Okay, if you can turn your Bibles to Romans chapter 12 verses 1 and 2. Again, this is kind of part 2, but really today we're going to be focusing on the subject of Thanksgiving sacrifice as we're preparing ourselves for the Thanksgiving break. Romans chapter 12, really on 1, and I'm just going to stemming off from the last part of this passage, Romans chapter 12, but I'll read both passages.

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. Gracious and loving Father, we want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts. For all the things that we know, and even the things that we are not aware of, the things that you are doing in our lives, Lord God. We thank you so much, Father, for being patient.

We thank you for your constant reminder through the Holy Spirit and intercession that we may draw near to the throne of grace. We may have confidence based upon who you are and what you have done. I pray that this morning that you would remind us again of who you are, that we may worship you to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, as a reasonable spiritual act of worship.

We thank you in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. The last part of last week's sermon, at the end of chapter 12, verse 1, he says to offer your bodies in view of God's mercy as a living sacrifice, this is your spiritual act of worship. And we found out that at the end of that verse, the NASB has that translated, not spiritual, but reasonable or logical.

And I think the literal understanding of that word spiritual that's in ESV, it just means that this is the reasonable response to what we confess to believe. The reasonable response to justification is our sanctification, that we offer our bodies as a living sacrifice. And this is our logical act of worship.

So basically what Paul is saying is, if we confess that these things are true, and that we've genuinely been affected by the blood of the cross, the only reasonable response is to offer our bodies, our whole bodies as a living sacrifice. It would only make sense. It would be unreasonable to profess Christ as our savior, that God sent his only begotten son to die for us, and that our reward is in heaven to be in eternity to worship him, and then his eternal damnation for rejecting him, to confess the belief of that, and to live the rest of our life as if that never happened.

It is unreasonable. So it is not simply because the scripture teaches it that this is what a Christian should look like, it is just a natural response. And those of you who've ever been around a brand new Christian who confessed their sins, you don't need to tell them. In fact, they're the ones asking, "What should I do?

How should I respond?" And some of you guys probably may remember that. Maybe you were like that when you first became a Christian, came to church asking, "What do I now need to do? Where do I sit? How do I dress?" Because automatically it was understood, if Christ purchased me for himself, I belong to him, then what does God desire?

So that's how Paul ends verse 1 with saying that offering your bodies as a living sacrifice is a reasonable response of worship to God. Lordship is not an option in the church for a Christian. Lordship is a logical response to God. And the reason why we have this theological term, "Lordship salvation," is to clarify that a Christian isn't a Christian until Christ is actually your Lord.

He didn't just save us so that we don't go to hell. The scripture says he purchased us for himself. That we no longer belong to ourselves, but we belong to him for his purpose, for his use. In fact, in Romans 10, verse 9, it says, "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, then you will be saved." So this idea of Christ being Lord is not an option for a few select Christians.

For some people who decide to go into ministry or to go out to missions, that we somehow struggle with this idea of, "I'm going to dedicate my whole life to Christ," and then those who don't go into ministry somehow is exempt from that. Some Christians have decided to dedicate everything to God, and then the rest of us have decided, "Well, we're going to give some to God, and some I'm going to live for myself." That is not the option that a Christian has.

The Christian from the very get-go, his own salvation, it says, "If you confess Christ as your Lord," meaning Christ didn't just forgive your sins, he purchased us, that we belong to him. But obviously, Paul is not saying, "Those who confess with your mouth, who knows how to say those words, will be saved." Jesus himself says in Matthew 7, 21, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." So obviously, Paul's not just talking about somebody who's able to articulate those words, but that he means it and he practices it.

That he who finds his life outside of Christ, he'll actually lose it. So if you think about it, our whole pursuit of happiness that this country puts on a pedestal is actually, according to Scripture, a pursuit of death, according to what Jesus says. He saved us so that we may belong to him.

And so, when we come, when we come to Romans 12, verse 1, when he says, "A reasonable response to the grace of God is to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice." But he spent 11 chapters telling us that the sacrifice has been made in Christ. That whatever was necessary for us to get to God, Christ bridged the gap by his own sacrifice.

So what does he mean in chapter 1, chapter 12, when he says, "To offer your body as a living sacrifice." Well, all of the Old Testament sacrifices can be put into two major categories. You have the free will offering and then you have the mandatory offering. Mandatory offerings was commanded by God and if you did not obey, there will be consequences.

