Abounding Grace

Pastor Ed Taylor: What does God want for you and me in this new year? Part of the answer includes greater sacrifice. That's next on Abounding Grace.

Guest (Male): Hey there, so glad you've joined us today on Abounding Grace. Today we get back into our series for the new year called Greater. Here in part four, we're talking about greater sacrifice. Perhaps like many, there are some things that are holding you back from giving yourself completely to the Lord.

Let's see how to get back on track through greater sacrifice. We're in Romans chapter 12 with Pastor Ed Taylor.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Now Paul says, "I want you to present yourself to Him." That's a technical term, by the way. It's a technical term that will tie us back to the book of Leviticus when the priests were being instructed on how to offer the sacrifices to God. They were to present the animal on the altar. They were to present the animal on the altar where the animal would be completely consumed, completely burned and consumed as an offering to the Lord.

Now, aren't you glad that's not what God's requesting here in the New Covenant? You don't need to bring an animal and you yourself don't need to get on the altar and be burned and consumed. The New Covenant now is for you and I to bring ourselves, present ourselves on the altar of worship, the altar of service, the altar of adoration, the altar of surrender, and stay alive.

And to live out your life, live out your surrendered life of obedience. That's the request. If you want to see substantive change in a new year in any situation, there's going to require greater sacrifice on your part. I can use the phrase holding nothing back.

It doesn't mean that we're going to be able to address every single situation, but I do know this: when you think of nothing, you have to also think of something that you're not willing to offer, something that's holding you back. Why you can't describe yourself as surrendering fully or yielding completely to the Lord.

You see, the animal being brought for sacrifice didn't have a choice. I don't know what the animal's thinking, but remember there were two on the Day of Atonement. There was one that would be presented on the altar, but there was that other one that the priest would lay his hands on his head and then let him go.

And the scapegoat would be able to run away, symbolically carrying the sins of the people. They could all watch the goat run away, and I'm sure the goat got halfway and went, "See you later." But I'm sorry for you, buddy, you're going to the altar, but I'm out of here. And here you are at the altar. The animals didn't have a choice. They got picked, they got carried. That's the way life was for them.

But for you and for me, I have a choice. It is my choice. God has reserved for me the make choices to either worship Him or not, to present myself to Him or not, to obey Him or not, to surrender to Him or not. And how often we miss out on wonderful things because we're not willing to completely, totally yield ourselves.

Isn't that what Jesus said? He looks out at Jerusalem and He's emoting over them. He's emotionally seeing the city. There's a place up on the Mount of Olives where you can see the entire city coming down, and the Dome of the Rock there in the city of Jerusalem. And I picture Jesus overlooking the city and saying, "How often I wanted to gather you," He says, "like a mother hen her chicks, but you were not willing."

How much we miss out on simply because we are not willing. We have reduced this dynamic, glorious relationship with God to something so much smaller than God ever intended. Some religious expression, we've made it so many other things than the dynamic, salvific, powerful leading and guiding presence of God in our lives. And we just present ourselves to Him, "Lord, whatever you have for us. What is it that you have for us?"

The person that gets in the way the most is ourselves. I know we give a lot of attention to other people and what they've done to us and all the difficulties in life and all the trials in life. I get that. But they are not the problem. We are.

I want to give you a tool as you're ministering to people. It's something that I've noticed in my life, maybe the last five, ten years, I don't know exactly. But as I'm talking with people and I'm listening to them, this just happened not only a month or two ago. I was talking to someone after service, one of those conversations where I said, "Hey, we should go sit down."

We're sitting down in one of the rows here and I'm listening, I'm open to the Holy Spirit. I'm listening to how they're describing the situation and then I pause. And here's the tool. You can use it too. It's a very powerful tool. I stop in the conversation, I see it's pretty heavy, and then I say something like this: "Hey, can I share something really hard with you right now?"

And almost always, somebody will give me their permission. They say, "Sure." And I want that permission because I want to be able to connect, because it is going to be hard. And in this particular one, I'll let you in on exactly what I shared. I said, "It sounds like you're acting really selfish right now. Have you seen that in your life?"

And they were talking to me about a very difficult—they were grieving. And I could sense they were becoming very selfish in their grief. You go, "Pastor, how could you say—I don't think I ever want to sit down with you. Like, how could you say that?" Well, I'll tell you how I could say that. I know what it's like to be a grieving man who's incredibly selfish.

