Thank you, Mr. Hankey. Go ahead and open your Bibles this morning to the book of Romans. This is going to be the text that we jump from. I won't be staying here, but Romans chapter 1. It is an honor to preach to you all this morning. I remember before I came, the semester before I came, watching some chapel services. I watched Todd Yule preach. I watched Jeremiah Kagan preach. They've now finished their undergrad and Todd got his master's and I'm still here. So it's been a while, but praise the Lord that he's gotten me through. And like Jordan, he's provided the means for me to pay my school bill. And different times it's been anonymous gifts that's kept me in school. God's provided work for me to pay for my school bill as well. And I thank him for that. I want to read just verse one here this morning of Romans chapter 12. It's a very familiar verse. Many of you can quote this verse, but the Bible says here, 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. I stand here this morning preaching to Bible college students. And many of you here this morning, we just finished a Bible conference, what a blessing that was. And you know, if you weren't already surrendered to God, I hope that you surrendered fully to God at the Bible conference. But most of you here today would say that you are surrendered to the Lord to do whatever He wants you to do. You would say that your body is a living sacrifice to God. But my question for you today is, are you an acceptable sacrifice? The Bible says here in verse 1 that you present your body as a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God. And I want to look at this idea today of having an acceptable sacrifice to God. Go ahead and turn over in your Bibles to the book of Leviticus. Leviticus chapter 2. And I want to look at this idea of an acceptable sacrifice from the perspective of the meat offering. And here we have in Leviticus Moses writing about the different offerings and he talks about the burnt offering, he talks about the meat offering, the peace offering, trespass offering, sin offering. And in chapter 2 he's talking about the meat offering. But if you go back to the very first offering in the Bible was offered by Cain and Abel. And the next offering was not offered until Noah gets off the ark. And the Bible says that he built an altar, he offered an offering to the Lord. And the Bible says that it was found as a sweet smelling savor. to the Lord, a sweet-smelling savor. And if we've offered our lives as a living sacrifice to God, I hope that it's a sweet-smelling savor to the Lord. But I think that some of us, we would sit here and we'd say, yes, I've offered my body to the Lord as a living sacrifice. I've surrendered my life to the Lord. But the truth is, our sacrifice is not acceptable to God. It's not found as a sweet-smelling savor to the Lord. So let's begin here. In verse number one, the Bible says, And the priest shall burn the memorial of it upon the altar to be an offering made by fire of a sweet smelling savor unto the Lord. And the remnant of the meat offering shall be Aaron and his sons. It is a thing most holy of the offerings of the Lord made by fire. The meat offering here is being presented and Moses is showing how this meat offering is supposed to be presented, what is supposed to be involved in it. And I want us to look at six different ingredients today, six elements that should be present in our offering to the Lord, in our living sacrifice to God. And the first of these elements that we see here is in verse one, the flower. the fine flour. Now, this flour comes from, came from corn. So they would harvest, they would have the corn, and then they would ground the corn between two millstones. They would ground the corn into a flour, and then that flour would be used to make bread. The Bible says in Isaiah 28, 28, that bread corn is bruised. So this is, the word for it was that it was bruised. The corn was bruised between the millstones, and it was made into flour. And remember, as we go through here, think about how each one of these elements we find Christ, Christ represented. And each one of these was in Christ's life. Well, there's two of them that weren't, okay? There's four that we need to have in our lives and two that we're not going to have these six elements, these six ingredients. But this flower, we find Christ Was he not bruised for us, the Bible says in Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53, five says, but he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. Christ was bruised for us. He was bruised between the millstones. I mean, think about his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. Think about all that he went through leading up to the cross after that. And then his death on the cross. Christ was bruised for us. That flower that resulted from bruising was in his life. But as we sit here today and say, we're living sacrifice to God, are we willing that that flower be present in our life? Are we willing to be bruised for others? It's amazing that Christ, after he was bruised, then he became the bread of life. He became the bread of life that we are now able to partake of and receive eternal life. And you sit there and you say, yes, I'm a Christian. Yes, I've surrendered to God. You've received the bread of life. But are you even willing that the Lord bruise you so that you can be used for him? Are you willing to be bruised? This flower must be present in our life. We must have this flower as part of our sacrifice. If our sacrifice is going to be acceptable to God, it must be there. But the second ingredient that I want to talk to you about this morning is the oil. If you look in verse two, the Bible says his offering shall be a fine flower and he shall pour oil upon it. The oil here is representative of the Holy Spirit. We see this throughout the Old Testament. Oil representing the Holy Spirit of God. And in Matthew 3 we find that Jesus has just been baptized by John and he comes up out of the water and