Meaning that the government of Israel will recognize that there's sin that you are not atoning for and there will be consequences for that. And then the free will offering is also commanded. Free will offering doesn't mean that you can do it or not do it. It is also commanded, but God desires that the free will offering be given from the abundance of your heart.

And it is required, but it is voluntary. All the offerings of the Old Testament can be categorized into five categories that the Bible mentions. And it's in the beginning of the book of Leviticus. There's a few of you who were with us when I went through the book of Leviticus years ago.

It's been about 15 years now that we went through the book of Leviticus. I'm kind of debating that after we finish Revelation that we're going to tackle Leviticus again in the weekday Bible study. I'm not 100 percent. I'm leaning toward that. Maybe 80, 90 percent. We're going to jump into the book of Leviticus.

But Leviticus sets the foundation of understanding of the sacrifices, ultimately fulfilled in Christ, but also the free will offering that God desires in sanctification. The five offerings that's mentioned in the book of Leviticus is the whole offering, sometimes it's called the burnt offering, it's called the grain offering, peace offering, sin offering, trespass offering.

Of the five, the last two, the sin offering and trespass offering was mandatory. So if there was inadvertent sin or certain type of sins that God required, you were required to bring atoning sacrifice. Trespass offering is when you wrong somebody else, when you damage their goods. Then God required that you compensate, that you would offer a certain sacrifice and then certain amount of whatever you destroyed or took, that you have to compensate and you have to pay them back.

Those two offerings were mandatory. But when the scripture talks about in the New Testament in chapter 12, to offer your bodies a living sacrifice, mandatory offering was fulfilled in Christ. So there is nothing that we need more to get to Christ. So when we talk about sanctification, which is what chapter 12 through 16 is, is in reference to the free will offering where God desires in light of his mercy, in light of his grace, to respond in worship.

But again, he desires voluntary worship and we talked about that last week. But it does not mean that there is no structure. Even though it is voluntary, he did command it. So the first three offerings, the whole offering, grain offering, and priest offering, it lays the foundation in which we understand what God desires from us in our worship.

So we are going to look at that this morning, these first three offerings. The first one is the whole offering. It is called the burnt offering. So the first of the free will offering is the burnt offering or the whole offering, which is exposited or talked about in Leviticus chapter 1.

So the cause of this worship, the reason behind this worship is the general atonement of our sins. It is not anything particular. It is not because we recognize I did something wrong. Generally understanding that we are in need of atonement and God fulfills that through the sacrifice. It is the only offering that is completely consumed.

And again, why it is called the whole offering. No part of the sacrifice was to be reserved for consumption. So a lot of the offering that you gave to the temple, some of it was reserved for the priest, it was reserved for other use, but this particular offering was to be complete completely.

Nothing was saved at all. Again, the whole offering or burnt offering. It is the most common offering that is mentioned in the Old Testament, mentioned 197 times. It is the first offering that we hear about in the book of Genesis, chapter 8, verse 20. And again, it indicates a complete consumption.

When Paul says here to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, the term living sacrifice itself is an oxymoron. Because a sacrifice by nature means it is dead. So to say to give a living sacrifice, meaning to offer what is dead as living. It is like saying jumbo shrimp.

It is an oxymoron. So these two terms on the surface seem to be a contradiction. But that is exactly what Paul means, and that is exactly what God means in chapter 12, that our lives, first and foremost, must die in order for us to live. That is why for every single Christian, the first act of obedience is baptism.

Because baptism is the beginning of our relationship where we recognize that we are crucified with Christ. So before we can live our lives as a sacrifice, we need to first and foremost die with Christ. So this first offering that we are referring to is a complete consumption of our life in dedication to God.

Not just our weekends, not just a portion of our lives, not just when we are young, not just when we are in college, but every part of our lives is to be consumed for His glory. And anything that comes short of that is defective. Galatians 2.20 says, "I have been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. In the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me." So the first act of obedience, the first act of worship to God is absolute, complete surrender.

This is not just for the pastors. This is not just for the missionaries. Some people again tend to think, as God called you into ministry, to think that somehow people who have gone into full-time ministry have decided to completely dedicate themselves to God and the rest of the congregation partially dedicated themselves to God.

