PowerPoint

Jack Graham: Who gave any of us the idea that being a Christian was part-time? All in. Not a fringe person, but a faithful person.

Guest (Male): Welcome to PowerPoint with Jack Graham. On today's PowerPoint, Dr. Graham brings a message about what happens when you offer your complete self to God as an act of worship. Now here's Dr. Graham with his message, All on the Altar.

Jack Graham: Romans chapter 12 encapsulates what it means to live the Christian life. Verse number one is our passage. It is our one single verse. Before we read verse one, I should read verse 36 of the 11th chapter, flowing out of this great doctrinal, dispensational section actually here, for it says, "For from Him and through Him and for Him are all things. To Him be glory," and we should say, "all the glory forever and ever, Amen."

Then verse one of chapter 12, "And I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual or reasonable, logical worship or service."

One of the first things I remember in my life as a small boy, I mean really remember, was going forward under a tent pitched in our little town in Arkansas, having heard an evangelist preach the gospel, and I went forward literally—maybe you've heard of this or seen it in movies—on the sawdust trail. There was sawdust on the ground like a circus tent, and we had this revival outdoors, and I can remember they called it in those days an altar call.

As a little boy, I went forward, never to be forgotten in my life, to that altar and surrendered my life to follow Jesus Christ. I became a public Christian. I professed my faith in Christ. Fast-forward in my life a few years, I was 15 years of age at a student camp, and someone preached on the very text that I'm talking about today: on giving your life unreservedly, completely to the Lord.

They sang a song: "I take hands off my life. It is no longer mine. I take hands off my life, let it be forever Thine." That day, I walked forward and surrendered my life to preach the gospel of Christ. It was life-changing, altar-altering. I've been on that altar a long time now, and I can tell you it's the very best place to be in life. It's the place of blessing in your life. Whether it is the altar of salvation or the altar of sanctification, service, surrender to the Lord, we are to be all on the altar and be a living sacrifice to the Lord.

Unfortunately, we don't hear as much preaching along these lines in our generation. I don't know if it's because we wanted to make people feel less uncomfortable in church. We omitted some of the preaching of surrendering and sacrificing. It sounds so stringent. It sounds so hard. It sounds so difficult. So many pastors have backed off in preaching commitment, and as a result, unfortunately, we have now many in our generation who are consumer Christians.

It's like going to buy a car, and you get the book or you go online and you read about the options on your car, whether it is a warm up your steering wheel or warm up your seats or whatever, all these options. That's consumerism. We go to the grocery store or to the department store, and we have many options today. We live in a pick-and-choose kind of environment. Unfortunately, that's what many are doing when it comes to their Christian faith and commitment.

It's pick and choose. It's not full commitment. It's just optional. What I may do, what I may not do, what I say, what I don't say, it's optional kind of Christianity. That's no way to live. When did we ever get the idea that it was optional or okay to be a part-time Christian? To be a half-hearted believer rather than a wholehearted, full-throttle follower of Christ?

So many think that commitment to follow Jesus Christ is just a contribution rather than a consecration of our lives to Christ. That we could be half in, all in or no in, partly in, but not all in. Now, what does that mean? What is this living sacrifice? He says, "I beg you, I beseech you, I plead with you, I persuade you that you would be a living sacrifice."

Of course, we think of a sacrifice as being something that's dead and sacrificed. Old Testament sacrifices—and this is the language of the temple and of the Old Testament sacrifices—Paul is saying you come to Christ and you make a full commitment to Him by becoming a living sacrifice. Not a dead one, but a living one. It's both-and when you think about it. If Paul were to stand here today and speak to us and share his own testimony, he might share the words of Galatians 2:20, "I am crucified with Christ."

Dead, crucified with Christ. "Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me." That's a living sacrifice. Then that we have died to self and surrendered ourselves and sacrificed our selfish lives in order that we may live for Jesus Christ. That is a living sacrifice. Three points to ponder this morning regarding that living sacrifice. One, this living sacrifice is personal.

Paul says—look at verse one—and Paul is the human author. He is speaking in behalf of God, so in effect, this is God speaking. That's amazing in that the apostle says, "I appeal to you." This is a command for Christians to be all in, all on the altar, a living sacrifice, but this command is not coerced. He says, "I appeal to you." I've been a pastor a long time, and I've learned you can't force or coerce people to get off the fringes, get off the sideline, and get into the game because it's not a matter of coercion.

