Two discipleship words

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I'm sure you have your Bibles there, and if you do, would you turn with me to Romans chapter 12? We're just focusing on a couple of verses, and we're using them as our springboard this morning, Romans 12, 1 and 2. It goes this way, I therefore urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this will, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, this good, perfect and pleasing will. Let's pray. Father God, we pray those familiar words from St. Richard, day by day, three things we pray, to see you more clearly, to love you more dearly, and to follow you more dearly day by day. Amen. In fact, whatever else I say this morning, I want to couch it in these two words and encourage you to remember these two words, mercy and grace. So Paul has written in verse 1, here, therefore I urge you, brothers and mercies, in view of God's mercy, and then down again in verse 3, he says, for by the grace given to me. So what's operating here is very much God's mercy and God's grace, that's a context. Now we're going to revert back to the text. I don't know why some versions miss the word, but it's there, and certainly the version which I read this morning, the very first word in Romans 12 and verse 1 is, therefore. And we all know that when we see, therefore, we have to ask a question, what is it, therefore? What's it, therefore? And it's therefore because it's a connecting word from what goes before and what goes after. So what we have read this morning actually reaches back into chapter 11. Now you will be aware, of course, that when Paul wrote Romans, that he didn't have chapters and verses. And it's a bit unfortunate that in round of 1200 and something, when a man, whatever his name was, decided to divide the Bible up into chapters, that he made this chapter division here at this particular point where we missed the connection between chapter 11 and chapter 12, by the way, verses, came about 300 years later in 1500 and something. All that for no extra cost. But we have to ask the question, what is the therefore, therefore? And immediately when we go back and we read chapter 11 or the end of chapter 11, you'll be saying, ah, David referred to this last time he preached. Immediately you see that didn't you? No, you didn't. Some of you were sound asleep when I preached last time. No, it was last year, so I remember all of that. But when we looked at Romans chapter 11, at the end of it we referred to it, we were talking about the character of God and we talked about these two aspects of God that he was transcended, that God is so big and so wonderful, so big for our minds to actually capture and to grasp and to understand, and yet he's also imminent that his God is personally present. So this great big God who's out there is also personally present with us right here. Now that ought to really boggle our minds. When we read this picture, this word picture which Paul painted for us in this doxology at the end of chapter 11, we get this amazing picture of God. Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out, who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counsellor, who has ever given to God that God should repay him, for from him and through him and to him are all things to him be the glory forever and ever. It's just pause for a moment to allow that to sink in, this magnificent picture of God. And when Paul sees this or writes this magnificent picture of God, he lays it out for his readers to grasp and to take in and then he says, therefore, because we have this great God who's both transcendent and imminent, therefore present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. Now when we talk about sacrifice, we often have this very unbiblical view of sacrifice. We sometimes think of sacrifice as things which we have to give up and that's the end of the story. We have to sacrifice something in order for something else. But the focus often is on what we have had to give up. And so we can get this rather skewed idea of what sacrifice is all about. But I want to tell you this morning or to show you that the biblical concept of sacrifice is actually a voluntary surrendering of something of value to benefit from something of even greater value. See we give up something for something far, far better. Let's not forget that second part. I mean a current idea might be I think there's a wedding here this afternoon, someone's getting married. The groom has already been out in the last while and spent 10 years of wages on buying an engagement ring and a wedding ring. And that's the sacrifice he's given up whatever but for something far better, a bride, a wife, a shared life together. Well we think of the Israelites who had to make sacrifice in the Old Testament where they had to give up something, this sacrificial lamb, this pure unblemished lamb, had to give that up, voluntary sacrifice it for something better. What was it something better? The forgiveness of sins. And so when Paul says to you and to me, when God says to you and me today, in view of God's mercy, I encourage you, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, yes there is a giving up of something but it's a giving up something for something far better. Today I want to talk about two discipleship words. Two words, this doesn't sum up the whole aspect of discipleship but they are two important things about discipleship. I'm going to mention one of them is more so in passing and they're focused on the second one. And so much so, I want you to remember these two words, so