All right, turn your Bibles with me to Romans chapter 12, verses 1. I'm going to read both verses 1 and 2, but our focus this morning is going to be verse 1. 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 worship.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. That by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you desiring to meet you, to praise you and honor you and thank you, Father, for your goodness.

We pray for your word to have power over our thoughts, our hearts, our will. And in light of all that you have given us, help us, Lord God, to give you a reasonable spiritual act of worship. We ask for your presence and your Holy Spirit's guidance. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. All right, so again, if you've been through the whole book of Romans with us, and I don't know exactly how much time we spent on it, but it's got to be at least a year and a half to maybe even two years. I don't know, maybe longer than that.

But we've been in the book of Romans for 11 chapters, and 11 chapters of exposition of the mercies of God. And so we've been, generally speaking, if we were to title chapter 1 through 11 with one word, it would be justification. Why do we need justification? How are we going to get justified?

What are the ramifications of justification? What are the results of justification? And so basically 11 chapters is about how someone gets saved. We are justified by the blood of Christ. So chapter 12 through 16, we're entering into a new section, and it is not different, but the emphasis definitely is different.

So all of the teaching of justification is going to lead us to sanctification. How does this apply practically in the life of a Christian? So again, I have a tendency, or we have a tendency that whenever we talk a lot about justification, which we have for the last 11 chapters, I typically get people coming up to me and say, "Well, when are we going to talk about practical stuff, telling people to do this and do that?" And then whenever I tend to spend a lot of time on the application aspect of it, I always get somebody in the congregation who will come up to me and say, "Oh, how come we're not talking enough about justification, and about the blood of Christ, and about the gospel?" Well, we follow whatever the scripture teaches, and we're following this pattern.

And again, so for a period, starting from chapter 12, we're going to be talking about application. So what does it mean if you confess these truths of 11 chapters, what does it mean in application? So I want to just quickly read again in verse 1, where Paul says, "I appeal to you therefore." Therefore meaning this is a summary of everything that he said up to 11 chapters.

"I appeal to you in light of all of this, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual act of worship." That this is how you ought to apply what you have learned in view of this mercy.

When we think about sanctification, that subject alone, you could probably spend the rest of our lives just talking about sanctification. As much as we can spend a lot of time talking about justification, we can talk a lot about sanctification because sanctification is at the core of how the church is run.

So oftentimes people ask the question, "So what's the distinction between a Baptist and a Presbyterian or the Charismatics versus the Methodist?" Well, at the core of it, there really isn't much debate over justification. We all agree, if you don't agree on justification, you wouldn't be an evangelical Christian. We wouldn't be able to fellowship together.

You wouldn't be a Christian. But the reason why we have different denominations is because the application of this looks very different from church to church. And that's because the view of sanctification is very different. So I'm going to give you a quick overview, and this is not comprehensive, but this is a quick overview of how this is applied in different groups.

The first group, we'll call them the Wesleyan group. The Wesleyan group basically is, John Wesley is the one who started the Methodist church. So some of you guys who may have been raised in a Methodist church, it is not just a Methodist, but we're just going to call it the Wesleyan view.

The Wesleyan view believes that you can lose your salvation. There's a heavy emphasis on human responsibility, and the reason why they are called the Methodist is because their view of sanctification is that you have to apply discipleship and methods. You have to be disciplined. And so there's heavy emphasis on what you need to do.

So there's a heavy emphasis on accountability, heavy emphasis on structure, heavy emphasis on accountability and leader/follower. And so none of these things are wrong, but at the core of how people change, how people apply the truths of the Word of God so that we are growing in our faith is through methods.

So the variations of that, we have false doctrines of perfectionism, which believes that we can actually attain perfection during this life if we work hard enough. Or we have another group, the Keswick, is a partial view of perfectionism. Again, none of these terms are necessarily important for you to realize, but it's just for the purpose of your understanding.

So if you're part of the group that thinks that sanctification is purely by hard work, then we have to apply every method possible to get people to change their behavior. That's the first view. We'll call it the Wesleyan view, but Wesleyan is not the only one who propagated this view.

