CAPITAL BIBLE CHURCH May 29, Our Reasonable Service. Romans 12:1, 2

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1 CAPITAL BIBLE CHURCH May 29, 2016 SERMON NOTES PASTOR BILL HAKEN Our Reasonable Service Romans 12:1, 2 Romans 12:1 I ask you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. Romans 12 calls on the followers of Christ to yield themselves completely to God, to absolute surrender. Andrew Murray was in Scotland and was discussing the condition of Christ's Church, and what the great need of the Church and of believers is. A godly Christian worker who was actively involved in training other workers for Christ was asked what he would say was the great need of the Church, the message that ought to be preached? He answered very quietly, simply and determinedly: "Absolute surrender to God is the one thing." 1. Why absolute surrender is the Greatest Need in the Church. God requests our absolute surrender. Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. Not a dead sacrifice, but a living one! The Condition of the church requires absolute surrender. The Church today is filled with powerless Christians who live anemic Christian lives and fail to have any idea why they don t see God s power in their life. 1 Corinthians 3:1 " Brothers and sisters, I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ." Andrew Murray said, No words can tell the sad state of the Church of Christ on earth. I speak of hundreds and thousands of honest, earnest Christians who are not living a life in the power of God or to His glory. So little power, so little devotion or consecration to God, so little perception of the truth that a Christian is a person totally surrendered to God's will! Oh, we want to confess the sins of God's people around us, and to humble ourselves. We are members of that sickly body. We must, in confession, separate ourselves from partnership with worldliness, with coldness toward each other. We must give ourselves up to be entirely and wholly for God. Andrew Murray

2 1 Kings 18:21 And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word. (CEV How much longer will you try to have things both ways?) Many Christians have one foot in the church and the other foot in the world. Or what one southern preacher called Mug-wump Christians their mug s on one side and their wump s on the other They are trying to hold on to their trinkets in the world and, at the same time, hold on to heaven. They think they are going to get the best of both worlds. The truth is that they get the best of neither. Matthew 6:24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. What is the reason we won t surrender? Selfishness deep within our characters. Our selfish characters rob us of fellowship with Christ and the power to touch our family, friends and the lost with the power of the Holy Spirit. Brother Yun, is one of the leading pastors in the Chinese house church movement. He said, Multitudes of church members in the West are satisfied with giving their minimum to God, not their maximum... Jesus gave his whole life for us, and we give as little of our lives, time and money as we can back to God. What a disgrace! Repent! Meldrum, The Beauty of Brokeness. People want Lite Christianity a 30-minute church service, with a 15 minute sermon and a 2.5% tithe! God s blessings depend upon our absolute surrender. 1 John 3:22 whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. If our hearts are willing for that, there is no end to what God will do for us, and to the blessing God will bestow. Andrew Murray Dr. D. James Kennedy wrote, I believe we fail to see that God has a basic condition for His blessings. The Apostle James says, Ye have not because ye ask not. Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss (James 4:2). Many times when we seek the blessings of God, we ask amiss, because we do not meet God s conditions for the full outpouring of His blessings. Very simply, that condition is total surrender to God! There is no better example of total surrender than F. B. Meyer. He was a Baptist preacher and pastor of Christ Church in the heart of London in the nineteenth century. In the middle of a successful ministry, F. B. Meyer confessed that something was lacking in his life and ministry. J.H. Jowett recounts the following story: Dr. Meyer has told us that his early Christian life was marred and his ministry paralyzed just because he had kept back one thing from the bunch of keys he had given to the Lord. Every key but one! The key of one room was kept for personal use, and the Lord shut out. The effect of this incomplete consecration was found in lack of power, lack of assurance, lack of joy and peace. The joy of the Lord begins when we hand over the last key. 2. What does it mean to surrender absolutely?