It's not a matter of law or legalism. It's not law, it's grace. It's the lordship of Christ. It should be our goal to preach the lordship of Christ—that Christ is Lord of all and therefore He deserves and demands our all. But this is an invitation. He says, "I beseech you." Literally, I beg you. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers. He doesn't pull rank and say, "As an apostle, I declare to you."

He comes alongside like a good brother and puts his arms around us and says, "Let me talk to you about something, about being a living sacrifice." That's the mentality here of the 12th chapter, verse one. I beseech you, I beg you, I persuade you as brothers and sisters in Christ, that you would come and bring your life completely and totally to Christ. It's personal. Jesus deserves my all.

One of the most repeated identities of the believer in the scripture is a servant of Christ, a slave of the Lord Jesus Christ. You say, "How does He own us?" 1 Corinthians 6:19 and verse 20 as well, "What? Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? That you are not your own, that you are bought with a price, the precious blood of Jesus? Therefore, glorify God with your body which is the Lord's, which belongs to the Lord."

He owns us. Consecration is not the act of giving something to God, giving our lives to God. It's giving our lives back to God who already has it to begin with. Consecration is giving God what is already His. That's all we are and all we have: our persons, our possessions, our personalities, our activities, our behaviors. It's personal, deeply personal. It's because of the mercies of God.

Do you see that phrase there? The multiplied mercies—it's plural—the mercies of God. All the mercies of God. The apostle would point back to all these great salvation blessings in Romans chapter one. Now if you just did a flyover real quickly with the book of Romans, the first three chapters is all about man's sinful condition and judged guilty before a holy God. That all is sin, that there's none righteous, no not one.

Paul is like a prosecuting attorney as he's writing these words and pronouncing ultimately God pronounces the whole human race broken and ruined and sinful and under judgment. That's the first three chapters. Glad it doesn't end there. Chapters four and five of Romans speak of our salvation by grace through faith. Justification. That's a big word every believer should know. Justification.

It means that we are declared righteous by a holy God. Even though we are sinful, God has deposited to our bankrupt account His righteousness, His goodness, His justice, and we are saved. We are no longer living in condemnation. We are free. We are forgiven. We are then empowered because the next chapters—six, seven, and eight of Romans—speak of the work of sanctification and the Holy Spirit who lives in our lives, empowering us and enabling us to live this Christian life and to live rather than a life of defeat, to live a life of victory. All these mercies because of what Christ has done for us, we bring our lives to Him personal.

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Jack Graham: Lest you think this whole idea of sacrifice and surrender is sackcloth and ashes and frowns on your faces, no, the surrender of your life to obedience, to offer your life in obedience to God, brings great joy. It's the only way to live because when you give your life to God unconditionally, all hands off, then He gives it back to you in ways that you can't even imagine.

Jim Elliot, another great missionary of yesteryear, said, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." What is this living sacrifice? It's personal. It's Abraham when commanded to take his son Isaac, the son of the promise, and sacrifice him on an altar. Not understanding why, with tears in his eyes, was prepared before God delivered his son by the hand of an angel, he was prepared to take his son's life because his all was on the altar.

And you know, God didn't want his son, God wanted Abraham. It's Moses who chose rather than to be identified with the children of Egypt and to live in royalty in Egypt, he chose to be identified with his own people, the Jewish people, surrendered his life, left the world behind to follow his God. He ends up on the backside of a desert in the middle of nowhere, burned out, thinking his life was over.

And then God spoke to him out of a bush that burned and burned and would not burn out, the great I AM. And there, barefoot in the desert, he breathed again, he burned again. God called him and sent him, and Moses said, "I'll go." It's a shepherd boy by the name of David, put his personal risk, life at risk to stand up to a giant all for the glory of God. That's all in.

Ladies, you're all in as well. Esther, who chose to stand with her people and to support her people Israel, though it could cost her her life. She said, "If I perish, I perish." All in. It's Isaiah, standing high at the altar of God in heaven and having his life transformed there in the presence of God. And when God said, "Who will go for me?" It's Isaiah saying, "Here am I, Lord, send me." All in.

It's Mary, a teenage girl, told by an angel that she would be the mother of God, the virgin mother of Jesus. And when she could not understand it or explain it, she simply said, "Be it unto me, Lord, according to your will." All in. It's the apostles, Peter and John and the rest, James, who laid down their lives, having seen the risen Christ. They became flaming torches, living sacrifices for the Lord Jesus Christ, all ultimately martyred for Jesus because they were all in.

It's the Apostle Paul, the author of these words, who put his life where his mouth was. And coming near the end of his third missionary journey, facing sacrifices, surrender, and martyrdom, he said, "My life is not valuable to me. The only thing I care about is whether this gospel gets preached and that I finish my course with joy." All in.