I speak from experience. God has given me a sensitivity to this, and I wanted to draw them out faster than I got out. Because it is a very familiar—when you're wounded, when you're hurt, when you're struggling, when you're, you know, living in this world, when you're dealing like maybe like Paul with the thorn in the flesh, it's a temptation to become very self-focused.

You're not anywhere near Romans chapter 12. You're not thinking about the mercies of God. You're thinking about how you've been wounded, how you've been hurt. You're thinking about, "Oh, this is unfair. This is wrong," especially if you have a high level of justice. And then when that cycle of self—it just doesn't end. It doesn't end.

And before you know it, you're either surrounded by no one, because it's very hard to be around that. You're either surrounded by no one or only other people that are as bitter as you are. And that doesn't help. And perhaps even the Holy Spirit today is using hard words. I forgot to ask if it's okay for you. I already did, so I'm sorry.

I already shared the hard words, but this is the freedom day for you. You don't need to be in a place—like, you have to even sit back and go, "Have you been considering the mercies of God?" Because if you haven't, look where it's led you. You're upset, you're bitter. It's not getting you where you—you're not experiencing the healing or the comfort of God.

I don't know how long the journey's going to be, but I do know this: on the journey there's more pain, more difficulty, more hardship. But on the journey there can also be more in your relationship with God. Because when you think of Paul, when he had that thorn in his flesh, we got this episode in his life. We don't know how long he dealt with it, we don't know all the details. We just get this little moment recorded for us.

In 2nd Corinthians, this little moment where the Bible says that he cried out three times for the thorn to be removed and the answer was, "My grace is sufficient for you because my strength is made perfect in weakness." Really, the answer was no, I'm not removing it. But through this, Paul, through this, I want you to know something.

You came to the right place. Through this, it's brought you to the end of yourself. Have you ever heard that phrase before, the end of yourself? You can understand now why you don't want to live in a cycle of self. You want to get out of yourself and to the Lord. That's where Paul is here.

Now, I don't know if it's pain, I don't know if it's difficulty. I'm not quite sure. But for that brother that I was speaking with, that's where it was in his life. It was a point of turning a corner, receiving a dose of healing from the Holy Spirit and learning that it is hard and it is sad, and great loss is just so overwhelming, for sure.

But God doesn't want you, He doesn't want me stuck in myself. He's the source of hope. He's the source of strength. I think of every broken marriage here, He's your help. I think of every prodigal kid here, He's your help. I think of in your singleness wondering what the future—He's your help. He's your help.

Therefore, by the mercies of God, brethren, present your bodies a living sacrifice. We don't die physically, but we die spiritually. We die to ourselves. We come back to a very simple lesson that Jesus said. If anybody wants to follow me, what did He say? Deny yourself.

Listen, again, in a short Bible study, it's easy to be misunderstood. So I want to clarify the best that I can. You don't pretend you're not hurting. You don't just dismiss your feelings, maybe somebody's given you that counsel and just get over it. That's all not—that's not from the Lord. And if any man or woman's given you that counsel, that's just silly. Don't listen to them.

But here is good counsel from the Lord. Present yourself, your body a living sacrifice to the Lord. Go to Him. Carry yourself to Him. Let somebody carry you. I wonder as I met a brother in an earlier service who's here today because somebody brought you because it's time to heal.

Man, what a great friend to have. What a great mom to have, or dad, that's going to bring you to a place of healing. Church, for the new year, it's so important you bring your hurts, you bring your pains, you bring your difficulties, you bring them to the Lord as a living sacrifice over and over.

Notice what He says as well. He says that you present your bodies. Your bodies. You notice that? Present your bodies. He doesn't say lives, even though I've said it a few times. He doesn't say minds or resources or money or possessions. He says present your bodies. Why?

Well, your body, my body, the Bible declares is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Let me change it a little bit. Your body and my body is home base for the operation of the Holy Spirit through your life. That's why it's important to take care of our bodies, to be healthy, to eat well, to exercise, to take care of our bodies because it is home base.

It's home base for the Lord to use you. Present that body to the Lord. We already learned, now we studied Romans many years ago, but turn back to chapter 1. Let me show you because if you put the book—one of the reasons you study through the Bible verse by verse is it becomes its own commentary. And the Bible actually speaks to things.