The second view comes from the Pentecostals. The Pentecostal view basically says that sanctification happens when you are touched by the Holy Spirit. So they believe that there are two separate baptisms. There's an initial baptism that you receive when you first become a Christian, and then there's a second baptism of the Holy Spirit, where you need to be continually filled with the Holy Spirit.

And so the way that an individual is sanctified or grows in his faith is a constant filling of the Holy Spirit. So if you are part of a camp that believes that, imagine how that will affect your worship, or your Sunday worship, or your gatherings. Your primary emphasis would be, are you being touched?

Is the worship touching you? Is the sermons touching you? Are the prayer meetings, are gatherings? So there's a heavy emphasis on, and Holy Spirit touching, are you being touched? And so you can easily lead to emotionalism. And so the Pentecostals, again, we have variations of this view, but the Pentecostals believe that sanctification happens as a result of spiritual encounter with the Holy Spirit and constant renewing and filling of the Holy Spirit.

And then you have the third, and again, there's more than three, but these are kind of the larger general view. And this comes from, again, not all, but a lot of the Presbyterian, the confessionally reformed camp, where they believe that exposure to the common grace that God has given in the church, the covenant community, that if you are exposed to that, and if you encounter that, if you're part of that, that sanctification tends to happen.

And so the way that that is applied, that is that you memorize catechism, that you participate in communion, that you baptize infants, and so they receive this grace of being within this community. So there's a heavy emphasis on church, meaning participating in the church, in the communion, in the catechisms, and so on.

Now, everything that I've mentioned are within the debate among the evangelical community. We wouldn't say that they're not Christians because they have these views. In fact, at the core of what they teach is not wrong. It's biblical, but it's not complete. And there are some things, obviously, that you could take it to the extreme, which some have.

You have the Church of Christ, that we do not believe that they're part of the evangelical community. You have the Church of Christ, who will teach that if you're not part of their church, if you're not part of their baptism, that you're not Christian. And obviously, that is not proper teaching of justification.

That is not what the Bible teaches, right? That is heresy. You have another group called the local church movement. Some of you may have run into them. They're on UCI campus quite a bit. And the local church movement, who was founded by Watchman Nee's disciple, Witness Lee, and they believe that there are two separate groups of Christians.

You have the regular Christians, and you have the kingdom Christians. And so the kingdom Christians are people who are part of their church, who live a certain way, who do certain things, who give and actively participate, but you have to be part of their church. So that's how they have dealt with this issue of sanctification.

And then you have the apostolic Pentecostals. Not the Pentecostals, but the apostolic Pentecostals believe that sanctification happens as a result of encountering God, and if you don't speak in tongues, that's a sign that you don't have the Holy Spirit. And if you don't have the Holy Spirit, you're not a Christian.

So again, there's aberrations and heresies of these false views or incomplete views when you take it to the extreme, which I gave you an example of. And so it's extremely important that justification part for us in a Bible teaching church is easy. It's easy because there is universal agreement.

The church has debated this for 2,000 years, and universally within the Orthodox community, there is agreement on justification, that we're all justified by the grace of God by faith alone. And you wouldn't be a Christian if you denied any of these things. But the debate is within sanctification. How does somebody change?

How does somebody grow? What is a mature Christian? How do you get somebody like the Great Commission teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you? How does one person come from making a confession of faith into growing into a mature Christian so that they are bearing fruit?

What is the distinction? Well, that's what Paul is going to get at in Romans chapter 12 through chapter 16. He's going to be talking about, "Therefore, since you know all of this, now it's time for you to begin to apply these things." So again, as an introduction this morning, I can't emphasize enough how important this is because my guess is that most of you did not wrestle with justification.

If you're already confessing Christians, you already knew that. A lot of that was highlighting, it was for the purpose of for you to be reminded, or maybe even hone in to be more precise. But my guess is a lot of you, if not most of you, have wrestled with this thought of sanctification.

