitely got to give our present to the Lord before we get to heaven. It's really too late once we get there. Now's when He wants our present. So how do we do that? Well, He illustrates it here in verse 1. He said, you present your bodies a living sacrifice. That's what the Lord is looking for this morning, a living sacrifice. He's wanting a life. He's wanting your life, my life, everything about our life. God's not interested in you dying for Him. He's interested in you living for Him. There's a lot of people say, oh, I'll die for the Lord. Peter was one of those people. He said, I'll die for you, Lord, I'm ready, let's go. Peter couldn't even live for the Lord at that time. And there's a lot of times we get ahead of ourself and we say, oh, I'll die for Jesus and I'll do what he wants me to do, but we won't live for him, will we? You see, he said he's not looking for a dead sacrifice. That was the economy of the Old Testament. The Old Testament was a dead sacrifice. The New Testament is a living sacrifice. What is Paul saying? He's saying that God wants us to live for Him. He's saying that God wants our life. He's saying that God doesn't want us to be a Sunday morning Christian and then a Monday morning whatever we want to be. He's saying give your life to the Lord. And what greater one could we give our life to than the one that loved us enough to go to Calvary? If I'm going to give my life to anybody, I'm going to give it to the one that loves me the most. I'm going to give it to the one that has my best intentions in mind. I'm going to give it to the one I can trust the most. And that is none other than the Lord Himself. Paul said, present your bodies a living sacrifice. Greatest gift you can give the Lord, whether it be Christmas time or any other time, is to present yourself to Him. This is not just a ritual thing here. You know, a lot of times presentation and things are just ritual things. All of us here, most all of us, we've given gifts to people before that was just out of ritual. We really didn't care. Maybe you had a Christmas party at work, and everybody had to bring a gift, and you got the name of the person you really didn't like. He thought, well, I don't want to be an oddball, so I'm going to give him a gift. And you gave it to him. You went through the motions, but it wasn't in your heart. You didn't really love them. Matter of fact, you didn't even like them that much. You just tolerated them. And truth is, they probably just tolerated you too. That's just the way it is, isn't it? But this gift is given to one that loves us and that cares for us. Why would we not want to give him our life? That's what Paul is telling us here. So here's the present. And notice thirdly this morning, talking about the perfect present, talking about a plea here. God is calling us through the Scripture to give ourselves to Him. The present is us, ourselves. We must be willing and wanting to do that. But then he mentions the package here found in verse 1 and also verse number 2. Look at what Paul illustrates to us here this morning. First of all, he says it must be clean. Now I want you to understand this morning, he's not talking about a sinner getting saved. God nowhere in the Scripture does He command a sinner to get cleaned up and then get saved. That's not Scriptural. Amen? God cleans us when He saves us. He washes us with His own blood. We're washed by the power of God. And the moment that an individual trusts Christ as Savior, positionally, we're cleaned up. Do you know if you're saved this morning, you're clean in the sight of God. If you're saved, if you're truly a child of God today, you're sanctified. That's part of that doctrine of sanctification. That God sets us apart and He cleans us and He washes us. But Paul here is not talking about a salvation sanctification here. He's talking about sanctification after salvation. Look at what he said. He said, present your bodies a living sacrifice. And then he gives us an adjective here. He said, holy. Now that's not w-h-o-l-l-y, that's not completely, that's the word holy, which is to be holy, to be sanctified, to be set apart, to be meat for the Master's use. He tells us here how we ought to give the package of the greatest present ever. Now most of you, unless it's these little ones here, and some of us men, we're guilty of this, most of you, especially you ladies, when you get ready to Give a present, you're gonna get the wrapping paper, you're gonna wrap it up, you're gonna package it, and it's gonna be neat looking. You're not gonna roll it through the mud. You're not gonna wrap it like most of us men wrap it. I mean, we just cover it up, don't we? I mean, you got one piece sticking out over here, and one thing won't fit over here, and that's why I don't wrap many presents, because it looks like a bomb's went off, amen? I got too many girls in the house, I let them wrap the presents, and that way it looks presentable. You want it to be presentable. If you're going to give somebody you love a present, you just don't give them some old junk. You don't just cover something up or let it go dirty or let it go defiled. You want it to be presentable. Notice what Paul tells us here, it must be clean. He said, holy, acceptable unto God. God wants us to give our life to Him and take our hands off of it. We don't give our life to the Lord and say, OK, Lord, now I'm going to serve you as long as I get to do this. Lord, I'm going to serve you as long as you meet these requirements. This is what we do a lot of times. We get saved and we want to serve God, we think we want to serve God, so we write out this big list of things, you know, and we meet God at the table. We write out this big list of things we want to do and we spin it around and we slide it to God and say, now Lord, you sign the bottom