Several years ago Gary Chapman wrote a book that has become a classic when it comes to enriching marriages. I imagine many of you have read it or at least heard of it. I’m referring to The Five Love Languages. In this popular book Chapman says that one of the reasons there is difficulty in marriage is that each of us tends to communicate love in different ways. He says that in essence we “speak” love in one of five “love languages:” quality time, acts of service, words of affirmation, physical touch, and gifts. Quoting from the book jacket,
“If you express love in a way your spouse doesn’t understand, he or she won’t realize you’ve expressed your love at all. The problem is that you are speaking in two different languages. Perhaps your husband needs to hear encouraging words, but you feel cooking a nice dinner will cheer him up. When you do and he still feels down, you’re puzzled. Or, maybe your wife craves time with you—time away from the kids and television—so, the flowers you gave her just don’t communicate that you care.”
Just curious—have any of you spouses out there had this kind of marital problem? You thought you were expressing love—you were very sincere—but your “message” just didn’t get through? If you’ve experienced that kind of frustration—then I encourage you to check out Chapman’s book! Take the time to learn each other’s love language. You might discover that you are loved a lot more than you thought you were! Of course you might make the exact opposite kind of discovery!
I bring all this up because there is a sense in which the Bible teaches that GOD uses “love languages.” I say this because throughout the Old Testament God periodically explained to His people the various ways that He would appreciate receiving love from them. And one of the ways that He mentioned most often was the offering of SACRIFICES.
I’m relying on a Bible Study Bill Hybels led at Willow Creek several years ago where he points out that God used His prophets to tell His people that He would like them to go out into their herds and identify the best lamb in the entire flock. To express love to Him, they were to take that prize lamb and bring it to the temple. The lamb was to be killed and burned on the altar as a sacrifice. God said, “If you would do that periodically, as I assign holidays and holy days and so on, that would be very meaningful to Me. Would you show your love for Me in that way?”
Now to us this may sound like a strange sort of love language but of course God had His reasons. You see, the sacrificing of that lamb was a symbolic foretelling of what would happen to Jesus when He came to earth as the perfect Lamb of God to be sacrificed on the cross….a Sacrifice through which God would “say” how much He loves you and me. So, understand—this act of giving sacrifices was very significant and meaningful to God and to His chosen people.
This is why God gave VERY specific instructions when it came to selecting the lamb. He said, “I want the BEST lamb. Check the whole herd until you identify the BEST lamb you have.” This was important of course because, as I said, the lamb was a representation of the coming Lamb of God—God’s BEST—His only Son, Jesus.
But that’s not the only thing that selecting the BEST lamb symbolized. Another reason picking the BEST was important to God was because it involved a kind of values clarification thing every time one of these offerings was required. It forced the individual to come to terms with the COST of his or her sacrifice. You see the farmer had to determine in his heart if his love for God—his desire to please God—his desire to give God appropriate worship…well, he had to decide if that desire was stronger than His desire for economic gain. Every shepherd knew that the BEST lamb in the herd—the prize lamb—he knew it would bring the best price at the market.
So every time he walked around in his herd in preparation for a sacrifice, he had to decide, “Do I love God enough to renounce the market value of this my best lamb? Is God worthy to receive this prize lamb—this lamb worth enough to pay for my son’s college tuition—or that vacation we’ve always wanted to take—or that wide screen HD TV? Do I love God THAT much?”
And—when confronted with this question, many of God’s people said “YES! Of course God is worthy. I WANT to give Him my very BEST sheep.” Whenever someone responded this way, God was pleased and God blessed the person, because that man was clarifying his values and demonstrating where his ultimate allegiance was placed. With that kind of sacrificial gift of his best he was saying, “I love God and I want Him to know it. I trust God to take care of my needs.”
But of course—you can bet that more than a few times a guy who went out into his flock looking for the lamb to be sacrificed—more than a few times while he was looking around, out of the corner of his eye KNEW where the best sheep was, but tried not to look at it. He would say to himself, “This one over here looks pretty good and who’s going to know? Maybe I’ll just take the 2nd best sheep or the 3rd best or any old one that’s available. Anyway, it’s just going to be killed on the altar.”
And not only did some of these shepherds fudge on giving the best to God by giving their 2nd or 3rd best. Many did far worse than that. Turn to Malachi 1:6 where God tells His people how he feels about the selfish, sinful way many of them professed their “love” for Him with their “sacrifices.” God says,
“A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If I am a Father, where is the honor due Me? If I am a Master, where is the respect due Me? You ask, ‘How have we shown contempt for your name?’ I’ll tell you how! You place defiled food on My altar. When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice crippled or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you? Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on My altar! I am not pleased with you, and I will accept no offering from your hands. When you bring injured, crippled or diseased animals and offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands? Cursed is the cheat who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows to give it, but then sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord. For I am a great king, and My name is to be feared among the nations.”