The only difference between me and you is the avenue in which we have decided to live our lives to glorify God. If you're a businessman, that is the avenue that God has called to glorify God all of your life. Everything that you have to glorify through that avenue. That's the only distinction.

God does not call some for complete obedience and some partial obedience. All of us, when we were justified in Christ, were also crucified and was also buried with men and is no longer our lives. It is that first step of recognizing that it is no longer our lives. It is that first step where we recognize and establish Him as Lord over our lives that is necessary for all the other things that we do.

Again Philippians 121, Paul says, "Sitting in prison, for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain." Paul recognized that his old life, whatever he was before he met Christ, was crucified with him on the road to Damascus when he met him. From that day on, it was no longer his passion.

It was no longer his life to pursue. So when he's sitting in prison, how can a man who's sitting in prison and some people actually even preaching the gospel to put pressure on him out of envy and rivalry and he says, "I praise God." Will they do it out of envy or rivalry that the gospel is being preached?

And he's sitting in prison possibly facing, beheading, and he's concerned about this Gentile church in Philippi, which just a few years before, he hated the Gentiles. And yet there's such radical transformation that took place in his heart. He's sitting in prison worried about them. He says, "Don't worry about me, for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain." He already died.

So that life that he's living now between the moment he met Christ until he actually physically dies is actually gain for him. Again in Revelation chapter 117, whenever an individual is confronted by the glory of God, the immediate recognition is as they fell down as if dead. Revelation 117, when John saw him, "I fell at his feet as though dead." True worship begins with absolute surrender.

That's what justification is. Our sins have been justified and we have been purchased to establish him as Lord over our lives. The primary rebellion that we see in the book of Genesis, our primary rebellion is to try to find life outside of God. Giving glory to creation rather than to glory to God.

A Christian who is unsurrendered in his life is refusing to accept glory that belongs to God. He wants some of that. He wants to be at the center. He wants to find life. So the first step of true worship is establishing Christ as Lord in every aspect of our lives.

In Matthew 22, 37 it said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." Sometimes we get caught up with the technicalities of what it means to serve God with all your heart, what it means to love God with your mind, what it means to love God with your soul.

But I think the point of what Jesus is trying to make is not the mind, soul, and heart, although it is part of it, but the real emphasis here is all. All of it. You mean my finances? All of it. You mean when I'm young? All of it. Even when I'm older?

All of it. Every aspect of our lives now belongs to him. Every Christian must confess that we are crucified with Christ. So much of our Christian frustration is because we live between two worlds. There's a part of us that comes to church and wants to honor God and serve him, and we want the blessings of God, and we pray for that.

We pray that God will bless us and answer our prayers, and then we live the rest of the week coveting and desiring the things of this world, and we are torn because we are not completely consumed with one thing. First and foremost, God calls us in complete surrender to him.

If we really want to live in Christ, we must first die to ourselves. Die to our ambition. Die to our glory. Die to our life. Die to our future. Die to whatever hope that we had before we met Christ. Joshua 22.5, it says, "Only be very careful to observe the commandments and the law that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cling to him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul." What Jesus said was not new.

This was the same in the Old Testament. This is what he required of the Old Testament saints. All of it. Jeremiah 29.13, "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." Take a step back, and I know that's a passage that I quote quite a bit.

Take a step back before we just like, "Oh, I know that passage." We know what it means, but is that who you are? Are we really seeking the Lord with all our heart? Or is it a part-time endeavor? Is this something that we do when we're at church, but when we're at work, we put on a different mindset?

The first offering that God desires from us is absolute, complete surrender. So that's what he means as a living sacrifice. That we must first die before we can make any sacrifices. You may have surrendered yourselves, but may not have surrendered your family. You may have surrendered your tithe, but not the rest of your wealth.

You may have surrendered your spare time, but not your vacation or your weeknights. You may have surrendered your college life, but then once you start working and have freedom and money, you may have surrendered your singleness. I remember when I was younger, before I entered into ministry, the idea of coming into full-time ministry in my mind meant that I'm not going to touch money, at least enough money that I thought that I was going to have in order to take care of my parents.

Because we didn't grow up in a wealthy home, and there was always things that we lacked, and our Christmas presents were always socks, underwear, and pants. You know what I mean? Because we just didn't have money to get it. So it was like a big deal to get pants.

And so growing up, I think all three of us, we grew up thinking like, when we make enough money, we're going to take care of our parents, we're going to buy a house, we're going to do all these things for our parents. But I knew that going into ministry, there's no money in it.

