Good morning. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Thanks so much for making grace a part of your Sunday. This morning, as we were getting ready for the service, I looked at the chairs and I went, it's the summer months, crowds are going to start to dwindle. I don't want people to show up in the room to feel cavernous. So I took a chair off of the end of each row. Yeah. And then I was talking with Shane and Phil, who've been here longer than me. And they said, hey, next week, maybe leave all the chairs in there. And I said, yeah, I'm going to consult with you two before making any more rash decisions about this. So I'm as surprised as you are that it's crowded here. And my standard joke is if you had a hard time finding a parking space, or if you had to make your own, you know what time it starts. So that doesn't feel like it's my problem. Welcome to Grace. Several years ago, I was at my previous church. And at that church I served essentially as an associate pastor, but one of my roles was to serve as the family pastor. Hang on, this is driving me nuts. I was not the IT guy, just the family pastor. One of my roles was to serve as a family pastor and in a larger church staff, it was a larger church at the time, the family pastor oversees the children's ministry and the student ministry and the people who run those ministries. So in that capacity, I had a guy that worked for me named Alan. He was a youth pastor. And Alan, it was getting to be the summertime, and we told him that he could hire some interns for that summer. And one of the guys he hired was a kid named Aaron. And I don't really know. Aaron was young, in his early 20s. I don't really know how he found the church. I think he just kind of started coming and volunteered and wanted to get involved in the youth ministry program. And Alan wanted to hire him as an intern. And so I heard that he got hired. And so I kind of went and met Aaron. And he was one of these guys that just immediately upon meeting him, I thought to myself, I don't like this dude. I like this guy. I don't like him. I don't like the way he chooses to present himself to the world. I like the way he looks. I like the way he talks. I'm not going to describe any of those things, lest I offend some of you. But the biggest thing I didn't like about this guy that rubbed me the wrong way was that everything he did, everything he did, he may as well have worn a t-shirt every day that said, please like me. And he was one of these people that had gotten involved in youth ministry because in my estimation, he had never been around people that liked him a lot. And he thought, well, then I'll shoot fish in a barrel. I can win middle schoolers over and get them to like me. So it was like he was in ministry as his own personal ego project to make himself feel better about himself. So he wanted to be cool. He was never cool. So I'll go into youth ministry so kids will like me and I'll feel cool. And I'll be honest with you. I've been at this a while. It takes one to know one. Early on, I had to repent of that same attitude of I just want to be respected and I want people to like me. And I think a dirty little secret of being in professional ministry and all I did is go pro with my faith. Okay. That's all I did. We're all supposed to be ministering. We're all supposed to be Jesus's ambassadors. I just decided I'm going to take my talents to the professional level and get paid for this. Okay. But everybody's supposed to do the same thing. And a lot of the people who get into ministry early on, it's an ego project. I want to feel important and respected, and God sanctifies that and massages that out of us. So hopefully we can minister out of a gentle and contrite spirit and a humble heart and genuinely want to usher people towards Jesus and towards his kingdom. But what I sensed in this guy, Aaron, was that he was off the charts, look at me, like me guy. And I thought it was gross and I didn't like it. And I went to Alan and I said, dude, I said, I like that guy. It doesn't need to be around youth ministry. Nothing nefarious was going on. I didn't suspect anything nefarious. I just suspected that his motives for ministering were wrong. And I didn't want that around our ministry. That's not why we get involved in what we're doing. I was like, I don't like him, not comfortable with him. You need to get rid of him. And he kept defending him, but all summer long, he was just one of these guys that immediately when I met him, I didn't like him. And it makes me wonder if when I start talking about people that you just don't like, if any of you can think of somebody right now that you just don't like. And I would ask you, besides the older gentleman that greets at the front door, Ron Torrance, that's mine that I'm thinking of right now. So y'all aren't allowed to pick Ron, you have to pick somebody else. I think everybody in this room has somebody they can think of when I say, who's somebody that you just don't like? And now maybe immediately our minds will go to celebrities or people that we've never met, but we've seen in different medias and we just don't like them. I'm not talking about them this morning, although that is an ancillary application of this. I'm talking about people in your life that you know that you don't like. Now, some of us are like Kyle. This morning, I asked Kyle for some sermon research before the service. Hey, man, can you think of anybody that you just don't like? And he was like, I'm sure if you gave me a minute, I could come up with somebody, but no. And then there's other people I talked to this morning were out of nowhere. I was like, hey, don't you know so-and-so? And he says, he's a good buddy of mine, and he says to me, yeah, I do know him. You would not like this guy. I can't stand him. So there's people on different, and I said, you're going to like the sermon this morning, dude. There's people on different ends of the spectrum, but no matter where you