the Bible says that the heavens were opened This is verse 16, the heavens were opened unto him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon him. And lo, a voice from heaven saying, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. With the descension of that Holy Spirit in the form of a dove upon him, God the Father says of his Son there publicly, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And I think, well, at salvation, we've received the Holy Spirit of God. So yes, this oil is present in a sense, but is it controlling our lives? Ephesians 5.18 talks about to not be drunk with wine, but to be filled with the Spirit, to be controlled with the Spirit. And my question for you here this morning is, Is your living sacrifice controlled by the Spirit of God? Is that oil present in your sacrifice? Because if it's not, God the Father cannot look down and say, you know, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Yes, you are His beloved Son, God loves you, but is your sacrifice pleasing to Him? Does it bring a sweet-smelling savor to the nostrils of God? Or are you just living in the flesh? You know, if you're not controlled by the Spirit, you're controlled by the flesh. If you want your life to be an acceptable living sacrifice to God, the Holy Spirit must be a daily ingredient in your life. Now, as Christians, there is an ingredient that we like to add to the sacrifice that does not belong. In fact, no meat offering to the Lord, the Bible says, in Verse number 11 says, This is an ingredient that we like to add that God says cannot be present. And maybe ladies, there's that ingredient that you like to add to your recipes, your, you know, whatever you bake or whatever. I'm making cookies for league meetings tomorrow and Ellie doesn't know it, but I'm actually going to add an ingredient that the recipe doesn't call for and I'll probably mess up and it'll all be a disaster. No, I'm just kidding. I'm not going to add any ingredients. But there are sometimes ingredients that maybe you like to add to make it taste better. But this is an ingredient that we absolutely cannot add to our sacrifice. But we do. This leaven represents the world. It's a type of something evil. And we have this salvation and we say, you know, I'm surrendered to the Lord. Maybe you surrendered to the Lord last week and you said, God, my life is yours. Maybe you did it when you were 14 years old like me. We add this leaven, this ingredient that does not belong to the recipe. And that sacrifice cannot be accepted by God with the leaven. We have to get the leaven out of our lives. Some of you seniors here, you know God's calling your life. You claim to be surrendered to Him, and you even know what God wants you to do when you graduate. You're ready to go out there, and your sacrifice is gonna be accepted by your wife. Man, she doesn't know about that leaven in your life, that hidden sin. Your sacrifice is gonna be accepted by that ministry. They don't know about that leaven in your life, that hidden sin. But you know what? You can be in the ministry for 10 years, have a quote successful ministry, But all of that time that other people are pleased with you, God is saying, I'm not accepting your sacrifice. Your sacrifice is not pleasing to me. And you know, God forbid that you live your whole life and you serve God in whatever capacity and you reach the judgment seat of Christ someday and God is not able to say, well done thou good and faithful servant, because you lived your life in the flesh. You just couldn't get that leaven out of the sacrifice. It doesn't belong there. The Bible says in Galatians 6, 7, be not deceived. God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. We're gonna have acceptable sacrifice to the Lord. We have to get that leaven out of our lives. But the fourth ingredient I want you to see here is found in verse two, verse one and verse two. The Bible says his offering shall be a fine flour and he shall pour oil upon it and put frankincense thereon. Put frankincense thereon. You know, maybe you've said or heard other people say, maybe they've said it to you, your attitude stinks. And at all times in our lives, we've had points where our attitude stunk. And I think this morning we can easily compare this frankincense to the attitude of our sacrifice. Frankincense is a very precious, very fragrant perfume. And its fragrance is accentuated by heat. So the application of heat, the application of fire to it, really brings out the smell. And this frankincense was supposed to be part of the offering to make it smell good. Now, remember, God, he smells the sweet-smelling savor of the sacrifice as a whole. This frankincense is not here in the offering so that God smells the offering and it smells good. That's why I say it's the attitude of our offering, because that's what other people see. Other people see the outside. But here on the flip side, and this is the fifth ingredient, Something that was not supposed to be included was honey. In verse 11, the Bible says, Now, frankincense was that sweet smell, right, that the fire brought out. But honey is also sweet. Honey has a natural sweetness, though. And so many times we're tempted, and it's true. There is a natural sweetness that we all can have. Even lost people have a natural sweetness, okay? I mean, you've known lost people in your life who are just really nice people. There's a natural sweetness, right? But as Christians, that is not the sweetness that God wants us to have. That sweetness of honey, because do you know what? When the fire is applied to our lives, as it will be, as it may have been today, as it will be maybe tomorrow, the fire is going to be applied to our lives. And you know what? That honey, that honey sours when the fire is applied to it. It sours. It ferments. And yet on the flip side, the sweetness of that frankincense, when the fire is applied to it, it smells even sweeter. And, you know, if our sacrifice, if our living sacrifice is going to be