3 1 Kings 20:1-4 And Benhadad the king of Syria gathered all his host together: and there were thirty and two kings with him, and horses, and chariots: and he went up and besieged Samaria, and warred against it. And he sent messengers to Ahab king of Israel into the city, and said unto him, Thy silver and thy gold is mine; thy wives also and thy children, even the goodliest, are mine. And the king of Israel answered and said, My lord, O king, according to thy saying, I am thine, and all that I have. Absolute surrender is to intentionally and permanently give up and relinquish all control and ownership of everything to Christ. Matthew 10:37-39 He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it. You know in everyday life what absolute surrender is - everything has to be given up to its special, definite object and service. For example, I have a pen in my pocket, and that pen is absolutely surrendered to the one work of writing. That pen must be absolutely surrendered to my hand if I am to write with it. If another holds it partly, I cannot write properly. This jacket is absolutely given up to me to cover my person. This church building is entirely given up to religious services. The temple of Solomon was absolutely surrendered to God when it was dedicated to Him in much the same way, every one of us is a temple of God, in which God dwells, and will work mightily on one condition absolute surrender to Him. Surrender is not commitment or submission. You can be a committed Christian and still live a dead, passionless, and empty life. A commitment is a promise, obligation or pledge while surrender is giving up and handing over to another person absolute control. Connie Cavenaugh in her book From Faking It to Finding Grace writes, Commitment means I am still in control, whereas surrender takes me out of the driver s seat... Commitment is deciding on a plan. Surrender is going to God for His plan. We cannot surrender to God unless we yield ourselves to His absolute control. This means we no longer have a plan for our life. Instead we seek to understand His purpose for our existence. In surrender, we make the conscious choice to let go of that control, but the actual surrender is something only God can do. When we surrender, we "give up," and begin putting the focus where it belongs: on God. But it isn't giving up in the way we normally define it. The action is more like "giving over." In love. It is offered to us in love, by Love, for love. And we accept it the same way: in love, for love, out of love. A living sacrifice - Romans 6:13...yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.

4 Matthew 22:37 "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your mind." 3. How is absolute surrender accomplished? Philippians 1:6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. The ability to surrender absolutely is a gift of God. However eagerly we may desire it, however diligently we may strive to acquire it, surrender cannot be attained by personal endeavor. While many attempt to submit or commit to God, absolute surrender is something only God can do. But while it is God s work it requires a response from you. Someone said At some point, we all surrender our lives to God. Some of us choose to do it voluntarily, while we walk the earth. Others surrender involuntarily, when their physical body dies. Surrendering while physically alive goes beyond recognizing and acknowledging the reality that we each belong to God. Similar to salvation, surrender is a gift we receive from God; we can't will it for ourselves. But also like salvation, the gift of surrender requires a response from us: acceptance. And there will be fruit: a changed life. It's not something we accept and then do nothing about. Any work we do will never get us salvation or surrender. But our work starts after we accept the gifts from God. George Mueller was a man whom God blessed so greatly that many people stand in awe to this day how God answered his prayers affirmatively, abundantly blessed and mightily used him. He said that total surrender was the source of all the blessings of his life. He said that when he was ninety years old, adding that total surrender amounted to two things: First, absolute surrender to work what God wants us to do; and second, a total willingness to let God work in us whatever He wants to work. Stop trying to do it and let God work in your life by totally surrendering. Let go and let God have His way in your life. Is Jesus Lord of your thought? Is He Lord of your passions? Is Jesus Lord of your speech, of your relationships, of your possessions? Is Jesus Christ Lord of your whole life? Is Jesus the Lord of every area in your life? Of your everything? Can you honestly say, Anywhere, Lord! Anytime, Lord! Any cost, Lord? Have you surrendered your all? Prayer of John & Betty Stam: Lord I give up all my own plans and purposes, all my own desires and hopes and accept Thy will for my life. I give myself, my life, my all utterly to Thee to be Thine forever. Fill me with Thy Holy Spirit, use me as Thou wilt, send me where Thou wilt, work out Thy whole will in my life at any cost now and forever, Amen.

5 I SURRENDER ALL All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give. I will ever love and trust Him in His presence freely live. I surrender all, I surrender all. All to Thee my blessed Savior I surrender all. All to Jesus I surrender, Lord I give myself to Thee. Fill me with Thy love and power, let Thy blessings fall on me. I surrender all, I surrender all. All to Thee my blessed Savior, I surrender all.