much so that I want your pastors, our pastors to be asking us periodically, what are the two discipleship words that David talked about? We can put the pastors on the spot and ask them, what were the two discipleship words which David talked about? Our discipleship group leaders and to also ask each other what are these two words? The first word is the word love. This is an important discipleship word. John 13, 34 and 35, Jesus said to his disciples, in new commandment I give to you that you love one another, why, how? As I have loved you, by this everyone will know that you are what? My disciples, by the love you have for one another. So we might be asking ourselves a question if we consider that verse, what's new about this new commandment? Because we can go back in the Old Testament, the idea or the command to love one another respect there, but what's new about it is this, Jesus is saying I want you to love other people in the same way that I love you. That's a new part of it, is to love other people in the same way that Jesus has loved us. If we demonstrate the love of Jesus, then people around about will know that we are his disciples. Now I want to say something, I'm not saying this to anyone in particular, but I'm saying it to every one of us in general, is that we all need to do a bit of work on making ourselves more lovable, you know what I mean? Just by our actions, by our attitudes, by words, our conversations, all of these things, we could probably all do a bit more in making ourselves a bit more lovable, but the emphasis here with Jesus is saying it's not on ourselves being lovable, but on us loving others as Jesus loved others. There are some people who are very easy to love, you'd agree with that? And so we look at the person, he or a she, and say, it's so easy to love that person in the way that Jesus loved them. But what Jesus is saying is this, is that I want you to love people in the way that I have loved people. So how do we think about Jesus' love? Well I was thinking, well perhaps one way of looking at it is in the parable that Jesus told about the good Samaritan. You know the story well, there's Blake travelling from Jerusalem down Jericho, got some thugs on the way, beat him up, left him for dead, and along came a couple of religious people, saw him pass the other side of the road, kept going, and along came this Samaritan and tended to this guy's needs. So we suppose we think about all the hindrances that are there for this Samaritan to do what he did in the story which Jesus told, demonstrating implicitly the love which Jesus showed. Well he didn't want to get involved, could it be one thing that he said, he could have said, why should I get involved, move on, or you know he's a Jew and I'm a Samaritan and I'm just careful about helping people of different ethnicity, of different cultures. That's a big issue in society today, it's about different cultures, different issues. Last cat I did in our congregation, we've got people who are born in about 20 different countries in this congregation, so I'm sure it's not an issue for us. Or he could have said, well I've actually got my agenda, I'm on a journey here, and I don't know whether I can afford the time to give up, or later on we know that it costs some money that he paid for this guy's upkeep, so it was costly for him in that way as well. So there's all these reasons, all these excuses that the Good Samaritan could have used but he didn't use one of them. Instead when he saw this man there, he needed help, he loved him, he showed and demonstrated the love of Jesus in seeing to this guy's needs. Now I want to encourage us, I want to more than encourage, I want to challenge you that this week try to find somebody who's not easy to love and show the Jesus love to them. It's by that sort of love that everyone will know that we are the disciples of Jesus by the love we have for others. So that's one word, love. Another word we need to look at is this word different, and this is what Raymond's 12, 1 and 2, going on a bit further, is talking about. Is talking about how God's people aren't to be different from those roundabout about them. There's been a few times that I can think of a couple in particular of where there have been actually Christian leaders who have said to me, I need to be like people roundabout me so I can share the gospel with them. And I've challenged them on that and a couple of occasions, challenged them and they say oh no, no, I've got to be like them. But the call of Jesus is to be different and I also want to say to you as well that unless you are different, then people won't take much notice of you anyway. Let me tell you the story. You were aware that when I was a young fella about 100 years ago that I was in the army and a particular place where I was posted at one place, there was a couple of chaplains there, different denominations. I knew them sort of both of them reasonably well. One of them I knew well because he was our coach for the football code which I was playing down in Melbourne at the time. And I knew him from that perspective and he had this reputation of swearing like the proverbial trooper and drinking like the proverbial fish. And everybody used to say he is just like one of us. This is another chaplain who is an evangelical bloke. He used to get alongside of guys as well but he was different. How different? Well just one example, I remember being at a formal dinner one time and at this formal dinner he was sitting sort of opposite down a bit from me where I could observe him and he wasn't aware that I was