And already in chapter 1, Paul had talked about using bodies sinfully. He says, "Don't do that." And he used sexual sin as the example, but it could be anything: idolatry, any type of sin. Chapter 1, Romans, verse 24, notice. He says, "Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness in the lusts of their hearts to dishonor," what does your Bible say, "their bodies."

Your bodies can be used in a dishonoring way and your bodies can be used in an honoring way before the Lord. In this case, it's sexual sin. If you're involved in sexual sin, it's unclean, dishonoring to God, and it's not good for you either. It's not good for you either. That's a different Bible study altogether.

He says in Romans 12, "I want you to present your bodies to the Lord. Living sacrifice." Over and over and over and over. Living sacrifice. You're the temple of the Holy Spirit. We've been redeemed and our bodies are being used for great things on the earth. Feet that walk, hands that reach out, mouths that speak.

I'm reminded in the Bible of many examples of God using the body, physically the body to bring great blessing to others. I think of Moses, his mouth. When we were studying the life of Moses, we were introduced to Moses with—he had a speech impediment. We don't quite know what it was. He said he was slow of speech. He could have had a stuttering issue. He could have had a difficulty finishing sentences.

It was a very normal, very common speech impediment. But God used that mouth as it was to stand before Pharaoh and pronounce the judgment of God upon the nation for all that they had done to the children of Israel. He used that mouth. He can use your mouth too.

I think of the hand of David. He was just a kid, just a kid. But a very important kid. He presented his hand to the Lord, and in his hand was a sling that he with a rock in it that he found with his hand, and he took down the Goliath while all the adults behind him stood in fear. David, God used David's hand to bring victory.

I think of the feet of Paul. The feet of Paul, the body of Paul took the Gospel throughout the entire region, the known world. Set a fire of the Gospel just through his faithfulness of obeying the Lord. Now, of course, in the Bible there are examples of bodies that were not devoted to God. Cain used his hands to kill his brother.

We read of that same David as he grew up, his eyes looked with adultery on them with Bathsheba, and then he used his mouth to pronounce death upon her husband. Not good. Moses, Moses slew the Egyptian with his hands. So we're not perfect in our bodies, but it's important that we obey the New Covenant and present ourselves to God.

A living sacrifice, greater sacrifice. Notice what it says. This is holy and acceptable to God and it's reasonable. It's your reasonable service. It's almost like this is the baseline. This is the bottom, this is the beginning. It's reasonable. God is reasonable. He's not asking for an unreasonable—"Well, I can't believe that's not fair."

You can't say that with God. It's very fair. It's reasonable. He redeems, He forgives, He enlists us in ministry, He gifts us, helps us, strengthens us, lives in us, comes alongside of us. It's very reasonable that our response is, "Here I am, Lord. I'm here to serve, love, care, whatever you have for me. My life belongs to you, no matter what comes my way."

We don't have time to develop it today, but I want to give you one more thing that holds so many people—there's a lot of things that are held back, but one area in particular that holds so many back from giving themselves completely to the Lord. You ready? You might want to write it down. Fear. You're afraid.

You're afraid of what might happen if you finally surrender. You're afraid. And that comes from a lot of different areas, maybe the home you were raised in, or maybe you were wounded in a church or by a leader. You've got all these little speed bumps along the way that stop you from getting all the way to the God who you can completely trust.

I think of our sister Michelle. She's like, "I have a heart for Guatemala. I think I'll go there." And she takes a step of faith and goes there for a small little commitment, quits her job here in the States, moves out just for a small little commitment, and not quite sure what God's going to do and not sure if it's going to be complete.

She would come back from those trips and I'm like, "Wow, what are you going to do?" "Well, I think I'm going to go back. I'm not—" I said, "We need to pray about you going back. That's what we need to pray about because this is the direction God's taking you. And we need to pray through this fear, and we need to pray through these concerns, and we need to have our eyes wide open. But let's just present—every time you say let's pray, you're presenting yourself to the Lord."

"Let's just pray about this. We need to pray. We need to see if God—" and so through the process, "Okay, I'll go back for another short time. I'll go back." Now the shorter time is a longer time. And you know what happens when you do a little, a little, a lot, a lot, a lot? You live a life that pleases God. You just keep coming back to the Lord, obeying.

You keep coming back and obeying. But I know there's a lot of fear. "Well, what would happen if?" Well, how about this? Just step out in faith and then you can be fearful after the fact. It's like, "Whoa, this is—what's going on?" And the Lord goes, "I'm with you. Be anxious for nothing."