I want to change. How do I do that? What does it mean to challenge people to bear fruit? How do we apply all of that? So hopefully the next four chapters that we're in this, that we can dive into a little bit deeper. First, so there are I think four things that I want to mention just in this first verse alone because it is the beginning and it'll kind of set the tone for the rest of the teaching in the four chapters.

There are four things that he talks about in, about sanctification. So number one, we are commanded to take active part in our sanctification. Number one, we are commanded to take active part in our sanctification. Sanctification is not us just sitting there thinking, "You know what? I confess Jesus as my Lord and Savior," and then, and then rest of it is the church's fault.

Rest of it is the community. Rest of it is other people. He said, no, he says we are to take active part. In Romans chapter one, he says that, "I appeal to you, therefore brothers, by the mercy of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice." See, now he's taking it to them.

He's not saying this is what Christ did, but now as, because what Christ did, here's what you need to do in view of his mercy. I urge you to present. That's a command for us to do. Romans 619, it says, "For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification." So he mentions again in Romans chapter 619, present.

We are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice. We are to present our members as slaves to righteousness. That's something we do. That's not something you passively just receive. We've received justification. We received the Holy Spirit, and in response to that, he says, "Now you present yourselves to righteousness." Second Timothy 2.22, Paul says to his young disciple, "Flee youthful passions." Flee.

He doesn't just say passively waiting for the passion, the youthful passion to disappear. How many of us view sanctification as something that you respond to? If God would just take away these passions, it would be so much easier. If God would just take away the temptation. But he says, "No, flee youthful passions." So what does that mean?

Paul understands that Timothy has youthful passions in him. He assumes that all young men and young women have these youthful passions that they are struggling with. And so he's telling them, "It's there." He's not saying, "Wait till it disappears. Do something about it so that's no longer there." He said, "It's there, but flee from it." Not only to flee, but to pursue.

And sanctification always has that two aspect where you are to flee, then to pursue righteousness. Again, in Ephesians 4.22-24, the language is similar but different vocabulary. Instead of fleeing and pursuing, it says to put off and to put on. Ephesians 4.22, "To put off your old self." Other passions that you had before you became a Christian, recognizing that that does not fit into the kingdom.

Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires. And to be renewed in the spirit of your mind and to put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. So part of sanctification is recognize what are some things that you need to put off?

What are some things that don't belong in the kingdom of God? What is unfitting for a Christian? And so if we don't recognize that, if we don't take time and be in His Word, and sometimes in the fellowship of the church, to recognize there's certain pattern of thinking, there's certain thoughts that you have, certain passions, certain habits that you have that is inconsistent with the kingdom.

To say that we have eternity in mind and then to invest 99% of all our week on the temporal things is inconsistent with what you profess. So that's what he means, recognizing what is old and to put that off and then pursue what is new. So this idea of sanctification is for us to put off and to put on.

Paul himself, the apostle, who's writing these words, himself describes his sanctification in 1 Corinthians 9, 27, "But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others, I myself should be disqualified." Paul fully is aware that he does not lose his salvation. He didn't gain his salvation.

He does not lose his salvation. Yet the language that he uses here in 1 Corinthians 9, 27, he says he labors, he disciplines, he fights against his flesh so that after he has taught everybody else that he himself would not be disqualified, that his life would be inconsistent with what he preaches and teaches.

Hebrews 12, verse 14, "Strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord." Let that sink in for a minute, what he just said. Strive for peace with everyone and for holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Is he talking about justification or sanctification?

He's talking about your life. He said strive, work toward peace, strive and work toward holiness and without it, you're not even going to be able to see the Lord. What does that mean? Our sanctification is not completely separated from justification. Our sanctification and justification is really two sides of the same coin.

So he's not saying now that you've been justified and you can't lose your salvation, let's go to sanctification and try to work hard and do this. He says no, since you have been justified, now this is what your sanctification is going to look like. Now that requires your work, right?

Just as justification required your confession and your repentance, that the Holy Spirit led you to that, in the same way, sanctification, the Lord is working but it requires your commitment. You need to commit to sanctification. That's not something that you do if you just find the right church and right small group and right leader, that somehow sanctification is going to happen.