Do you understand what’s going on here in Malachi? God is angry and hurt and unappreciated. He sees that His grace has been taken for granted. In short, God feels the sting of the realization that His chosen people valued temporary economic gain more than they valued their eternal relationship with Him. To make sure you get this, here’s a Hybels paraphrase of what God says,
“I am a great God and treat you wonderfully. I don’t deserve blemished lambs! What are you doing? I thought you loved Me? You know I love you! If you really loved Me you could never offer Me a blemished animal. You bring me a half-dead lamb because it doesn’t net you anything at the market. You give Me crippled lambs because you know they’re going to die and you’d have to bury them so you give them to Me to save yourself the trouble. That is unthinkable! But THEN do you know what you do? You get on your knees that night and you say, ‘Oh Lord I have these five needs in my life and I’m coming to you, my GREAT God and begging for Your favor.’ You’ve got to be kidding! You offer me a half-dead lamb and then get on your knees and request My favor? Be not deceived God is not mocked! Someone shut the gates so we can do away with this blasphemy!”
I bring all this sacrifice stuff up because the next portion of Paul’s letter to the Romans is about sacrifices as well. Turn there and listen as I read chapter 12, verses 1-8.
1 – Therefore, 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 act of worship.
2 – Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will.
3 – For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.
4 – Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function,
5 – so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
6 – We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith.
7 – If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach;
8 – if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if he is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.
Now, before we go any further, I want you to be sure to note that Romans 12 marks a dramatic change in Paul’s letter. For the first 11 chapters Paul has focused on BELIEF and now he says our BELIEF should influence our BEHAVIOR. John Philips puts it this way, “Having discussed the PRINCIPLES of the Gospel and the PROBLEMS of the Gospel, Paul now begins to deal with the PRACTICE of the Gospel.” And if you’ve read Philippians or Galatians or Ephesians you know that this is the way Paul does writes of his letters. He always starts with DOCTRINE and then concludes with a list of practical DUTIES that were based on the DOCTRINE he had discussed earlier. And I’m so thankful he does that because in the Christian life, doctrine and duty always go together. To mature spiritually we have to translate our LEARNING into LIVING. In any case up until this point Paul has been building a powerful argument for our belief in the greatness and the graciousness of God.
And to get the full FORCE of what he says next about how this belief should impact our behavior you have to realize that there were no verses or chapter divisions in the original manuscript. No—this is a long—UNDIVIDED LETTER—so Romans 1-11 is supposed to flow right on into chapter 12. This means that to fully appreciate what Paul is saying…you need to white out all the chapter and verse divisions! Since that would take a lot of white out and a lot of time—let’s just ignore all those numbers and quickly review our study thus far so we can get the right “running start” to this morning’s text. In the first three chapters Paul reminded his readers that all people are sinners who stand condemned. Remember? He said that good works—even obedience to religious law won’t change this—salvation for all people only comes as a gift of grace through Jesus Christ, Who died in our place on the cross. So, in these opening chapters Paul has said, “What a gracious God we have, Who would give His only Son to save us from our sins!” Chapter 4 builds on that fact. Then in chapter 5 Paul says that’s not all God does for us. There are benefits above and beyond our salvation. We get peace with God, love from God, and hope for eternal life with God. WHAT A GOD! Amen? In chapters 6 & 7 Paul says that the Holy Spirit is working full time to liberate us from the chains of sin. He is working non-stop to release resurrection power in us so we can actually live the Christian life day to day! God does that! Isn’t it wonderful? Amen? Then in chapter 8 he says, “There is no more condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus! We are not just saved! We are adopted! In fact, God says, ‘Call me DAD…because like a Dad, I’ll make all things work together for your good.” Wow!!! In chapters 9-11 we are given glimpses of the mystery of having been chosen by God because of our individual faith in Jesus Christ. We learn that God never stops wanting us to turn to Him. And again I must say, WHAT A GOD!
In short, for the first two thirds of his letter Paul has labored to convince his readers that there is no one like our God. He is wonderful. He is gracious. He is high and lifted up—worthy of our adoration! This fact “crashes” into our text for this morning where he says, “THEREFORE…in light of everything I have said….I’m going to tell you how you can respond to a God that great….a God that loving…a Savior that pure! I’m going to tell you how to communicate your love in a language God will fully appreciate.”