of it. Christian life don't work that way. This is how the Christian life works. We take a blank piece of paper, we sign the bottom of it, we slide it to the Lord and say, you fill it in, that's your business. That's the Christian life. That's what Paul's talking about. presenting ourselves wholly and acceptable unto God. Amen. That's how you give that gift. It's got to be clean. It's got to be right. It's got to have purpose. It's got to have intent to give our life to the Lord and say, Lord, here it is. And I want you to take it and break it and make it and do with me whatever you want that I could be what you'd have me to be. It's the greatest presence you can give the Lord. You see, it must be clean, but notice something else. There must be consideration. Now, if you're going to give that gift, here's something you need to consider this morning. Look at what he said. He said, holy, acceptable unto God. He said, which is your reasonable service? We need to understand something this morning. Giving our life to the Lord is not being some kind of exemplary Christian. Giving your life to the Lord is not, you know, an elite status where only 10% of those that are saved do it. Giving your life to the Lord is reasonable service. It's what every Christian ought to do. See, we're living in a generation now that thinks it's very odd and unusual for somebody to give their life to the Lord that's a Christian. But we've got it backwards. See, years ago, at the beginning of this thing, no doubt the early church, it was unusual to not find a Christian giving their life to the Lord. We're living in such a messed up, evil society now, we've gotten used to the flip side of it. Hey, it's your reasonable service, is what he said. He says it's just reasonable. It's just what you're supposed to do. By the way, young people, you're supposed to get saved, and then after you get saved, you're supposed to give your life to the Lord. You're not supposed to go out here and make shipwreck of what God's done in your life. You're not supposed to throw it away to the world and what God's done in your life. It is right, it is reasonable to give yourself to the Lord. That's the way it's supposed to be. I realize that's foreign in our society today, but it doesn't change the Word of God. That's the way it's supposed to be. That's right, it's reasonable. Can I testify to you just a minute this morning? In the nearly 30 years since I've been saved, God has never asked me to do anything unreasonable. He's never asked me to do anything that I could not do with His power. He's never sent me somewhere that He first didn't go before me. It is reasonable to serve the Lord. It's reasonable to give a present to the Lord. You men think about this this morning. How reasonable would it be if come Christmas morning, your wife has nothing under the tree? How reasonable would it be? It wouldn't be very reasonable, buddy. By the way, I'm pretty cheap on marriage counseling. Amen. You'll need some if you don't give her a little something. I mean, you better wrap up an orange. You better whittle a stick. You better do something. Say, preacher, I'm broke this year. That's fine. You better give her something. I'm telling you, it better be something you've thought about. Don't buy her a new shotgun either, by the way, man. Or a new bass boat, don't do that. I don't think she'll probably appreciate that. I've tried that a time or two, it didn't work too good. But no, no, it's reasonable to do that. What Paul is saying this morning, he's telling us through the scripture here, that it's just reasonable to package ourself. and give it to the Lord. It's just reasonable. We've got to consider that. We've got to understand that this is what we are supposed to do. Notice this. I'm just about done this morning. Notice this. Not only it must be clean, there must be a consideration, but then it must not be conformed. He gives us a negative thought here of what it must not be. He said, and be not conformed to this world. What is Paul telling us here this morning? God doesn't want us to take our life that He redeemed Our life that He shed His blood on Calvary for, take it out here and let it fit in with the world. That's what that word conform means. Let me give you the thought of that. Most everybody, you know what saran wrap is, you know what plastic wrap is. Whatever you put around it, it's going to conform to it. Whatever you wrap inside of it, you're not going to hide anything wrapping it in something like that because it conforms to it. And Paul said that's what we've got to be careful about, that God does not want a conform to this world life. God does not want my life being worldly. He doesn't want my life to be like the world, to look like the world, to walk like the world, to smell like the world. God doesn't want me conformed to this world. He's going to tell us in just a moment what He does want. And sadly, sadly in our day, many of God's people want to package their life looking like the world and give it to God. They want their life to look like the world, and yet they want to serve God. It doesn't work that way. You're not going to serve God in the depths of the world. You're not going to serve God while pleasing the world. Jesus said you cannot serve God and man money. I know he's talking about money there, but that goes in with the worldly system. We're not going to do that. We're not going to have our heart in the world and then give a proper gift to the Lord. It doesn't work that way. That goes back to that thought. of giving ourselves completely and giving our bodies as a living sacrifice. There's that fault of not being conformed to the world, sadly in this day. Sadly. See, so many of God's people that are conformed to the world, yet they say they've given their life to the