observing him I guess. But the staple drink was wine being handed out to all the soldiers because this being a formal dinner. When it came to him he asked whether there was anything else being offered and when he was told no it was just wine or go without he just asked politely, you might if I just have a glass of water which he was served at. Now the difference is this is that one was like and everybody said isn't he a good chaplain he's just like one of us but the other bloke was different. And I noticed this time and time and time again that when soldiers were in trouble to the point where they needed to talk with the chaplain, who did they turn to, always turned to the guy who is different. In fact this is important for us to understand and to grasp that if we're going to make an impact in the world for the kingdom, for Jesus sake, it's not a case of us being like the world but obeying the call of Jesus to be different from the world. See even in the Old Testament times Jesus, God called his people out to be different. Considering when I was preparing this just thinking about the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 and I encourage you to read Matthew 5-7 thinking in these terms of difference and what I find at this occurring theme it's not the major focus of course but well it depends how you look at it but one of the things coming again and again and again in the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus calling his people to be different, to be different. You are the salt of the earth. When you pray don't be like others, you are the light of the world. You have heard it said but I say unto you and time and time again in Matthew 5-7 as well as elsewhere in the Bible of course is this call of Jesus to his people to be different. And of course in 1 Peter 1.16 the scriptures say you must be holy, we must be like God because he is holy and so we need to make this choice in life. We need to choose as God's people, we need to choose to be different because it's in verse 2 Paul says do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. How do we know when we are being transformed because you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good pleasing and perfect will. You see Paul is reminding us and God is telling us too is that there is this choice. We can either be conformed to this culture which you just talked about a bit or we can be transformed to Christ's likeness. And you see the gap between being conformed to this world and being transformed into Christ's likeness, the gap is huge. How huge? Well it's very, very what? It's different. And this verse is saying to us to present our bodies as living sacrifices so that we are different from the world in which we live. You see this idea of transformation being Christ-like is not an issue just for today but it's a problem in Bible times as well. You read the Old Testament, people wanting to go their way rather than God's New Testament as well. And I would suggest that we need to cultivate a healthy dissatisfaction, put that in inverted commas, a healthy dissatisfaction with our spiritual lives. Romans 8 verses 5 to 8 reads this way. Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds, see that's a thinking there. Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on sinful desires. But those who live in accordance with the spirit have their minds set on what the spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death but the mind controlled by the spirit is life and peace. The sinful mind is hostile towards God. It does not submit to God's law nor can it do so. These controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. See we are encouraged today and Paul said to the church at rape, I urge you brothers and sisters. And how does it happen? Well it comes about through mind renewal. It's there a few times, the word mind and think and think again in verses 2 and 3. We find in the Bible that the word mind includes our thoughts, our will, emotions. And we need to be doing several things. We need to open our life to God's searching. Search me O God and name my thoughts and my heart today. We need to dwell on God's word Hebrews 4-12 because a word of God is incisive and can look at the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Beware of daydreaming, focus on the right things. Question that we might want to ask ourselves is that if I'm going to be different is that going to make life really boring? Had this guy say to me one time he said I don't know whether I want to be a Christian because it's too restricting if I'm going to live the Christ like life, it's too restricting. I can't do these other things. So I turned it around and I said so what you're saying is that the life you want to live is actually too restricting. It won't give you the freedom to be able to live as God wants you to live. There's this pause and you say yeah I guess you're right, of course I'm right. You see it's a choice of one or the other of living to please God or living to please ourselves and others, of being conformed to the pattern of this world or being transformed by the renewing of our mind that we become more and more like Jesus. So the question is does this make life more boring? Especially when you look at a verse like Jesus said in John 8, 36, say if the Son makes you free you are unquestionably free, really? Isn't life going to be restricting as a Christian? I like these couple of verses in 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 6-12 says everything is permissible for me. What does it say? Everything is permissible for