You just choose the right boat and the rest of it is just sailing and enjoying the ride. Without it, you cannot see the Lord. There is no fellowship with God, 1 John 1. How much of our spiritual dryness is directly linked to a passive, uncommitted life that reflects the world and instead of Christ?

How much of our weak prayer life is directly linked to a passive commitment to our own sanctification? That we're so committed to fix other people's sins, but passively, it's like, well, you know, everybody makes a mistake, but when it comes to other people's sin, you just can't stand it.

I remember early on as a Christian, you know, it was so hard because there was certain things that I did before I became a Christian and I had such a hard time. I had such a bad temper. My biggest problem was not smoking, drinking, it was my temper. And I got into a lot of fights, you know, and especially anything racial, like I had no tolerance whatsoever.

You know, I could hear some ting or ching down the hall and I'm running down the hall already, you know, because I would lose my temper. So even after I became a Christian, it was a problem. You know, I had a lot of rage in me and I would just lose my temper.

And I remember early on, I got in a huge fight in the middle of Bible study, you know, and I remember getting headlocked. And this is another guy who was a brand new Christian and I was a brand new Christian and we were just messing around and then we got carried away and then both of us got mad and we dragged each other downstairs outside in the middle of Bible study.

I still remember that very vividly. And Philip running down, you know, to try to stop the fight and then my other Christian friends were more mature than me trying to come and break us up. And I remember Philip distinctly saying, "Don't touch him when he's like that. He's going to swing at you too." You know.

So early on as a Christian, I struggled so much with wanting to be renewed, but it was so much work. And every time I would fail, I would be down on myself and it would take, you know, a whole week and then I would wait till Friday night to repent.

And then I decided to go to Biola. The reason why I decided to go to Biola was not because I wanted to go into ministry. I went to Biola as a business major. I went to Biola because I was hoping that I would meet other strong Christians that I can decide because the church that my father was passing didn't have a large youth group or college ministry and there weren't a lot of people that I could look up to as a Christian.

And so when I went to Biola, you know, I went with this expectation that I'm going to be in the midst of strong Christians. There are Bible majors. They're all headed out to missions. And then after about half a semester, I realized that they were no better than I was.

Everybody was struggling. Like the only difference was they seemed to be okay with it. They've accepted it. That's just the way we are, you know, like God just wants us to feel bad and we repent and that's it. And it almost seemed like, you know, every time we talk about whether it's purity or whatever, the sharing is always the same.

"Yeah, I'm not doing well." Like, "When's the last time you read your Bible?" It's like, "Oh, it's been a while." And it just cycles over and over again. So people get frustrated enough, they would just leave. And I was very tempted to leave myself. And I started to think, "Well, what if these are the cream of the crop?" At least in my view, because these are all leaders in the church.

A lot of them were Bible majors. A lot of them were headed out to missions. So if it's this bad here, I mean, it must be worse on a secular campus. And then I had to kind of go through this paradigm. Maybe this is normal. Maybe sanctification is just something like, you know, like God dangling a carrot.

And He wants us to kind of keep reaching for it and then just be frustrated and then long for heaven and die. So because I didn't know anybody who I looked up to and said, "Wow, that guy is really living his Christian life." I had all this passion in me and I didn't know how to apply it.

Until I met my former youth pastor and he said he wanted to disciple me. And there was a campus ministry called Little Spark. And it was kind of an offshoot from Navigators and it was strict discipleship. And I met these group of people who were on fire for God and they were actually praying.

They were actually evangelizing. And I joined that group. I became a part of their discipleship program. And I lived with these guys for the next four years. And it was like military. Whether I slept at two or three o'clock, we woke up at five. We went running. We did quiet time together.

And every night we took turns cooking. Like this is Monday through Sunday, every single day. And then every night we're supposed to sit at six o'clock after eating dinner and just read the Bible together because we were all, you know, actively involved in ministry. And that Bible reading, it was supposed to be 20-minute Bible reading every day, turned into a three-hour Bible study every single day.