So it was a wrestling match. So I prayed before God, I said, "You know, I'm going to trust the Lord, that He's going to take care of them." And whatever ambition that I had, again, I thought, "This is not selfish, it's for my parents." But I thought I surrendered that when I decided to go into ministry.

But even after I came into ministry, God confronted me with Lordship. Because I had this idea of what it means to be in ministry. So I thought, you know what, I surrendered everything to God. And all of a sudden, to make a long story short, God started directing my path toward homeless ministry.

And so in my mind, I had all these ideas of how I wanted to do campus ministry, and how I wanted to do mission work. And then all of a sudden, again, I don't want to go into the details, but God started directing my path, possibly to do full-time work in the homeless ministry.

And that didn't fit my idea. I said, "Here am I, send me." And I had an idea what that meant. And then the homeless ministry was not in that picture. In fact, I had other pastor friends telling me, "Peter, that's like, you know, it's noble, but if you do that, all these things are going to be forfeited." But I couldn't shake the idea, what if that's what God wants?

Who am I going to say, "You know what, I want to serve God, and I've dedicated everything to God, but not this." And that's when I realized I wasn't fully surrendered. God made me deal with that. If that's what God desires, I have to be able to say, "Here am I, send me." So I thought, Esther and I, when we first met, you know, we thought like, we entered thinking we're going to do homeless ministry, we're going to have homeless people, we're going to live in a homeless shelter.

And so we thought, we're surrendered. We gave up everything to the Lord. And then we got married and had kids. And a whole different area of temptation opens up. And I never thought about money, because I thank God, you know, I married Esther, and she's not materialistic. And so we are able to live with little means, and because, you know, I chose the right wife.

You know? But it wasn't until I had a kid, and I was driving in the car, and I was driving a pickup truck with no air conditioning, and only, you know, manual, what do you call it, the windows up and down, only front seat. And the only reason I was driving that is because I wasn't making enough money as a pastor, so I was washing cars.

So I had this idea that if I made a little clip art and say that I'm going to wax your car for 20 bucks, that I could at least supplement my income, because I didn't have enough. So I just, literally a clip art that he used for the youth group, and I just put Pete's car wash on it.

I started putting it on people's windows, and at that time, we just had beepers. You know? So it would beep. To my surprise, I was getting a lot of calls, because I was doing it for 20 bucks, and I found out that the waxing cost like 80, 90 bucks, and I was doing it for 20, you know?

And it probably wasn't even worth 20 bucks, what I did. But I was getting phone calls, and it was enough, enough to get us by for that period when I wasn't getting paid. And so, there was no temptation until I had an infant in my car, and I saw him sweating, and I was driving one time from LA back up to my house in Buena Park, and the thought entered into my mind, it's like, "Man, you're a lousy father." You know, all these infants are coming out of these sport expeditions, and you know, nice cars, and they're well taken care of, and I can't even afford an air conditioner in my truck.

And he's sweating, and he's sitting, I'm pretty sure that was illegal back then, too. He was sitting in the front seat, you know? And you know, and it was a stick shift. So I couldn't, yeah, I couldn't protect him. If anything happened, like, he's completely exposed. But Jeremy made it.

By his grace. See, up to that point, I thought I was completely surrendered. But another part of my life happens, and I realized it wasn't complete. In every aspect of my life, God would bring something in and expose that Christ was Lord in certain areas, and then it would keep creeping back in.

I wrestled with that in the early part of this church. I thought I completely surrendered. I was willing to do homeless ministry, and I was willing not to have money. And then the first six, seven years of this church, the church didn't grow. Not that I was really focused on that at that time.

But because of that, financially it was difficult. And it was hard thinking like, "Okay, God, you know, I dedicated myself to the homeless ministry, but maybe God's taking me to another direction now, and maybe if I'm going to do this ministry, you know, I can really dedicate myself and bear fruit." And at least on the surface, there was no fruit.

At least on the surface. And God made me deal with that. Would you be okay with that? And it took, for whatever the reason, it took a long time for me to be okay with it. If this is what you've called me, if this is my lot in life, I have to surrender.

Every aspect, every few years, it creeps back into my heart. And I realized lordship is not something that you claim in the beginning of your walk with God and then I'm done. Every aspect of our lives, God will search, "Am I completely surrendered?" See, the first act of worship to God is a constant surrendering to God.

