In View of God’s Mercy.
Bruce Chant
generation-j - Pulse
07/02/2003
Romans 12:1-2
1Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual [reasonable] act of worship.
Why do we do what we do?
Why do we sing? Why do we get together?
To get the year off on
the right foot I want to look at this – so we know why we are doing what we are
doing.
1. “In view
of God’s mercy”
In view of God’s mercy – having
in your sight, before your eyes, in your vision
– God’s mercy. God’s mercy is represented by who? Jesus
Jesus is God’s mercy
because even though He is God, He lived without sin, He never succumed to
temptation, He is perfect and lived a perfect life – he was punished for the
sins that you, me and all humanity has committed. By rights, our sin deserved
us the place on the cross that Jesus took.
God showed the world mercy that day. Jesus didn’t come into the world to comdemn it but to save it. The
world already stands condemned by the sinfulness and depravity we see all
around us. Why do we lock our doors? Sin. Why do we by alarms? Sin.
By having God’s mercy in view we can see God has done for
us amazing, incredible things. Before we even
were – God had already done.
2 Peter 1:3-4
3His divine power has given us everything we
need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his
own glory and goodness. 4Through these he has given us his very
great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the
divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
This is what God has said
– for us. An amazing gift.
Ephesians 1:4-5
4For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—
In view of God’s mercy to
us is this: God chose us! To be heirs to his throne. It was a pleasure for God
to chose us. How awesome is that.
The fact God chose us is
littered throughout scripture:
You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear
fruit–fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in
my name.
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's
womb.
Jeremiah 1:5
5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew [chose]
you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the
nations."
John 4:21-24
23Yet a time is coming and has now come when
the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are
the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24God is spirit, and his
worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
God initiates with us and we respond.
God is not lost. We are.
Although it is popular to say “yeah I was searching for God and I found him” –
you didn’t because the bible tells us he found us and chose us. We can’t say
“when I chose God...” – you didn’t. You might acknowledge your sins, your need
for God, but God chose you. It is Him who chose us, revealed His mercy – made
the first move – it our place to respond. How?
2. “... offer
your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your
spiritual [reasonable] act of worship.”
What is offer your life to is what you worship.
If it is taking your
thoughts ,
»
your time,
»
your energy,
»
your priorities,
»
your devotion,
»
your emotions,
»
your money,
»
your meaning to life
– then you worship it. Unless that
thing is the one true God – then it is Idolatry.
As a believer, your life is to be an offering to God. A sacrifice – which means you don’t want to do
stuff sometimes – but it is pruning so that you will be more fruitful.
Your body is not your own.
Sexual Immorality. Drug Use. Abortion. But it’s my body – not it’s not. Why?
God bought it for a price (Jesus). Worship costs. It can not be passive.
Jesus addressed the church of Laodecia in Revelation – he said because you are not hot or cold but
luke warm I’ll do what anyone would do and spit you out. God tells us he chose you according to his
pleasure and will – spewing warm water is not pleasurable (like coffee gone
cool, or water left in the car). Yuk! Our response is to offer our whole lives
to God as an act of worship.
But you say: “I’m busy it
is too hard I can’t I’ve got stuff to do I’m stress You don’t understand I
don’t have time I’ve got things to do I have issues It’s my parents fault my
boyfriends girlfriends wife husbands teachers driver instructors footy coach’s
fault i’m a victim i feel hurt from what has been done to me it’s not fair---”
God says: “this
is your spiritual [reasonable] act of worship”
3. “this is
your spiritual [reasonable] act of worship”
God says what I want of you is reasonable. He is not an unreasonable God – but what we want and
what God wants is not always the same thing.
Reasons win out over excuses any day. I want to eradicate excuses from this youth.
Excuses breed hipocrisy. Excuses dilute values to mere ideals (one I think we
should do and one I really do do).
Excuses elevate works above grace because it is what I can do for God that is
all the matters.
Excuses rob you of
reality by making you feel better for failure. God never destined you to fail –
He has already won.
But if you think it is up
to you then no wonder you’ve failed. God initiates we respond. Giving your life
and everything in it to God is hard but it is reasonable.
Our response to God is worship through the offering of
our bodies and lives to Him. This is reasonable:
Why do we sing songs of
praise and worship? To respond to God’s goodness to us.
Why do we give our money
to God? To respond to God’s blessing in our life.
Why do we serve God at
church and youth? To respond to what God has done for us
Why do we commit to being
open and honest in our faith before our friends who aren’t christians? Because
we want to be faithful to our Lord who saved us. It’s our response to Him.
We’re not doing God any favours – he doesn’t need us. But he has chosen us and that is by far more
wonderful than we can imagine.
Because of this we
don’t need hollywood christian superstars –
“if only the cast of home and away got saved” or “if only the lead singer ...
or the test cricketer... or the...” Why? God can use them but he can also use
the average guy and girl just as effectively.
Except if we think it’s
all about me and me giving God a hand to run the universe. “I’m not praising
tonight God I did that last week, get someone else to help”
“I’m not going to say
anything about you in front of my friends today God I did last time and well it
didn’t work, you failed, i didn’t get anything out of it”. If you think it’s
about you then you’ll act this way.
Our Response Together
Have you ever been
really, totally grateful for something to someone?
If you have you will do
anything – you are so happy.
When we get together – we
should be like that.
»
Joyful – God has given
us His joy. God gets the glory and that brings us joy.
»
Full of Awe – not flippant
about God and who he is (our little buddy).
»
Thankful –do you know
what you have to be thankful about?
»
Loving God – not for
the “stuff” we can get (two top selling books are prayer of jabez and left
behind – it says we want stuff and we want to go now – really that is bad
I want us to get our hearts on track for 2003.
It promises so much. We
must be bold and strong in evangelism. We must be hospitable and loving. We
must be wise in how we live our lives. We must above all else love God for who
he is and what he has done for us.
Think about these two
words:
Mission and Motive.
Mission comes before comfort.
Always
be thinking how can I see people saved – our response to God – this is your
reasonable act of worship.
It
comes ahead of and always confronts comfort. Therefore it is a decision.
What
is more important.
Do everything for these
motives: (1 Corinthians 10:24, 31, 33)
1.
So
God gets glory (it’s always about God) v31
2.
For
the good of others (mix with the culture and hold the gospel firm) v24
3.
So
that others might get saved. (we must see people get saved because the gospel
works – we must speak it live it and pray for it) v33
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