Because they were all Bible majors. Some of them were Talbot students. And I learned so much from that group. But the reason why I share that story was because my paradigm completely shifted. I went from maybe this isn't possible to, wow, this is possible. And so I was very thankful for those four or five years in ministry.

That's not where my life, my understanding of sanctification ends. But I realized that discipline and hard work was absolutely necessary. And that's what they were doing. But that's the first part. But it's not the only part. That's the first part. It requires our active commitment to sanctification. And so the first question I have for you is, are you committed to your sanctification?

Are you regularly examining your heart, your motive, how you spend your money, your time, the way you raise your kids? Is it biblical? Does it glorify God? Are you actively committed to your own sanctification? Are you passively hoping that it will happen? You would meet the right person, that you would find the right group?

Secondly, sanctification is motivated and empowered by the grace of God. If you do the first without recognizing the second, you have the Wesleyan view. Now let me share with you what happened. I got part of that group, and it helped me tremendously in discipline. Memorize scripture. In fact, our leader in our home, he will never allow us to be idle.

So Friday nights, before I became a youth pastor, a few of us would sit around and say, "Hey, what are you guys doing?" He would walk in from his Bible study, and then he'll sit and just... And this is during a time when we didn't have a TV in our apartment, there were no cell phones, and so it wasn't like we were doing anything dumb.

We weren't playing any video games. Usually we would just sit around just talking, maybe about Lakers or something. And then he said, "What are you guys doing?" It's like, "Oh, nothing." And then he would say, "Grab your Bibles." And then he would take us out to the pier, the Baboa Pier or Huntington, and then we would just go evangelize for a couple hours and come back.

He would never allow us to be idle. So I was tremendously blessed by the discipline. But after about three, four years, I started seeing something. And again, I thank God for that period. But I started to see some of my friends who were there, who were jumping through the hoops and doing everything that was expected in that group, but we would sit down and have conversations about our passion for Christ and about right doctrine, and there would be a blank look.

And I started getting frustrated. I felt like I wasn't able to fellowship among these people, these people that I really looked up to. And I started to think, how much of this is institutionalism versus real discipleship? How much of this is motivated by wanting to please man rather than to please God?

Think about how much you and I do. What a fear of what people will say if you don't do it. A lot. Even the good things that we do, there's some of that. The way you dress, how you sing, participating in the church, reading the Bible, coming to Bible study, memorizing scripture.

So much of that, it's intertwined with maybe true motive of wanting to honor God. Think about how much of our motivation is wanting to conform, to fit in. And then we also can be motivated by wanting to appease God, because if you don't appease God, God's not going to bless your life.

Remember a whole group of people, you know, the 5,000 in John chapter 6? Remember how all of them were so excited to make Jesus king? And then when Jesus says, "I am the bread of life," and you're coming to me because you ate and you want more? But he said, "I am the bread of life." And then when they realized what Jesus was saying, they turned away and they disappeared.

How much of what we're doing is fear of man and fear of if we don't appease God, God's not going to bless my family, he's not going to bless my kids. How much of it is motivated by that? It's hard for us to discern, but there is some of that in there.

How much of our motivation is superstition? If you don't read your Bible every day, if you don't study, if you don't pray enough, our life is going to fall apart. So much of our motivation is intertwined with worldly things that sometimes we can't even discern. See, but he says the reason why you do this is just as important as what you're doing.

Because if you do something motivated by the wrong thing, it could completely nullify everything that you're doing. So he says, again, the second point is sanctification is motivated and empowered by the mercy of God. NIV says, "Present your body as a living sacrifice in view of God's mercy." Or in the ESV, it says, "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God." So in the NIV, it says, "in view of mercy." In the ESV, it says, "by the mercies." So if you look at those two translations, it says, "in view of mercy," meaning in light of what God has done, you respond.

By the mercy of God sounds like through, through the grace. The meaning really behind it is both. It's not one or the other. That it is in view of his mercy, being affected by his mercy, and by his mercy, by his strength, that we carry out, we offer our bodies as a living sacrifice.