Is he really lord over everything? Or is he lord over certain things? The second free will offering is the grain offering, which is found in Leviticus chapter 2. The reason for this worship is God's blessing, his bounty. Typically when we think of Thanksgiving, like, "What are you thankful for?" We say, "I'm thankful for my job, I'm thankful we just got a new house." And all of these things are possibly God's blessing in our life.

So this grain offering was in response a free will offering to thank God. It's the only offering where there's no animal involved. It was whatever harvest that you had, you were to offer it up to God as a free will offering, as an act of worship. So the closest thing that you and I have in dedication is probably finance.

Where our offering to God, our free will offering that we give to God, is an act of worship to God. Not just giving money because it's required, but because God has blessed our lives. We acknowledge his lordship in our life as an act of worship to say, "This all belongs to you." Proverbs 3, 9-10 says, "Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of your produce then your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will be bursting with wine." Again, in Exodus 22, 29, "You shall not delay to offer from the fullness of your harvest and from outflow of your presses." So these offerings are free will offerings and yet it was also commanded.

So we think like, "Well if it's a free will offering, it's voluntary, then whether we do it or don't do it, it doesn't matter." That's not the case. He actually commands it, but in the manner in which we give, he wants us to do it voluntarily and cheerfully. Exodus 23, 19, "The best of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring into the houses of the Lord your God." And again, Paul reiterates something similar in 2 Corinthians 9, 6-8, "The point of this whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

Each one must give as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times you may abound in every good work." Now there's a reason why I'm using this today and not having the mic up here because I'm going to walk off this pulpit and I'm going to hand out some money.

So don't get excited. And so this is probably the most expensive illustrations I've ever given and thank God we don't have three services, we only have two. So I'm going to give you some money. Okay? You're going to... Alright. Some of you guys feel dirty. I'm going to give you some money.

Yes, just take it. It's real. It's real money. It's not fake. Okay. Now the big stuff is coming down the middle. Alright? Alright. That's real money. Okay? Alright, I'm going to explain what that money is. Okay? That money is given to you and what I'm asking you to do with that is to use this week at some point, think of somebody that you think needs your encouragement.

So use that money to take them out to eat, buy them a gift or something, but use it for them. And if you don't want to do that, you say there's nobody I want to encourage, nobody deserves this, I refuse to do it, then put it back in the offering basket.

Okay? So this is not for you. This is for you to use to bless other people. Right? Now, I'm assuming, I could be wrong, but I'm assuming that most of you are going to try to carry it out. Maybe you won't have time, but at least you're going to make an effort to do that.

And the reason why is because it was given to you. That this wasn't your money. This was my money I gave to you and I'm asking you to do it. And I'm not going to collect it. Because right now I have no idea who I gave it to. I just walked around randomly so some of you guys look happier than other people, so I'm assuming you got the money.

Right? But I'm assuming that those of you who receive the money are going to be able, or at least make an effort to bless somebody else. And the reason why you're not going to be reluctant to do that is because you don't see that as your money, which it isn't.

But why go through that channel? Because if you do that, the person that you bless with that will be blessed. You'll be blessed because you were able to do that for them. And so you'll be blessed. And then I'll be blessed because I see you loving one another. So all three of us are blessed.

As a pastor, if you ask me what's the greatest gift that you can give me, this may sound strange, and you may not believe me, but if you love one another and serve one another, because we're working so hard to get you to get along and genuinely love each other, if I see you guys doing that and serving each other, my heart is full.

Because I feel like we're making progress. So if I see you doing that, I will be blessed. So if you take what you have and give it to somebody else and bless them, all three of us are blessed. But if you take that money, that's 20 bucks. That's two hours of babysitting.

And you take that money and you hoard it to yourself, not only will you not be blessed, I won't be blessed, and the person that you could have blessed isn't blessed. And all three of us are discouraged. There's a reason why God gives us bountifully. Why he doesn't just kind of open up heaven and just pour out money.

Because he uses us as an avenue. And that's true, not just with finance, that's true even with evangelism. Because if God uses you to bring somebody else to Christ, they're blessed because of you, you're blessed because God used you, and God is blessed because you surrendered and worshipped God through that avenue.

