Faith Baptist Church
4258 Botetourt Road
Fincastle, Virginia 24090
(540) 473-2325
Romans 12:1
Serving the Lord takes upon many forms. Some are called to be no more than a door keeper in the house of the Lord. Some are called to the care of God’s saints as Pastor-teachers. Some are called to mass evangelism. Some are called to teach, some to administration, some to aiding the infirmed, some to generous financial support of God’s word. Some are called to nurture the young in the church. Some are called to encouraging the disheartened. All of us who have received Christ as our Lord and Savior are members of his body. All of us are called to be a witness of the Good News of salvation.
Please never forget that the call to faithful service to the Lord is a call based on conviction, never convenience. The world calls us to a life of convenience, but heaven calls us to a life of conviction.
A fellowship of believers may be diverse in many ways, and yet with sound Bible teaching we find godly unity, and godly convictions thus we seek unity through Biblical truth. We do not seek unity through programs and a patchwork of opinions
From Rom.12:1 we see the Apostle Paul made a steady strong appeal to the saints. He said I beseech, [Present Indicative Active verb] I keep on imploring you therefore brethren, [adelphoi] those born of the same spiritual womb; those who were born again. You see, Paul did not expect the unbeliever to present his body as a sacrifice for the Lord’s service but he did expect it of all believers.
The inferential participle, therefore, oun, points back to the previous chapters of this greatest of New Testament doctrinal dissertations. Seeing as a backdrop of our service to the Lord the Apostle Paul, for example, #1 saw the righteousness and justice of God in saving mankind by his grace, Rom.4:5; # 2 seeing our justification based on the finished work of Christ on Calvary, Rom.5:1, # 3 seeing the futility of trying to serve the Lord in the energy of the flesh, Rom.7:22-23 and by so much more Paul said;
“I implore you by the mercies of God, the teachings of sound truth previously found in this letter, to take all of those things into consideration as you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
We do not embrace this concept of sacrificing so well in our day. But it is only through sacrifice that we come to experience the most important part of the character of Jesus Christ. We really do not come to experience the full Christian life until we have crossed the threshold of sacrifice.
In our position in Jesus Christ we are already considered by God to be dead to this world, Rom.6:2-6.
Since we are already considered to be dead to the world in Christ we may as well live completely unto him. Thus we are to present [ Aorist Active Infinitive of parhistemi] meaning to present oneself to God’s service and with the Aorist tense this is defined as a once and for all commitment.
Rom.6:13 translates this word, parhistemi, as to yield.
No believer can say they have yielded to serve the Lord who looks for an escape route. We do not commit to serve the Lord such as the young man who stands at the altar with his bride while at the same time he is winking at the bridesmaids.
I would like for you to also notice that you are seen as a living sacrifice, not as a slain animal sacrifice, but a living offering dedicated to God. This tells us right off that it is not going to kill us to serve the Lord regardless of what capacity we serve.
You are seen in God’s eyes as a holy sacrifice, set apart to his service. Like a chosen vessel of honor such as was used in his tabernacle in the Old Testament. This is means all of us are set apart by God in some way which means we acknowledge that all we are, all we ever will be, and all we will ever have belongs to the Lord. Our time, our talents, our grace gifts and our tithes, all belong to the Lord.
We are to set our body soul and mind to God’s work. This is acceptable to God, and this is our reasonable service. A better translation is, this is your rational spiritual worship of the God who has saved you.
Many of you serve the Lord in various ways, and at times we as a local church must do the same.
I call on you today to ask yourself, “Where it is that God can use me to?”
Today we will seek to install an official servant, a doulos of the Lord to the church appointed office of deacon.