And that's what he's been talking about for 11 chapters. 11 chapters to give us a view of his mercies. 11 chapters of giving us in-depth, firsthand view of what it is that we have received in Christ. But that's not where it ends. He doesn't say, "Here's all that's done.

Now the rest of it is up to you." That's not what he is saying. He says, "In view of all of this, he who did not spare his own son, how will he not, along with him, give us all things?" He didn't just justify us and then say, "Hey, go.

Rest of the sanctification is up to you. And if you don't make it, you're not going to see God." No. It started by his mercy, and we fulfill it by his mercy. That's, again, in Colossians 1:26, where Paul says, "For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that powerfully works within me." Did you catch that?

Paul says he's struggling. He's committed. But he also recognized the energy that he has to do this is God himself. Philippians 1:6, "I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." You see how he talks about three aspects of salvation?

He who started the good work will carry it out unto completion, past, present, and future. He says, "I'm confident of the Philippians, not because of you, but because he who began it, he will fulfill it, and he will complete it." Hebrews chapter 12, 2, "Therefore, looking to Jesus," NIV says, "Fix your eyes upon Jesus, the founder and the perfecter of our faith." Again, one more verse, 2 Corinthians 5:14, "For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this, that one has died for all, therefore all have died.

And he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves, and for him who for their sake died and was raised." So let me stop for a minute and say this. Moralism is just as dangerous as worldliness. Moralism is just as dangerous as worldliness, because moralism is by your good work saying that you don't need God, that you work hard, and if I achieve, and if I'm disciplined enough, if I'm smart enough and make the right decisions and manage my money right enough, then I could do certain things.

That's moralism. But at the core of moralism, you don't need God. You're helping God. You're assisting God. But you're not dependent upon God. See, the Pharisees were very moral people. And it was their moralism that blinded them for the need of Christ. So the beginning work of sanctification is being affected by justification.

And the continual work of sanctification is continual affecting of that justification. So the first area that you and I need to wrestle with is, do you have affection for Christ? Is justification real? Have you truly been washed by the blood of Jesus Christ? And if you have, why does that not affect your emotions?

Why does that not affect your thinking? Why does that not affect your values? Why does that not affect your passion? Because sanctification without being affected by justification can easily lead to moralism. And some of you are very good at that. You've always been a straight-A student. You've always done the right thing.

You're good at doing what you're supposed to do. And there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, we don't rebuke you for that. You are the top of your class, right? And you make everyone happy, and whatever you volunteer in gets done very well. But when that is your motivation for your sanctification, it doesn't lead to glorifying God.

Oftentimes it leads to greater pride. It leads to greater judgmentalism, impatience with other people who are not getting As. It doesn't lead to humbling and seeing the glory of God. It leads to greater independence from God, greater independence from others. See, that's why in 2 Corinthians 3.18, and this is how sanctification is described, "And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.

For this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." That's a biblical definition of sanctification. As we are beholding the glory of the Lord, and wasn't that what justification was? Justification was the Holy Spirit opened our eyes to see the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and now sanctification is continuing to behold the glory of the Lord and are being transformed.

The more of his glory that we see, the more of his glory is being reflected off of us, from one degree of glory to another. Isn't that transformation that he's talking about? Isn't that sanctification that he's talking about? Isn't that spiritual maturity he's talking about? He's not describing spiritual maturity as somebody who's more disciplined in reading the Bible, even though that is a great part of it.

He's not just simply describing somebody who's giving more, who's serving more. All of these things are ramifications of the glory of God being reflected. But at the core of transformation is more of his glory being reflected from one degree to another. As we behold his glory, we are justified.

As we continue to behold a greater degree of his glory, a greater degree of glory is being reflected off of us from moment to moment. So it's not simply about doing the right things. The motive behind it, what pushes you towards sanctification? There's a tremendous amount of difference between a fellowship of believers who are being broken by the things of God, wanting to honor God in their life.

How do I do this? There's a level of humility. There's a level of gentleness. Because they're approaching it as a sinner who is in need of the grace of God. Versus a room filled with people who have achieved greatness on their own, by their discipline, and just cannot tolerate anybody who does anything less.