Only reason why we have this difficulty with finance is because we see it as ours. It's mine. I've given it to God, the rest of it belongs to me, so we become stingy, and then we hoard that to ourselves, and then we don't honor God with it. That's why the language that we see in scripture is to honor God with your finances.

Honor God with your finances. So we offer up to God. We bless other people. And we bless all the other people, and God is worshipped in that process. The third and final free will offering is the peace offering mentioned in Leviticus chapter 3. The cause of this offering is to, the offering was to be brought to God, recognizing that because of God's sacrifice for us, that we have peace with one another.

Romans 5, 1, "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Ephesians 2, 17 and 19, "And he came and preached peace to you who are far off, peace to those who are near, for through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father." So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.

The very first thing that happened when sin came into the world, there was contention between husband and wife. The most intimate relationship in human relationship, husband and wife, and all of a sudden, they had to hide from each other. And as a result of that, the scripture says there is contention between husband and wife in Genesis chapter 3.

So the restoration of that vertical relationship with God, the first ramification of that is that our horizontal relationship with God is affected. And so the third act of worship, they would come and they would offer sacrifices, only the parts that they can't eat, certain organs like the liver or the heart, and then anything that could be consumed, they would save that and they would have a picnic.

They would come on the side of the temple and then the priests and the offerer and their family would sit and actually enjoy that meal together. And that's why it's called a peace offering. That peace with God caused peace with one another. And so the third act of offering for Christians, it has to do with vertical relationship with one another.

Ask any parent, ask any parent who has multiple children, how can we help you? Because being a parent is all-consuming. When our kids were younger, we didn't have all this technology. Now you have this video thing that your kids are attached to the hip 24/7. When our kids were younger, they could throw up in their crib and we wouldn't know till morning.

As long as they didn't cry their heads off and we wake up and they're sleeping in their vomit. But we didn't have to deal with it three in the morning as long as they didn't wake up. So we were at peace even though they were not. Now you guys have this video thing 24/7.

You have to watch your kids. So any parent is consumed all the time. So if you want to help the parents, you have to help with the kids. So if the kid comes up and says, "What can I do to help you?" Take care of your brothers. Take care of your sister.

That's how you're going to help me. Because when they are good, I am good. Isn't that exactly what Jesus said? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and spirit. And the second is like it. He doesn't say those are two separate things. It's like it.

If you want to love God, love your brother, love your sister. If you want to worship me, take care of your brother, take care of your sister. Still all of my children are doing well. None of our children are doing well. That's why he puts us in a community.

He puts us in a community so we can practice the love of Christ. The church is not a place where certain types of personalities, certain people who have kind of learned to get along, people who are not awkward, people who don't have ugliness inside, that we hope the sanctification took place before you became a Christian so at church we can practice how to be good to one another.

That's not the church. Church is a place where people who absolutely needed the grace of God just to make it. And so it's only reasonable to think that there's selfishness in the room, self-righteousness in the room, self-glorification, sometimes slander, maybe even hatred and bitterness. That's all inside. And our natural reaction is when we see that is to run the other direction because who wants to?

Who wants to be around that? See, that's a human response. That's a natural human response to sin when we see ugliness. That's why we don't want to live in certain neighborhoods. That's why we don't want to make certain kind of friends. That's why we don't want to join certain kind of small groups.

Because as soon as we see some of this ugliness, we don't want part of that. See, but when scripture says, when Jesus says, "They will know you by my love." The love that Jesus is talking about is unlike the love in the world. If you love those people who are lovable, tell me somebody in the world that doesn't practice that.

They practice that in prison. Criminals practice that. Drug addicts practice that. Drug dealers practice that. That is not the love that Jesus is referring to. He says, "Love as I have loved you, then the world will know that you are my disciples." And what is the love that he practiced with us?

He saw our sin and instead of turning away, he came to us. He ran toward us. And he consumed our sins upon himself. And then he says, "Come, die with me so that you can also live with me." So the church is a place where sinners are being sanctified.

Not sanctified sinners who are practicing everything that we know to be righteous, but sinners who are practicing to become sanctified. Practicing the love of Christ. This is not something that you and I could do by our own strength. Only those who have been affected by that love can practice that love.

The communion that we take this morning is much like this peace offering. Because it is not meant to be done in isolation. Everyone saw somebody would ask, "Do you mind if we have communion at our wedding?" And again, there's nothing saying that you can't have it at the wedding, but at our church we don't practice that.

