Living Sacrifices: Embracing Holiness and True Worship

he says present yourself a Living Sacrifice now that's a contradictory phrase that phrase is contradiction present yourself alive living but present yourself a sacrifice dead sacrifices were killed you put sacrifices on the altar when Christ is a sacrifice he died on the cross sacrifices are killed he said present your body as a living dead thing as a Living Sacrifice how can you be living and dead at the same time [00:00:24]

perhaps Paul can help us here and the great scripture where he says in Galatians 2 20 I'm crucified with Christ I'm dead nevertheless I live I'm alive yet not I because I'm dead it's Christ who lives in me so I'm alive well how you doing both Paul well he says in Galatians 2 20 the life which I now live I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me [00:01:00]

so if Paul was standing here today and you would have asked Paul Paul what are you playing what are your plans Paul would say I don't have any until God gives them to me if you Paul were here you say well what are your goals well he says I'm waiting to get instructions from the Lord so that I know what my goals are to be to put it another way it means dying to self and living to him choosing him over you [00:01:31]

he says present your body a Living Sacrifice he also says presented holy now the word holy is a little different than the word righteous righteous has to do with the standard of right and wrong so it's sin versus that which is not sinful that's that's righteous holy is a unique term it is uh a defining term of God God is never called love love love truth truth truth righteous righteous righteous but he is called holy holy holy holy to the third power [00:02:11]

the word holy means to be set apart as unique there's one whole book in the Bible that deals with the Holiness of God it doesn't get a lot of attention because of its uh uh ceremonial emphasis and that's the Book of Leviticus where the Holiness of God is emphasized God puts up a no trespassing sign to not trample on his holiness and three concepts are there that help us understand holiness [00:02:59]

one concept is profane the other concept is common and the other concept is Holy perhaps we can explain it this way your dishes in the sink are profane they're dirty that's why they're in the sink you've eaten off of them you put them in the sink because they have gotten dirt on them we'll call those the profane dishes the dishes in your kitchen cupboard are common because they're the ones you regularly use [00:03:33]

but in this other room the dining room is a whole nother set of dishes those are holy dishes though the holy plates cups sauces cause those aren't used commonly you don't use those every day those are for special guests special occasions they have been set apart as special or unique not as common and certainly not as profane when the Bible uses the word holy about God it refers to his uniqueness and set apart [00:04:13]

he says I beg you Brethren to give all of you to all of him to surrender yourself to God then he says this is your spiritual service of worship That's How The New American Standard says it if you have a King James version it says which is your reasonable service but the Greek word there is a worship term he says your spiritual service of worship is in your total surrender not your church attendance [00:05:31]

so you could be in church but not worshiping because you aren't surrendered without the surrender there is not the worship so unless there is the willingness of yielding all of me to all of him then you can wave your hand in the air like you just don't care but you're not worshiping you can shout you can sing you can speak the word you can amen but it is not worship if it's not including surrender [00:06:10]

he says be not conformed to this world now we did a whole sermon on world the world and worldliness we won't go over all of that today but let me summarize when the Bible speaks of the cosmos the world it is referring to that system headed by Satan that leaves God out whenever God is excluded you have become worldly the world speaks of a system an organized system of values [00:06:47]

you and I live in a world that is trying to pressure us to conform to its values it's trying to squeeze us to accept its World Views it's time trying to press us to walk away from What God Says and operate on what society says it is trying to force us to jettison the truth of God for the lives of culture and you hear it all the time you hear Christians caving into the pressure because they don't want to be canceled [00:08:19]

I was in New York a number of years ago and I was walking on 34th Street and I passed Macy's and there was a crowd outside the window at Macy's pretty big crowd and so inquiring minds want to know I was curious why are all these people outside of Macy's when I walked around and looked everybody was looking at this statue in the window it was a living statue and the only reason you knew it is because the eyes were blinking [00:11:17]