r12-Living Sacrifice

 

Scripture Romans 12 (NLT)

12 And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.

12 ^1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. (The  Message)

The mother of a 9-year-old boy named Mark received a phone call in the middle of the afternoon.

It was the teacher from her son’s school.

“Mrs. Smith, something unusual happened today in your son’s third grade class. Your son did something that surprised me so much that I thought you should know about it immediately.”

The mother began to grow worried.

The teacher continued, “nothing like this has happened in all my ears of teaching. This morning I was teaching a lesson on creative writing. And as I always to, I tell the story of the ant and the grasshopper;

“The ant works hard all summer and stores up plenty of food. But the grasshopper plays all summer and does no work.

Then winter comes. The grasshopper begins to starve because he has no food. So he begins to beg, “Please Mr. Ant, you have so much food. Please let me eat, too?” then I said, “Boys and girls, your job is to write the ending of the story.”

Your son, Mark, raised his hand. “Teacher, may I draw a picture?”

“Well yes, Mark, if you like, you may draw a picture. But first you must write the ending to the story.”

“As in all the  years past, most of the students said the ant shared his food through the winter, and both the ant and the grasshopper lived.

A few children wrote, “No, Mr. Grasshopper, you should have worked in the summer. Now, I have just enough food for myself.” So the ant lived and the grasshopper died.”

But your son ended the story in a different way from any other child, ever.

He wrote, “So the ant gave all of his food to the grasshopper; the grasshopper lived through the winter. But the ant died.”

“And the picture? At the bottom of the page, Mark had drawn three crosses.”

All of us in here have a default setting. Look how most of the children responded, “The grasshopper deserved to die.” The other popular answer was “the ant shared with the grasshopper and they both lived.” Most of us in here would agree that there is nothing wrong with either of their answers.

But little Marky in this story  reveals the evidence of a transformed life.

The evidence of a  transformed life is a willingness to be a living sacrifice so that
others may live.

What does it mean to be a living a sacrifice? It basically means we sacrifice something or ourselves to give someone else life.

One of our default settings is getting what we think we deserve and giving what we think others deserve.

Being a living sacrifice is about loving others who you think don’t  deserve to be loved.

I John 4:11 says, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.”

John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only son.” Not because we deserved it but he willfully gave his life.

Romans 5:8 says But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

The evidence of a transformed life is the fact that you believe everyone deserves to be loved. You believe that, “if God can love me, He can love anybody!”

• Think of the most annoying person you know – They deserved to be loved
• Think of the person who has hurt you the most – They deserved to be loved.

We don’t have to be their best friend. But when you love them it gives God the opportunity to transform their life.

There is a true story about a man named Jim Elliot.  Back in 1950 He was one of the missionaries that went to the Auca Indians to evangelize the Huaorani people  in Ecuador. People who had never heard the gospel before. It was such a profound story that they made a movie out of it called the End of the Spear.

Let me set up this scene you are about to watch. They had been dropping packages from the sky to the people for a while to show them that they were a friendly people and meant no harm. They finally decide to go and meet them.

Here is what happened next. Watch the clip here.

This is not the end of the story. Jim’s wife, Elizabeth, went back to the area where her husband was killed. She met the man who killed her husband – and eventually he became a Christ follower. Despite them killing her husband, these people deserved to be loved. Elizabeth Elliot and a team of other ladies went and loved them and eventually a whole tribe was born again.

Everyone deserves to know they are loved by God. Whether they love Him back is up to them Everyone deserves to know that Christ loved them so much that he died for them. Everyone deserves to be loved by another human being.

The evidence of a person whose life has been transformed is the willingness to love those who don’t deserve to be loved. There is a little song that reminds us that they will know we are Christians by the way we love.

When you love others who you don’t think deserve it   – something changes inside of you. Your love might not affect them at all but it will affect you. You will be changed.

I Peter 4:10 tells us “God has given each of you the  you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another

Philippians 2:3-4  tells us, “Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble , thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.

A couple of Thursdays ago, someone wronged me. I called them up and let this
person know they had wronged me. They didn’t show up on time. They caused me to be late to an important meeting. While waiting here at the church for him to show up, I called them and asked where they were at. I rudely told him
that his incompetence cost me a ½ hour.  I was hot. I was angry and I let him know that he was the cause of me being late and I hung up on him.

That was real Christian love,  wasn’t it? I was right! He had caused me to be late for an important meeting! I had every right to let him have it! But I was rude. Looking out for my own interest. There wasn’t an ounce of humility in my body.

I went to my default setting which is to verbally crucify someone who has wronged me. I shared this with two wonderful people. They both told me I need to call him back and ask for forgiveness.

I did!

Who do you think was changed in that moment? Both of us.

Being a living sacrifice is about allowing your default settings (the way you were programmed)  to die in you and allowing Christ to live in you and becoming a living sacrifice.

This starts the transformation!

Paul pleads with us to give our everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.

Stop your complaining and start your confessing where you fall short.

Stop your taking from God and give yourself as a living sacrifice.

Why? Because of all he has done for you! Jesus gave his everyday, ordinary life and willingly placed it before God as an offering.

He is pleading with us to let our default settings die and begin to give life to those around us who don’t deserve it.

He is asking us to being a living sacrifice!