Then, using the imagery of the Old Testament sacrificial system Paul says, “I urge you brethren…present your bodies as a living SACRIFICE…HOLY AND ACCEPTABLE! No more animals! No more sheep! Instead, YOU—you spend the rest of your life figuring out how to give God praise with the way you live your life. In other words, you crawl up on His altar and stay there! Make your every day life a sacrifice…God deserves that.”
I don’t know about you but the words to the great hymn by Isaac Watts come to mind, “When I survey the wondrous cross, on which the Prince of glory died…were the whole realm of nature mine, that were an offering far too small. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my heart, my life, my all!”
Well this is what Paul says—to really show God how much we love Him we must sacrifice our daily lives to His Lordship. We must live every moment of every day in ways that are pleasing to Him. We must WORK in ways that please God; we must relate to our spouse and children in ways that are pleasing to God; We must treat our neighbors and co-workers and car-pool sharers…in ways that are pleasing to God; we must spend our money in ways that are pleasing to God. In light of all God has done…in light of all God is doing…in light of all God promises to do…we must sacrifice every living moment to Him.
I’m reminded of the story of a young boy who came to church one cold winter day to get out of the blowing snow. He had been trying to sell newspapers but not a single customer had passed by because of the frigid weather. He slipped into the back of the church—just hoping to get warm and perhaps catch up on some sleep, but—the boy listened as the pastor preached and was greatly moved by it. When the pastor was done he called for the offering. The ushers went from row to row and when the offering place came to the boy, he took it, stared at it for a while and then put it on the floor. Then he did something very strange and beautiful. He stood up and stepped right into the offering plate. By then, all the people had turned around and were staring at the boy. When he looked up, he had big tears running down his face as he said, “Pastor, I don’t have any money because I haven’t sold any newspapers today. But if Jesus gave His life for me, then I will gladly give my life to Him.”
Let me stop and ask—to what extent is YOUR life a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God? How well are you using God’s love language? Could you HONESTLY say you’ve made the same kind of commitment this little boy did? If you were to measure your love for God by your level of commitment to Him how much would you say you love Him?
After observing how many Christians would answer this questions, Jerry Bridges writes,
“As I have watched the parade of people through our church, and other churches, I wonder why so few commit themselves to a local body of believers in a significant way. Many sit and soak and do little else. They fail to become involved or to give. We need to accept the challenge to commit ourselves to responsible membership.”
I would agree because when a Christian has been broken by the love of God—when they fully comprehend what God did for them on the cross and then when they read this verse and hear of Paul’s challenge to crawl up on the altar and make his or her whole life a sacrifice to God, do you know what he or she says? With this understanding they say, “Thank You Lord for telling me exactly what You want me to do in response to Your grace! If You had told me to crawl 500 miles I would have started out…spend 15 years in some crazy far off place I would have done it…WHATEVER! I’m so overwhelmed by Who You are and What you’ve done…I’m glad to do this! You want my life to be a sacrifice of praise? You got it! Starting today. Anything you want…I’ll do!” How could we NOT respond in this way? As we think of all God HAS done! How?
If you agree then you’ll be glad to know that the rest of Paul’s letter is devoted to explaining HOW. From here on out he’s going to talk about the implications of putting your all on the altar. In coming chapters Paul is going to talk practically about what it means to be a living sacrifice and I warn you—it’s going to be challenging from here to the end of this book. It could turn your world upside down! In fact, Paul says it will involve a whole new way of thinking. You see, to put your all on the altar means you will have to stop conforming to the patterns of this fallen world. So, you really will have to renew your mind if you are going to understand what exactly is good and acceptable and perfect to God when it comes to living sacrifices. Next week we’ll see that being a living sacrifice involves giving our interpersonal relationships to God. In coming messages we’ll see that it involves how you submit to earthly authorities. Being a living sacrifice—crawling into the offering plate—means getting rid of prejudice. It means helping the poor.
And—in the rest of this morning’s text Paul says being a living sacrifice that is Holy and acceptable to God involves discovering your spiritual gift and using it in the local church. It means getting out of the pew and rolling up your sleeves and getting to work alongside of other believers in a church like Redland.
Now—this is not a popular concept in some churches these days. I don’t want to be too critical but I must say that in my opinion one of the main failings of the “mega-church” is that it gives believers permission to come in and sit in their theater seat and enjoy the “show” and then get up and leave without getting involved. I mean, when you are in a big crowd it’s easy to be invisible.
And in our non-stop, hectic lives, many people like that kind of church—they have commitments up to here so they tend to run away from involvement.