Philippians chapter 4: "But in all things by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving." I don't know about you, but whenever I—I memorized that verse years and years ago, but when I quote it, only the last few years have I caught it, but the last few years I've really tried to train myself to quote it properly. Because I had always quoted it without a key word involved.

Like, there's a key word there that I always skip. And now it's in my mind. I don't want to skip anymore, and that's the word "Thanksgiving." You know, when you come with your fears to the Lord, you come in prayer. That's kind of a general word, to pray, talk to God. Supplication is like a word that describes praying for others and requests.

So you're coming to God, just coming to Him, like Paul did. "Lord, you know I have this, Lord, I'm just coming to you. I don't want it, I don't like it, but I'm coming to you." And then you have the supplications. You're praying for yourself, but you're also praying for others. But then, thanksgiving. "God, you've been so good to me. You've been so faithful."

Prayer has to be a time where you look back on the mercies of God. Prayer has to include times where you truly express your appreciation for all that God has done. This supersedes all church hurt, this supersedes all issues with people, all the family drama that we have in our lives. And I know family drama is fresh on our minds right now because we just finished the holidays.

And I realize that's challenging. But church, you made it through another holiday. You made it through another holiday and you represented the Lord well. At least most of you did, most of you did. Some of you probably struggled, but God still—now you're like, you struggled, you made a mistake, maybe said something—you don't have to beat yourself up. You just take it to the Lord and then go apologize.

"What?" Yeah, present yourself a living sacrifice and just apologize. "I let the most—you took the last spoonful of potatoes, that really ticked me off. But you always take—" whatever. Could be more serious than that, where you learn to walk in forgiveness, where you learn to receive all that God has for you so you can be a light in someone else's life.

You've got a new year ahead, church. I know in my life I want more. I want more of what God has for me. I happen to be a little bit different situation than most in the sense that I have more years behind me than I have ahead of me. And so I want those years to mean a lot. I want more faithfulness, not less.

I don't want to coast through because I've got years behind me. I want to be more of an example. I want to see more sacrifice in my life. I want to see more obedience. And I realize that it starts right here for me, but it also starts for you. This is the change right here: a greater appreciation of the mercies of God that's followed by greater sacrifice.

And this is where I'm going to end. Would you turn over to Deuteronomy? Deuteronomy chapter 6. I want to read this, so encouraging as we enter into—close the chapter on a previous year, but enter into a new year. I want to pick up with you in Deuteronomy chapter 6 in verse 1. We're going to read straight through. Part of this is the Shema, the prayer that would be prayed every day.

It's the Great Shema, it's a beautiful prayer, but let's start in verse 1: "Now this is the commandment, and these are the statutes and the judgments, which the Lord your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess. That you may fear the Lord your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged."

Verse 3: "Therefore hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you, and that you may multiply greatly as the Lord God of your fathers has promised you, 'a land flowing with milk and honey.' Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with," and you might want to mark these words, Jesus quoted this in the New Testament, "all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might."

"And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."

Guest (Male): That is Pastor Ed Taylor on Abounding Grace. We're developing our five-part series called Greater. You can catch what you may have missed in the series online at aboundinggraceradio.com, oneplace.com, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also get our app; it's available on all platforms.

This is another way to hear Pastor Ed's teaching. Search for Ed Taylor in your favorite App Store. Well, each month we like to suggest a book that will encourage you in the Lord, and this month it's "Just Do Something" by Kevin DeYoung. Maybe you've been on a search to find God's will and you're stuck or frustrated, waiting for clear and unmistakable direction.

In this helpful book, you'll learn that God doesn't need to tell us what to do at each fork in the road. He's already revealed His plan for our lives: to love Him, obey His word, and after that, to do what we like. He says no need for hocus pocus, no reason to be directionally challenged; just do something.

We'll send you a copy with our thanks for a gift of $25 or more to Abounding Grace. Please remember, it is through your support that we're able to present this radio program on stations all across the nation. Thank you for standing with us. Call 877-30-GRACE and we can help you with the ordering details, or go to our online store at calvaryco.store. Tomorrow on Abounding Grace, we'll return to our series, Greater, with a word from Pastor Ed about remembrance.

Abounding Grace is brought to you by Calvary Church, Colorado, here in Aurora.