The reason why we don't practice that is because it was not meant to be done in isolation. It was not meant to be done with just two people. It was meant to be very public within the body of Christ, where the whole church gets together to recognize that we are a part of the larger group.

That we together are having this time together. That peace with God has created peace with one another. And that's why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11, 17, 18, their division in the Corinthian church was defiling the communion table. Because they didn't recognize what the communion table was. 1 Corinthians 11, 17 says, "But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better, but for the worse.

For in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you." And then he leads into the communion and says, verse 20, "When you come together, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead in his own meal.

One goes hungry, another gets drunk. What do you not have in the houses to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not." In other words, they're participating in this communion table and they're not thinking about anybody else but themselves.

And as a result, they are defiling the communion table, because they don't recognize what it was for. We can easily come to a church and pick and choose, especially a church our size. Those people I relate to, those people I do not. Those people I like, I like to smuggle with this group, but I don't like to smuggle with that group.

I want to be in this group, but not that group. And at the core of our heart, we do not recognize what Christ has done. What we are recognized for is the love that Christ practiced on us. And so therefore, we practice with one another. That when we see ugliness, it's not if, it's when we see ugliness in other people that we practice grace.

That's when we have an opportunity to worship God. Because God is honored and glorified, the more difficult it is to love that person, because it reflects Christ's love. Not just any love, but Christ's love is reflected when it is difficult to love. So if we are a church filled with people, attracting people who are attractive inside and out, that is not the church of Christ.

The church of Christ must run to those people who are in need of grace. 2 Corinthians 11 27 29, "Whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and the blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself." So when he says discerning the body, he's talking about the others. How many of us sit in isolation? I love Jesus, but I don't love these people. I love God, but I want nothing to do with these ugly people.

And what did Jesus say? You can't say you love God and hate your brother, then neither do you love God. See, the third offering, the peace offering, is a reminder to us that our act of worship, our most tangible way to express our act of worship is through finance and with other people.

So this morning as we participate in the communion table, as we open it up, I want to encourage you to take some time to reflect on yourself. Don't think about other people, don't think about anything else but yourself as an act of worship. How can I worship God and that our communion table will remind us, not because you're righteous, not because of what you've done, but because of what he has done in light of his mercy, in view of his mercy, to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, which is our reasonable act of worship.

So this morning we're going to open up the communion table, and again we want to remind you in order to avoid traffic in the middle, we're going to ask you guys to come to the side and then take the elements and then go down the middle. Again unless you're sitting right here, you don't need to go all the way around, but just get it here.

We just don't want to create traffic here. And again I want to remind you that this is for the baptized believers in the church. Again the first act of obedience should be baptism and not communion. So if you're a believer and you have not been baptized, we ask that you come and be baptized first.

And then secondly, if you're not a believer, if you have not confessed the Lord as your Savior, this is sort of an anniversary to kind of remember what Christ has done. So if you're not a believer, we ask that you just kind of stay at your seat. There is no power in and of itself unless it symbolizes cleansing of blood in your life.

So if that is not where you are, we ask that you would remain in your seat and just think carefully about the things that we've discussed. Again but for the rest of us, I ask that you guys would stay in your seats and take some time to pray, repent of unrepentant sins, unreconciled relationships, and to really commit to God to be a true worshiper.

Have I surrendered my life to Christ? Do my finances reflect His Lordship and His grace? Am I worshiping God in finances? Third, is His grace reflective on the way that I treat other people and who I treat in that way? And take some time to reflect on that to discern the body of Christ before you come up.

So I want to read the passage again in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, and I'm going to pray and open up the communion table so when you're all ready, we ask that one by one you would come up. 1 Corinthians 11, verse 23, "For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when He was betrayed took bread, and when He had given thanks He broke it and said, 'This is my body which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way also He took the cup after supper and saying, 'This cup is a new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.'" Heavenly Father, we come before you this morning asking, Lord God, that you would help us to continue to see the varying degrees of your glory, that we may reflect that glory from one degree to another.

We ask, Lord God, that you would affect us deeply, that what you have already done, what you have already given, Lord God, would consume us, that everything that we give to you would be an act of worship. I pray, Father God, that you would examine our hearts, see if there's any hurtful ways in us, that this sacred time, Lord, would have its effect that you've desired.

We open it up, Lord God, asking for your grace. In Jesus' name we pray.