accepted to God, if it's going to be acceptable to Him, we must have that frankincense to be the sweetness of our offering. It cannot be that natural sweetness of the honey. Man looks on the outward appearance, the Bible says in 1 Samuel 16, 7, but God looks on the heart. But it's important that in those moments when we are tried by that fire, when that fire tries us, people are watching and they're gonna say, if we have that fragrance of frankincense when the pressure's applied, when we have so much work that we can't handle anymore, when we have that paper that's due and we have no idea how we're gonna get it done, when we have that lazy coworker that we're just like, I cannot handle him, right? When the fire's applied, what sweetness is coming out of you? People are watching. And the outward appearance is important. The outward appearance is important, right? But God looks on the heart. Don't forget that. And Jesus gave us such a beautiful example of this in the Garden of Gethsemane. There he is and he knows what's coming and he prays to the Father. He says, Father, if thou be willing, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me. He knows what's coming, but despite that, he says, nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. The fire is being applied hotly, and Jesus emits that sweet fragrance of frankincense to his father. And again, as he hangs on the cross, in agony, he cries out, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Wow. I mean, when the fire is being applied as hotly as it can, he responded like that. But as a Christian here today, you say that your life is a living sacrifice to God. How are you responding when the fire is applied to your sacrifice? If you want your sacrifice to be accepted to God, it must have frankincense. So we've seen this morning that it must have flour. Your sacrifice must have this oil of the Spirit. It cannot have leaven. It must have frankincense. not honey, and lastly this morning, I want us to see the salt. In verse 13, the Bible says, and every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt. Three times he mentions it here, neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God, to be lacking from thy meat offering, with all thine offerings shalt thou offer salt. Salt is the ingredient of preservation. It preserves from corruption. and how necessary this ingredient is in our offering. Because, guys, we're a living sacrifice. See, we're a living, breathing sacrifice. And we can place ourselves on the altar to God, but you know what? We can jump right back off. And it's hard to stay on the altar. It's not an easy thing to be on the altar to the Lord as a living sacrifice, even just going back to the first point. I mean, you're going to be bruised for others And you're going to be broken by the Lord if you're a living sacrifice. How do we stay on the altar? We have to be preserved by salt. Well, what is that salt? Well, is it not the word of God? Is it not the word of God that which preserves us? Is it not that which helps us to grow as Joram was preaching about? It's the word of God that will keep us on the altar, that will preserve us there. Do you memorize the word of God? Do you spend time in God's word every day? Do you do your devotions? All those things are important. They're essential. in our Christian walk, they're essential for us to stay on the altar. However, understand this morning that your sacrifice will not be preserved just because you spend time in God's word. It's not just reading the Bible, memorizing scripture that preserves your sacrifice. The word of God is your anchor, but the Word is Jesus Christ. The Bible says the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Jesus Christ is that Word. Be in the Word, yes, but do you have fellowship with the Word? Do you have fellowship with Christ? It's that daily walk that will keep you on the altar. It's that daily walk that will preserve your sacrifice to the Lord. Yes, reading your Bible is important, but you can We can all attest to the fact that we've read our Bible, got nothing out of it, walked away and said, all right, I did that, good. I'm walking with God. We're not walking with God. You must walk with the Lord if your sacrifice is going to be preserved upon the altar. You must have that fellowship with the Lord if you're gonna have, if your sacrifice is gonna be accepted to God. That is what will preserve your living sacrifice. Is there salt in your sacrifice this morning? Is that salt present? It's absolutely essential. This morning, we've looked at this meat offering. And the title of my message this morning is An Offering Meat for the Lord. Is your offering acceptable to God? You would sit there, many of you, and say, yes, I have offered my life to God. I am a living sacrifice. I've surrendered to Him. But are these ingredients present in your sacrifice? Because if they're not, that living sacrifice that you've offered to God is not even acceptable to him. It's not a sweet smelling savor in his nostrils. Do you have this morning that fine flower? Are you willing to be bruised for others? Are you willing to be broken for the Lord? Do you have that oil? Is the Holy Spirit of God controlling your life? You can't have the leaven along with the oil. It doesn't work. You can't have the world and be controlled by the Holy Spirit of God. How about the frankincense? When the fires apply, when the trials come, do you give off that sweet fragrance? Do you give off a sweet fragrance to the Lord, to those around you? It can't be the honey. The honey will curdle. Do you have that salt preserving your offering this morning? Because right after the service, you know, you could jump right off the altar. Though you may say you're surrendered, I hope that you are surrendered this morning to the Lord. I hope these ingredients are present in your life because I know that I want my offering to be accepted by God. But is your living sacrifice this morning accepted to God? I hope that it is.