Lord. They're conformed to the worldly system, but yet they say they're a Christian. They live like the world. They look like the world. You can't tell the difference between them and the world. They talk like the world. They hang out where all the world hangs out. Everything in their life just cries of worldliness, yet they say that they've given themselves to the Lord. That's not fair this morning. Not fair to God. That's not right. We should give ourselves wholly, completely under the Lord. Notice this now. Notice the package, but finally notice the power. You say, why does it matter what I give the Lord? You know, sometimes we do that in Christmas, don't we? Sadly, we've all done it. Now, you don't have to nod your head, but we've all done it. At the last moment, we've rushed, and we've went and just grabbed something off the shelf if there was anything there left. and we've stuffed it in a bag or stuffed it in a box and wrapped it up, crossed our fingers and said, boy, I hope we can get by with giving this one this year. We've all done that before. Sadly, that's what we've done. You know, if we're not careful, that's what we'll do, Lord. If we're not careful, we'll just give Him the leftovers. We'll just give Him the waste. We'll just give Him what we don't want to consume ourselves, and that's not good. You say, why is it so important that I present this perfect gift to the Lord? Why is it so important? I mean, I'm saved. I'm going to heaven when I die. Why does it matter that I present my gift, myself, to the Lord? Well, look at this. Let me give you this, and I'll finish this morning. I want you to notice the power of this. There's a great power when you give a gift properly. I would say, if we had time to go through everybody's story this morning, I would say there's some married couples here that there was a time before you got married and you were courting your spouse or spouse-to-be, and they gave you a special gift. It might have been Christmas time, it might have been birthday, it might have been just because. You know, we do that when we're court and we ought to keep doing that after we're married. Those just because gifts. I'm trying to help you men a little bit, okay? Throwing some things out there, pick it up men, it'll help you, amen? All of us need help on that. But there's times when you give a gift and that gift is so special. And the spouse here, you would say, some of you right now, you're going back in your mind, you'd say, boy, I remember when he gave me that. I remember when she gave me that. I mean, I remember when that was just so special. It may not have been expensive. It may not have been fashionable. It might have been just some special something that touched your heart. I want you to see this morning the power of when we present ourselves to the Lord. When we give this perfect present that Paul's talking about, I want you to notice the power. Three things I want to give you, and we'll finish. First of all, look at the transformation. Look at what he said. Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. Now there's a negative and a positive statement here. He tells us not to be conformed. We've already dealt with that. That is being wrapped up in the world or becoming like the world, taking on the form of the world. But He commands us to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. How does that happen? Can we do that ourself? No, we can't do that ourself. That's when we give ourselves to the Lord. When we present ourselves to the Lord, only He has the power to transform us. Only He has the power to change us. And primarily, He does that through His Word. When you give yourself to the Lord like you ought to, you will be given to His Word. You'll never convince me you've given yourself to the Lord and you don't read your Bible. You'll never convince me that you're following Jesus and the Bible is not a daily staple in your life. When we give ourselves to the Lord, we give ourselves to His Word. And the more of His Word we take in, the more we're transformed, the more we're changed. It's a double-edged sword. It's a double blessing, I guess is a better way to put it. When I give myself to the Lord, then He starts transforming me into the person I'm supposed to be. That young Christian, very young Christian here this morning, well, if you haven't learned it already, as soon as you get saved, start giving yourself to the Lord, giving yourself to prayer, giving yourself to Bible reading, being faithful to the house of God, being faithful to the things of God. Surround yourself with the things of God, and you will find the power of that gift is that He will transform you. He will start changing you. He will start shaping you and molding you and making you more like Him. It's a wonderful thing this morning. When we give ourselves to the Lord, there's the transformation, something we cannot do ourselves. I can't make myself a good Christian. I can't make myself what I ought to be in Christ. I have to submit myself to Him and let Him make me. I have to be willing. We've already dealt with that. But He is the one that has the power. He is the one that has the ability. You remember, I guess it's still out, but I remember when I was growing up, they had this little Play-Doh stuff, this silly putty. And you know what? It would become whatever you made it. It didn't have the power itself to become a shape. It didn't have the power itself to be transformed. It took a greater power to transform it. And so it is in our Christian life. When we give ourselves to the Lord, when we give that great present of ourselves to the Lord, He begins to mold us and to shape us and to make us and to transform us to what we ought to be. Not only is that for our good, but it's for His glory. You see the transformation, then you