But this problem is not just found in mega-churches. In fact, you may not realize it or not but right now in churches across the land an annual struggle is beginning. It happens all across the country this time of year and it’s not always a pretty thing. Let me describe it and as I do, I must tell you I’m relying on the creativity of Bill Hybels. Throughout the months of June and July a pastor—and we’ll call him pastor Bob—Pastor Bob receives a steady flow of resignation notes from SS teachers and ushers and youth workers, resignations from people who work all over the church and, as I said, this kind of thing happens every year. In these notes people give long involved explanations as to why they are not going to serve next year. Others just say, “I’ve decided not to continue to serve.” Now, Pastor Bob knows that the church cannot function—he knows the programs and ministries cannot operate without people filling these leadership and serving positions. So when he starts getting all these resignations, he starts psyching himself up for the annual August recruitment battle. This is something that he goes through over and over again. It’s sort of an annual tradition because it’s been going on forever in this church. His predecessor fought the same August recruitment battle. So now that it’s late July pastor Bob prepares himself for the recruitment war. You see all these positions are going to have to be filled before the church year with all its ministries starts up in September. So Bob psychs himself up! During the month of August he will have to recruit enough people to fill all the empty slots.
But the 200 members of his congregation aren’t dumb. They know what happens every August.
I mean, they’ve gone through these battles every year too. They’ve won some. They’ve lost some, so they start preparing themselves to RESIST Pastor Bob’s recruitment campaign…so both “sides” are psyching themselves up for “battle.” I mean, it’s going to be WAR. A guy named Jim says to himself, “The pastor is not going to get me this year. So help me I don’t care WHAT he preaches on. I don’t care how many stories he tells or how often he threatens me with God’s judgement. I’m not going to cave in even if he starts to cry! He started to cry 3 years ago and I fell for it and I ended up at the welcome desk and I don’t even like people. I’m an introvert! I hated it for the whole year. That’s never going to happen to me again! I’m going to summon all the powers of my personality. I’m going to fight the hard fight to resist to the end. He’s not going to beat me this year. No one is getting me out of this pew!”
But Pastor Bob is well aware of the amount of resistance that has rooted itself in the lives of members like Jim so this year he’s going to bring out the heavy artillery. He’s going to preach a four part sermon series this August entitled, “SERVE OR BURN.” And he is going to illustrate his sermons every week from Foxes Book of Martyrs , that classic history book that tells of people in antiquity who were beaten and crucified spread-eagle on a cross or sacrificed to lions for serving Christ. He’ll read dramatic portions from that book every week—stories that tell how these people gave up their very lives in service to God. He’ll ask, “How could we do less?” He’s decided to wear a lapel mike and he’s going to walk from one side of the stage to another and he’s going to raise his voice and perspire and hold up the Bible and he’s going to wait until the fourth week of that series when he’s going to bring out his SECRET WEAPON. The secret weapon is a little girl. He’s got it all planned. He’s going to bring this girl up the last part of his last message and kneel down and talk to her. He’s going to spend some time interviewing this girl finding out what its going to be like for this girl to spend an entire year in SS without a teacher. In fact, he’s been thinking how effective it would be if he could figure out how to make her cry. I mean, if she’d shed a few tears he’d win the recruitment war hands down—sure shooting! So the battle lines are drawn! This is going to be an interesting August.
And you chuckle but those kinds of annual struggles do happen…they happen to “Pastor Bobs” and to nominating committee members and children’s ministry directors…and to deacons who know they need other deacons to adequately serve their growing congregation…
…not to mention the Shellie Fergises of the world whose job it is to secure enough nursery workers each week to take care of our precious little ones.
It happens! I have seen the resistance and the pressure and the counter resistance. It’s not a pretty sight—especially to God. I mean would you feel loved by people who are so resistant to serving you?
Well, let’s say that Pastor Bob’s strategy works. His “SERVE OR BURN” deal sermon series goes great and his interview with little Suzie works. In fact, during her interview he manages to wrench her arm a bit and she cries and it all works out just like he wanted it to. People feel worn down enough that they give up—and sign up—so those positions that were empty get re-filled for a one-year commitment. Even Jim gives in and begrudgingly agrees to teach junior high boys.
Now, let me ask, can you predict what’s going to happen in that year? What will be the outcome?
It’s going to be a disaster! Because when recruitment happens that way; when positions are filled with that kind of strategy, when people assume leadership and serving responsibilities because they lost the war…well, there’s a high probability that people are going to be serving for the wrong motivations from day one. They are serving to get the pastor off their back. They are serving out of guilt or fear or whatever but not out of worship—not out of love for God.
Another thing, people are going to be serving in the wrong places because the pastor is just trying to fill open slots. He doesn’t care who ends up serving where as long as the slot gets filled. All that is required is a warm and semi-willing body.