From a distance, it may look like, "Wow, those guys have it together. Those guys memorize scripture, they do this, and so many people volunteering, and they're all doing this." But when you get real close to them, all you hear is grumbling. You don't hear about the love of Christ.

You don't hear about how awesome God is. You don't hear about how they're being affected and being broken by what Christ has done. No, all you hear are these highly moral people, and a group, is a lot of grumbling. And that completely ruins the third aspect of what sanctification is.

Ultimately, sanctification is an act of worship. He says, "I appeal to you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, good to God, which is your spiritual worship." So, sanctification ultimately is an act of worship. Now he says, "To offer your bodies as a living sacrifice." Now clearly, he spent 11 chapters talking about how we don't need the sacrifices anymore.

Right? 11 chapters of expounding how the Old Testament sacrifices only pointed to Christ, and Christ gave the sacrifice. There's no longer any need for sacrifice. In order to understand what Paul is saying in chapter 12, you need to understand that there are two major distinctions in the Old Testament of sacrifices.

You had the mandatory sacrifice, and you had the voluntary sacrifice. Mandatory sacrifice, you could not come to the temple without it. If you sinned and you didn't give a sin offering, and you didn't give a whole offering, you would be in danger. You cannot have any kind of fellowship.

You can't pray to God. You can't come to the temple. So it was mandatory. In order, when you sin, your sins had to be atoned for. And then there was a second large category of offerings, was voluntary. It was not necessary. God wanted it out of the abundance of your heart.

And that's what he means in Isaiah when he says, "I do not delight in your sacrifice." Because what God wanted in the sacrifice was not the dead animals. He wanted worship. So in the New Testament, the mandatory sacrifice has been made in the whole book of Hebrew. If you want to go into detail about that, go into the exposition of the book of Hebrew.

It teaches how Christ fulfilled the mandatory sacrifice. So when here, when he says the voluntary sacrifice, there is no meaning behind voluntary sacrifice if it is not an act of worship. Because it is not necessary. People ask all the time, "Do you have to go to church to be saved?" No.

"Do you have to read the Bible to be saved?" No. "Do you have to pray to be saved?" No. Because all of that would be adding to justification. That would be heresy. Now you'd be disobedient, right? You wouldn't be a good Christian. But it is not part of justification.

So if we participate in our sanctification in the church and offering, and if it is not an act of worship, it is meaningless. Because in God's eyes, what he's ultimately desiring is for his people to respond and to give him worship. Sanctification ultimately is an act of worship. That's why in John chapter 4, 23-24, Jesus says to the Samaritan woman, "But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth." Not only because it is right to do it, but because he desires to do it.

Not only because it is written to do it, but because he wants to do it. And that's why he says, even of the giving of the Corinthians, he says, "These Macedonians, even in the midst of intense poverty, they said, 'Give me an opportunity to give.' And he said, 'No, you need to take care of yourselves.' But he said, 'No, we want the opportunity to worship.'" And he highlights it, and that's why they were highlighted as model of giving, for God desires a cheerful giver, meaning he wants to worship.

He's not saying, "Hey, we're short this month. We're short about $18 billion. And let me get all my pastors together. So how are we going to raise this $18 billion and get them to do this?" And so I get notices all the time, "How to get more money from the congregation?" There's a whole industry that targets churches to get you to give more money.

And they have all these statistics, just like any business, they have all these statistics that this church did this, and their offering went up 30%. Humanly speaking, it's like, "Oh, what can we do with 30 more percent? Add more staff, get another building." I mean, we can think about all this stuff, but in the end, that's human thinking.

God doesn't need our money. Does he need our money? Is the kingdom frustrated because there isn't enough money? No. What God wants is worship, and so money is an act of worship. Serving is an act of worship. So again, in 1 Peter 4, 9-11, it says, "Show hospitality to one another without grumbling," because the minute you start grumbling, it nullifies what you're doing.

