The Letter to the Romans: Message #9 – Chapter 15 – Christian Unity, Acceptance, and the Living Sacrifice

If you ever make it on this altar, it becomes real.  Really, really real, and your chances of escaping are very slim. Romans is like a great mountain peak. And it reaches chapter 12, 1-2: a total demand of all your life to Him, or His will in the universe; not His universal will but His will in the universe, and for you to know that will, and for you to do this corporately, and this can’t even be done…it’s not for the individual. It’s for the church. To present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is the only reasonable way you’ll ever worship Him, and be not conformed to this world, but be changed by the renewing of your mind. That’s a permanent cross and a permanent beholding.

Present your body as a living sacrifice. Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And only Jesus Christ can take this old mind and make it a young, new mind. I’m going to say it again and again: you must do this corporately, when you give up your will, when you give up your will, when you give it up corporately, when you give up your life, now and for the rest of your life. Now, sister, I don’t know what you hold on to. It may be you’re just dying to get married, and probably you will, probably to one of these ugly brothers. Say, Lord, I give you my life as a living sacrifice, but I demand that I get married. And brothers, you cannot come and say I don’t want to be married, ever, ever, ever. I want to live for the Lord alone, and I give my life as a living sacrifice only on the grounds that I never get married.  You don’t come with a postscript to anything. You don’t come holding on to some of the desperate things in your life and your imagination.

Lord, talk to me. Talk to all of us. Talk to me, Lord, those things that only I know, those things that only you know. You come to that altar as a sacrifice that is consumed; you become a living sacrifice on this earth, in the house of God, for God’s eternal will and for His working out His change, His transformation in you by your coming to Him, beholding him as a mirror which changes and transforms your mind, and it takes about 50 years. And it takes about 50 years. And Gene, there aren’t any shortcuts. All those shortcuts lead to something less and lead away from Him. 50 Years hanging on a cross is a long time. Actually, I used the wrong word; it’s not hanging on a cross. It’s living on an altar. Now I said to you, brother Stanley, and I said to Linda, and I said to Alex, because I have a responsibility to make sure that God’s people keep on beholding, and that doesn’t exempt you either. Well, I’m going to do my own words here.

By the way, I would like to come back sometime and talk to you about beholding the Lord, and I would like to do that for my sake. I’m giving you an assignment. The biggest assignment you’ll ever have in your life. I’m giving you an altar, and I’m telling you to deal with it. I’m pointing to you the motivations of your heart, and I’m telling you to deal with them. I am pointing to you the ambitions that you have for your own personal life, and I’m saying, you deal with it and your relationship to the church in Rome, and I am not talking about the Roman Catholic Church. I’m talking about the Italians who lived in Rome in 56 AD. What are you doing there? Some of you were sent there by Paul. Some of you just tripped in and loved the meeting, but I’m telling you that that church in Rome is the perfect will of God. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies, a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service or worship. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you might know the good and perfect will of God. And His will is His bride; His eternal purpose is that there might be one who is one with Him. She is His will. His eternal purpose is her. She is the mystery; she is His heartbeat.

And when the body is offered up, when the desire to grasp that will is accepted, when it is done corporately together, when you open to your Lord the motives and the depths of your life, when you open to Him to change your temperament, and your temper, and your meanness, and your goodness, and your kindness, and your gentleness, and your sweetness, and your lying, and your being too truthful, and being quiet and being loud, and all of those dark things in there that none of us really want anybody else to know about, that are in all of us.. And you open all of that to Him and say, Lord, with my brothers and my sisters, not alone, but with my brothers and sisters, I offer my life together with them, for the working out of internal things in my life by you, Lord. That I might be transformed, and in my mind, being made new by you, I will grasp no experience except that which is your will, for the next verses talk about the body of Christ. It doesn’t talk about you being happy, and successful, and well-adjusted; it talks about the body of Christ. I am offering you a corporate altar.

Now we’re going to have a little prayer, but this is something you want to do some serious consideration about, and I think Alex will probably want to say some things to you, as he said some time to reflect on it, but I’m going to say one thing to you. Alex, you’re very creative, and you may be able to deliver to all of you a simpler way of doing this, but I would like to ask each of you to get alone with the Lord and go over your relationship to His will, which is His church. Go over with Him all of these things you’re holding onto. Take a good look at that cross and tell Him you accept it, no matter what it is. You won’t be putting up your hands and getting free from it, and you accept a lifetime of coming to have your mind made new again and again and again, because it does tend to get old. Acknowledge to Him that you’re going to have to live your life in the face of Christ Jesus, and that you want to, and that you’re prepared for Him to take you along. Maybe nobody else is on this earth, but your life is His, now and forever.

I’m not telling you to be a missionary, I’m not suggesting that…this is not something where Baptists come down and give your life to Christ. I am speaking about a total, total sacrifice of your life to His will, to His house, and to His working in you all the rest of your life, come hell, come, high water, come, death, come disease, come marriage, come children; come those crisis moments when you scream, “Lord, this is one thing, thing I cannot do, Lord, this is one thing I cannot give up”.

I’m going to ask you to write Him a letter. You may have to go back and read Romans 12:1-2 a couple of times to remember everything that’s just been said. I’m going to ask you to write Him a letter, seal that letter up, and no one else is to read this. Do you hear me? With the darkest, deepest, ugliest things, things right now that have got hold of you, things you’re about to do, you know you ought to do. Write it all down, put it in a letter. I don’t know if you can do this in this room, but somehow, I want to ask you to get a fire, and you take your life – not just your motives, but your whole life, and everything you know, and everything you don’t know about yourself. Everything.  And you tell Him: I am making my life a living sacrifice for you, and for your eternal Word. And with all the seriousness for which you’re capable, come in here, or wherever you’re going to do it, and burn that thing. And as it’s burning, make your life wholly His; if you can’t do that, you ought to go join a Baptist church.

I’m going to ask you to do something they don’t, and it’s just the same thing we have been doing. You remember I said, “Do you have a prayer?” If you have a prayer, come down here and do just a little praying. I’m going to ask you to be just as unreligious as you possibly can, would you? And as unaffected in your praying as possible, and talk to the Lord, straight out of your heart, just in ordinary, common, shirt-sleeve English, if you have a prayer. Brother Alex, I don’t know when they’re going to do this, when you’re going to do it, but I’d like to ask that you, brothers and sisters, take some time alone, maybe some time with some other brothers and sisters,  but sometime in the next few days, a corporate coming together—not only you, but all your brothers to lay one corporate life on the altar. It’s the only reasonable thing you’ll ever do. It is the most reasonable for you, then believe, because it’s true that you’re His and you’ve been made a chained slave, and He has control of your life.

And expect the cross.

Does anybody have anything they want to ask or say? This is the book of Romans.