Would you like your SS class to be taught by someone who’s ill-equipped? No way! Would you want your kids in a class led by someone who serves out of guilt? Of course not! The teacher doesn’t want to teach so he or she doesn’t have any desire to put any time into the lesson…which means the kids don’t learn much so they are out of control much of the time. And this kind of discontent and frustration is felt in positions of leadership all over the church. Morale sags throughout the year and next June and July the mail to the pastor is heavy with another flood of resignations which will simply make next August’s recruitment wars that much more vicious. No wonder the average senior pastor’s stay in a local church is somewhere around 4 years. I mean, WW1 and WW2 lasted about 4 years—seems like 4 years of war is all we can take!
What a pitiful…pitiful…situation! What makes that kind of situation any different from a civic club trying to get volunteers out of the group to assume certain subcommittee responsibility? Well, Paul addresses this problem. In verse 3 he says to every one of his readers—including you and me, “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought. No one can do everything! How can you be so conceited! Think of yourself with sober judgment…in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.” Then he goes on to say that God has designed each of us with specific talents. He gives us certain spiritual gifts when we become Christians…and we are to show our love for Him by using those gifts in service to Him. In the same way a body has different parts and each part is designed to do a different thing—Christians in the local church have different functions for which God has talented them.
In other words Paul says don’t start with the POSITION—start with the PERSON. Match the person with the task for which they are best suited. You see, when you start with the position and put the wrong people in the wrong places of service it is war—it’s not good. But when you do it the Biblical way—as Paul describes in his letter…I mean when Christians really UNDERSTAND the basics of Christianity—that as Paul says in chapters 1 – 11 you are sinner and without Christ bound for Hell….when we fully grasp the fact that salvation is a GIFT of grace…when we know God has adopted us into His family….if we understand the miracle of all of that…our hearts will burst with thanksgiving…and we will lie awake at night…dreaming up ways to show our gratitude for God’s amazing grace. We will say with the psalmist, “What can I render to the Lord for all He’s done for me?” (Psalm 116:12) And Paul says—here’s what you can render! If you really want to show thanks to God then make your life a sacrifice of praise. Crawl up on the altar. Make your whole life a worship offering to God.
Say as Paul does in Acts 20:24,“I’m yours totally Lord! I consider my life worth nothing to me except to complete the task You’ve given me. It’s Your agenda God—not mine!” When believers make those private pacts of total devotion. God is delighted! He is overjoyed! He knows we love Him! But the next step after making this private commitment is to figure out how it pans out in daily living. And in verses 3-8 Paul says that one of the best ways to show our love for God is by serving in some way…in some capacity in the church…but don’t just go out and sign up for something. Don’t just fill a position and slug it out for a year and then bail out. Don’t just succumb to Pastor Bob’s pleas or threats and do a chore around the church for a year like you are serving a prison term. Instead, first—before you sign up for any kind of service—cool your jets. Back off and find out what spiritual gift the Holy Spirit has endowed you with. Take a spiritual gifts test or try some things by just jumping in…but discover your spiritual gift…because if you take the time to do that first…you will be overwhelmed with yet ANOTHER manifestation of the grace of God—and here it is….you will be amazed that He would gift you…endow you with a special capacity that you didn’t know you had…and when you find out what that divine endowment is….you will begin to serve with the right motivation..which is worship…in the right area. And when you serve God for the right reason in the right place, people will affirm you. You’ll be thrilled because you’ll have discovered your purpose! I mean, when all that lines up a team of wild horses couldn’t pull you away from your service. Your life will take on a whole new caliber of fulfillment and joy. The whole process from beginning to end is a wonderful, God-glorifying process. When you are serving for the right reason in ways that you are gifted…you get energized by it…blessed by it…you’ll want to do it for the rest of your life! And you make your pastor VERY happy! He’ll stick around 5, 10—even 18 years!
But listen—if you love God—REALLY love God—and you want Him to know it—then you need to “speak” His love language. You need to crawl in the offering plate and SACRIFICE your life for His purposes. You need to use the unique gifts and talents God has put in you—to help a local church fulfill His purposes in this world. No need to raise your hands—but I wonder, how many of you have a pretty good handle on what your spiritual gift is? How many of you feel like you are using it now as a SACRIFICE to the Lord? You’re serving in the church and you love it because you know you are in the right area? And—how many of you would say, “I really don’t know what my spiritual gift is?” How many of you would have to honestly define your church participation is just coming and sitting? You’re nothing more than a spectator. I mean, think—what does your service in the church say about your love for God…your gratitude for what He has done?
Let us pray.