The question is, are you all in? Am I all in? You say, "Well, that's for missionaries. That's for apostles. That's for Bible heroes. That's for preachers. That's for full-time people." Again, who gave any of us the idea that being a Christian was part-time? All in. Not a fringe person, but a faithful person to God and to the people of God, the church of God, the ministry of Christ, the proclamation of the gospel.

It's not only personal, it's physical. He did say, "Present your bodies, a living sacrifice." Now to explain that, it means your whole life because your life is in your body. Your breath is in your body, so your brain is in your body. Your personality, everything, everywhere you go, your body goes with you. So give your body. Put your physical body in action to the service, the reasonable, logical service of God.

It's physical. We've already given you one scripture that describes that, but let me give you a few more. 1 Corinthians 6:19, glorify God in your body. But watch this one, Philippians 1:20, "As it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but with full courage now as always, Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or death."

Scroll back in Romans to Romans 6:13, "Do not present your members, your body, to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God." Same language. Offer yourselves, present yourselves, give yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

2 Corinthians 4:10, "Always carrying in this body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our bodies." You say, "in our spirits?" True. In our souls? Yes. But our bodies, the temple of the Holy Spirit, are to honor God. 1 Thessalonians 4:4, "That each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor."

So that body of yours is not your own, and it is made for more than passion and plumbing or pleasure. Your body is made for God. Your body is God's. He said, "You're mine." So we ought to take care of the temple. Certainly, that means physically we ought to eat right, exercise well, rest well, take care of our bodies physically.

But ultimately, it's the spiritual challenge of making sure that our bodies are presented to God in righteousness, in holiness, and that we honor God in what we see, what we say, what we do. When we were children, some of us were taught the little chorus, "Be careful, little eyes, what you see. Be careful, little ears, what you hear. Be careful, little mouth, what you say. Be careful, little hands, little feet, what you say, what you do, where you go."

What a beautiful lesson to teach God's children of all ages. And when you give your body to God, He will never misuse it or abuse it. Because when you surrender your life completely to the Lord, your body to God, your life to God, then that surrender, God would choose for you what you would choose for yourself.

His will, the good and perfect will of God for your life. God wants what is best for you always, and the blessings of God will flow in your life when you bring your body to God. You bring what you have, including your pain and your failures, your flaws, your foibles, and you bring it to Him. And that's the final thing. The living sacrifice is not only personal and physical, it's perpetual.

It's in our daily, everyday lives. The way "The Message" translation or paraphrase gives this verse is really good. This is "The Message", Romans 12:1. "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."

That's good. Your walking-around everyday life. For you see, Christianity is not just church-going life. It's everyday life. All in life. All my days' life. All in. That's a living sacrifice. It's personal, it's physical, it's perpetual. It's a living sacrifice, a lasting and logical sacrifice in view of the mercies of God. Don't you believe God deserves all that you have?

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Jack Graham: First of all, it is so important that we give our lives fully to Christ. One of my favorite scriptures is Proverbs 3:5 and 6. It's a life verse, and you talk about a life full of purpose—this is it: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean into your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths."

Now, we all want God to show us purpose and meaning and direct our paths. Well, the key to that is the first part: trust in the Lord with all of your heart. And when you're fully committed to Jesus Christ, then He enables you, He empowers you to do all things that you need to do, to face any circumstance or difficulty, to meet your obligations as well as to get done the things that you want to do for His glory.

But if you're not fully committed, if you have just given Him part of your heart or half of your commitment, then you're missing out on so much of your life. Can you imagine in a marriage if a husband said to his wife, "Well, I'm going to give you half of my life. I'm going to give you part of my commitment"? Well, that doesn't work in a marriage, and it doesn't work in our relationship with Christ.

We need to make sure that our lives are fully yielded to Him. Sometimes I think even the word commitment doesn't say it all because if I commit something, I still control it. I can take it back. But when we fully surrender, when we absolutely and totally give our hearts, our lives, our all to the Lord Jesus Christ, then He is able to take what we give and cleanse it and fill it and use it.

I want to challenge you today to make that kind of commitment. A commitment that says, "Lord, here is my life. All of it. Here is my family. Here is my future. Here is my career." If you're going to be a Christian, be an all-out Christian. Be a full-throttle believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. I want you as a believer and a follower of Jesus Christ, not to be in the middle of a commitment to Christ, but to be fully given and yielded to Him. And God bless you as you make that commitment today, surrendering your heart, your life, your soul to Him.

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