me but not everything is helpful. Everything is permissible for me but I'll not be bought under the control of anything. A couple of chapters later 1 Corinthians 10-23 Paul says again everything is permissible but not everything is helpful. Everything is permissible but not everything builds up. What's that mean? Well as a Christian you're free to do whatever you want to. That's what the Bible tells us but there are these limitations from these couple of verses. All things are possible but I will not engage in things which are unhelpful or which may hurt others or myself. Secondly, I will not subject myself to anything that is addictive. That's that drugs, habits, pornography, the list goes on and on. And thirdly, I will not engage in anything that doesn't build up that is it's destructive. So one of our two discipleship words, our two discipleship words are love and different. The story that I'm through I've told this incident previously years gone by and say if you remember it you won't mind if I tell it again. Different church at a different time whereas pastoring just a set out was a bit like this is that if this was the church we lived on the church property over behind the church my office was up here behind the platform area. Used to be good by the way, could come out on the platform, lie down, book under the thing and do my sermon prep. One day I fell asleep. One of the deacons came in, saw me asleep on the thing and he was so kind as not to wake me up. He wasn't so kind as not to tell everybody in the church about it, however. That's not the story. But this is had an outside door into my office but because of our houses that was the most convenient just to be able to duck through the back door come down the front. One time I came in and communion table was down here and there was a raise on the communion table. That's interesting having a raise there, maybe got left over from the flowers on Sunday. Anyway that happened a few times I'd come in and find a raise to the point where I started getting a bit puzzled about this raise being there. One time I came in and there's a raise on the communion table and there's this young single mum sitting in the front row. Let me tell you a bit about her. She'd arrived in Townay North Queensland from Interstate in this old beat up Te Rana which I wondered how it would ever even get a couple of Ks to have it, she'd driven Interstate. She's this woman who had this little toddler who's still in Nappy's and her mind was sort of pickled somewhat from drug abuse and alcohol and somehow she rocked up in our church and she didn't have a clue about life and didn't have a clue about mothering and the women in the church just gathered around her and loved her as Jesus loved her. She so much didn't have a clue that remember one time that I even went to children's services or whatever it was called at that time it was threatening to take the baby off her and made representations for her to the head guy in town and so on and said all these things we were doing and anyway but the women gathered around and just showed her the love of Jesus, showed her how to mother and she became a follower of Jesus and there was just this gradual change in her life and I came in and I said so you're the one who's been putting the rose on the communion table and she said yes and I said why are you doing that? She said I'm just so thankful for what God has done for me, I want to show him my thanks so grabbed my Bible and set me aside and I said I can't even begin to imagine how much God thinks what he thinks about your offering to him but I just want to show you a better way and opened up Bible 2, Romans 12, 1 and 2, present your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God. Well Christmas is over and there's one Christmas song which we sing which is a terrible, terrible song, it's not only theologically bad but it's practically bad too, you know the song about the little drummer boy who didn't have any gift to give to Jesus so he came along and said I want to play a drum solo for Jesus as a baby, now I encourage you to do the survey amongst all the mothers here after church this morning, when they had their baby who was just teething and was irritable and whatever all day and finally you get this little baby settled and in comes Paul who's been on the drums all morning and says I couldn't afford a gift but I've got these drums to play for him as a gift, parumpa pum pum, mate you're a dead meat if you do that. Jesus doesn't want your drums and he doesn't want your raise, Jesus wants you. Therefore in view of God's mercy I urge you brothers and sisters to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to him, let's pray. Some people are probably just keen to get out for a coffee or get home but I sensed this morning that it's a sacred and a holy moment for some folk who this morning are challenged to stop playing with Jesus, stop playing around to present your bodies, urgently, urging you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, if you're in that category this morning then in the quietness of this moment I'm not going to ask you to do anything publicly or say anything out loud, in the quietness of just where you're seated right now to do just that. God I'm offering myself, my body is a living sacrifice and I might be holy and acceptable to you, take me as I am and use me in whatever way, I might be your man, your woman doing your thing in your way. Help us to love as Jesus loved, to be different, like Jesus was different, for the kingdom's sake, for your sake Lord Jesus, we pray, Amen.