"Without grumbling, as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as a good steward of God's very grace. Whoever speaks as one who speaks the oracles of God, whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies, you know that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

To him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen." God's not glorified because we gave money. He's glorified because of why we gave the money. When people ask, "Why are you doing this?" I say, "Man, our church requires it. If I don't, I've got to buy free boba for everybody in my small group." Don't get me wrong.

I'm not against that. If people volunteer to do that and say, "Hey, can you keep me accountable, and if I don't do this, make me pay boba," I'm not against that. That's not a form of legalism. That's just extra motive. It's just like telling your friend, "I want to go to the gym every morning.

Can you please call me at 6 a.m.? And if I don't, then I've got to buy you breakfast." And so you're the one initiating. You desire it. So I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But if that's the only reason why you're doing that, then it is not an act of worship.

Sanctification ultimately happens with people who have been affected by what Christ has done. And then fourth and finally, sanctification is a logical, reasonable response to worship to God for His mercy. Now in our ESV translation, it says it is a spiritual act of worship, but the literal word in Greek is logical or reasonable.

And isn't it reasonable? Isn't it logical to think that people who have been affected by the cross, that you'd be able to see it? Yeah, I think we would expect that for anybody. If somebody won the biggest lottery in the world, you know, they won the biggest lottery in the world and they're as cheap as they've ever been, right?

You loan them a dollar and they come after you. Remember three months ago? You borrowed that dollar. And your mind is like, "Dude, you just won a billion dollars." And you're still. So in your mind, it's like, "Did this guy really win this or is this guy really that cheap?" So what he's saying is, if this happened to you, the reasonable, logical response would be an act of worship.

And that's what corporate worship ultimately is. A room filled with people who have been affected by the work of Christ, giving thanks to Him. What ruins the church is when the church is filled with people who've just been raised as Christians and meeting obligations. Now, church is any given church, and I'm assuming even in our church.

We have enough of both. And sometimes you may be coming in with a, like, "Man, I really want to worship God." And then a lot of times you may be coming because it's just Sunday. You were raised that way. And it feels weird. I'm one of those people. I've never missed church.

I literally need to have surgery on my legs to miss church because it just feels weird. There's a part of me that wants to be right with God and honor God, and there's a part of me that just feels weird, like something bad's going to happen to me if I don't go to church.

Right? And there's a part of all of that stuff is mixed in me. See, the difference between a church that reflects the aroma of Christ versus a church that smells and sounds like a bunch of Pharisees is what's happening in your heart. It's not the program. It's not the organization, but it's what's happening in your heart.

Let me quickly review and then wrap up because this is kind of an introduction to sanctification that we're going to be talking about for the next four chapters. Sanctification requires your commitment. You have to commit to this. Secondly, sanctification is motivated and empowered by the grace of God. So you have to be in His Word.

You have to meditate, think about regularly what it is that you have in Christ. Thirdly, sanctification is an act of worship. Are you worshiping God? Whether you are serving. You know, in fact, sometimes serving in the most menial things is the greater act of worship, right? Because when you get praise from men for something you do, sometimes the motivation is kind of mixed.

Like, "Am I doing that because people praise me for it?" You know? You know, sometimes I deliberately do things that are menial and I don't tell anybody about it, which I just told you now, so now everything's nullified. You know? I deliberately do that and then no one knows about it because I want to check my own heart because I'm always up in the front.

So sometimes I deliberately do things that no one would know and I don't want anybody to know. And this is not for anybody to—and it's not because it was absolutely necessary, simply to check my own heart. Because a lot of the things that we do behind the scene that nobody sees, a lot of times is a greater act of worship than being up in the front and doing stuff.

Am I pursuing sanctification as an act of worship? And fourth and finally, is this the reasonable response? Is our life logical with what we profess? Is it consistent with the blood of Christ? I hope that we can set that as an outline and as a base as we continue to study this, that we would get a greater sense of not only understand sanctification, but hopefully begin to apply it actively.

Let's take some time to pray as we ask—our praise seemed to come up. Let's take some time to pray. And seek the Lord and if you find yourself kind of passively hoping sanctification would happen, I want to encourage you to think practically of how this should be applied in your life.