see the telling. Boy, this is really what ought to hit home to every believer this morning. You say, why should I present myself to the Lord? Why don't I just live my life the way I want to live it? Well, first of all, if you have that mentality, there's a pretty good chance you may not be saved at all. I think every Christian, somewhere down inside, even in our worst days, we've got a desire somewhere, a spark maybe, if nothing else, to serve the Lord. I can't think of a time since I've been saved that I really truly just wanted to abandon it all and go out and just live my life for myself. Yes, maybe moments, no doubt we've all had. But I think the real believer this morning has a spark, has a desire to give themselves to the Lord. Even when we don't accomplish it, that desire is there. Notice what he said. There's a telling. Look at what he said in verse 2. He said, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove. I thought about this. I was chewing on this yesterday. I thought about this. There's a telling here. You see, when I give my life to the Lord, and you give your life to the Lord, and I present myself like I'm supposed to, and you present yourself like you're supposed to, you know what that starts? It starts a proving process in my life. Starts a proving process in your life. And Paul said that ye may prove. Well, who are we proving it to? Are we proving it to the Lord? No. He already knows what we are. He already knows who we are. But when we present ourselves to the Lord, and we let the power of God transform us, He starts proving to a lost and dying world that salvation is real. He starts proving when the world sees that sinner, when some of our family and some of our friends and some of our acquaintances that knew us before we got saved, and they saw us get saved, and they saw God start working in our life, and they saw things start cleaning up, and they saw us follow this direction and answer this call. You know what God was doing? He's proving to a lost world that salvation is real. He's proving to a lost world that it pays to serve God. I want to go on record this morning, if nothing else, that it pays to serve God. I'm not looking for how loose I can live. We've got a generation that's doing that. I'm not complaining about how God's treated me wrong, because that would be a lie. He's never treated me wrong. I want to tell you this morning, I want what's left of this life to prove to a lost and dying world that Jesus is real and it is worth serving Him until He takes us home. Amen. Amen, I'm telling you. Some of the things I see in our church world today, it's disheartening. I mean, some of them get up and basically say they wish they hadn't got saved, and I'm wondering if they are saved, amen? I'm telling you, yes, there's some bumps in the road and there's some hard times, but I am glad I'm saved. And I'm glad He's my Master this morning. And I'm glad He's got more sense than I do. And I just want to give it all to Him today, amen? Let him run it. Let him have it. There's a telling I want my life to prove that God is real I want my life to be a beacon to be a message to be a Sounding out that God can change your life and it's worth it to serve him and it's good to serve him And it's the best way to live. Amen He said he'll prove some things through us if we'll give it to him. Then finally, let me give you this I'm done. Look at the truth of it. He said this he said what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God Now, I'm not trying to hurt anybody or discredit anybody, but I've heard people say that's three levels of the will of God. I don't believe that this morning. I don't believe that. I believe that's all talking about the will of God. Look at what he said. Here's the truth of it. He said, what is that good? It's good to give your life to the Lord. And acceptable? Yes, it's acceptable. Not to this world, but it sure is in the eyes of God and definitely for the child of God that loves Him. And it's perfect. That word perfect in your King James Bible means mature, amen? And perfect will of God. Paul said the truth of the matter is, if you want things to end right and if you want things to go right, this is what you're supposed to do. He said, the truth of the matter is, this is God's will. I mean, this is one of those things you don't have to pray about, okay? You know, sometimes we have things in our life and we say, Lord, I might pray about it. You don't have to pray about this, amen. It's already established in the Word of God that we're to give our life, we're to present ourself as a present to the Lord. You say, preacher, that scares me. I understand that. Preacher, I'm worried about that. I understand that. But think about this this morning. I'm done. Think about this. Can you not trust to give you life? to Christ, because He's the one that has saved you, and He's the one... I mean, if we can trust our soul, this is what I'm trying to say this morning, if we can trust our never-dying soul, our eternal soul, to Christ for salvation, why can't we trust our life to Him? Why can't we give Him every day, every moment, every situation? Why can't we give Him the direction of our life if we trust Him enough to get us to heaven? Amen? I think we can this morning. I want to give the Lord, if anything in my life, I want to give the Lord this morning the perfect present. And that perfect present is for us to give ourselves. to him. Amen. I hope this will help you. You have the message this morning. Let's stand, musicians, if you'll come. Let's stand with heads bowed just a moment. If God's speaking to your heart this morning, would you come do business with the Lord? If God has touched you through the word this morning, have you given your life? Only you know that. You and the Lord, you know that.