sit on that spectrum, we can all think of people that we've met in our life that we don't particularly care for. Sometimes very justified, sometimes small, silly reasons. I don't like their attitude, whatever it is. I don't like the cut of their jib. Whatever it might be, we have people that we don't like. And because that's a reality of life, because the reality of life is from time to time, we will meet people, we will be surrounded with people, we will be in close contact with people that we don't particularly care for. A co-worker from time to time, our spouse, our parents can rub us the wrong way sometimes, our children can rub us the wrong way sometimes. But there are people, those people we kind of bring back into the fold because we need to, but there's some people that we will just write off. Like, I just don't like that person. Don't want to deal with that person. A neighbor that is your mortal enemy, whatever might be going on in your life, we have those people that we simply don't care for. And a question that has come up often in my life as a Christian is kind of this theoretical question, is it okay as a Christian to not like someone? Is that all right? And so that's really the opening question of the day. There will be some people you simply don't like, but is that okay? There will be some people that you simply don't like, but is that, as a Christian, is that okay? Now this comes in the middle of a series, or This is actually the last part of the series called In Light Of. We've been going through Romans since February. We went through the first eight chapters, which meticulously build a case for humanity's need for Jesus. And then there's the culmination of those chapters in Romans 8, where we do need Jesus very much, and then promises are made to us that nothing can ever separate us from his love. And in light of this wonderful truth that Jesus accepts us, loves for us, paved a way for us to spend eternity in relationship with Almighty God, how should we then live our lives? So every week we've been looking at a different chapter in Romans 9 through now 15. In light of that truth, how should we live our lives? And so this week we come to Romans 15, and I believe it asks this question, or at least it answers this question, one that we deal with from time to time. As Christians, is it okay for us to have people that we simply don't like? Now, if you're here this morning and you're not a Christian, thank you so much for being here. And I have good news for you. I'm not preaching to you this morning. If you're not a believer this morning, you are free to not like whoever you want. You do not have to hold yourself to the standards of this. But if you're a Christian, that may not be our answer. So to that question and to the unavoidable reality that from time to time there are people in our life that we simply don't like, is this okay? Are we allowed to do that? Paul writes this, Romans 15, verses 5 through 7. May God, who gives endurance and encouragement, give you the same attitude of mind towards each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 7. Accept one another then, just as like people? And sometimes it's for very justifiable reasons. But as we approach Scripture and say, is it ever okay for a Christian to simply not like someone? This is the instruction. Accept others as Christ accepted you. What does he say in verse 5? He wants to give you the same attitude of mind towards each other as Christ has towards you. So in two different ways, when we ask the question, is it okay to have people in my life I simply don't like? And I want to be very clear here. Obviously, obviously, we're not asking the question, can I be openly mean to them? I don't like them. Therefore, I feel like it's my right to ridicule them and belittle them in the workplace until they quit in shame. We're not preaching against that. I'm going to assume you know that. If you don't know that, there's a great fourth and fifth grade class right over there that might be on your level. Obviously, we know it's not good to ridicule people, to treat them poorly because we simply don't like them. Hopefully, we are of an elevated morality and sense of character that even when we don't prefer somebody, even when we don't like somebody, we find it within the magnanimity of our generous character and spirit to be nice to them from time to time. We have probably executed that. That's how we get around in society, is we learn to at least be cordial to people, even if we don't prefer them. And we tend to think as Christians that this is an okay model. As long as I'm not a jerk, then I'm fine. But that's not what Romans says. What Romans says is we should have the same mind towards others that Jesus has towards us. That we should accept others as Jesus accepts us. Which is different than if you just don't like somebody, try to be nice to them. No, no, no. We should think of them as Jesus thinks of us. So let me ask you this. How do you think Jesus accepts others? Do you think that Jesus is in heaven? And when some cranky old lady dies, he looks at Paul and he's like, Paul, I can't think of a name that's not offensive right now. So I'll choose one that is. Karen just died. Paul, you're welcome. Thank you for being the foil for that joke. Paul, look at this. Karen just died. And both Jesus and Paul go, oh, geez, this is going to be a handful in heaven. Do you think there are people that pass away that Jesus is like, I was really hoping that they wouldn't accept me because they were going to be Satan's problem. And now there's eternity with this person. I'm going to talk my ear off. Do you think Jesus does this? Don't you think he likes people? Don't you think he likes you? Do you think that when you get to heaven, you'll be like, Jesus, man, that I could be. I've already given the example of Aaron, and we're going to come back to that story and redeem it a little bit. But you think I'm going to get to heaven and be like, Jesus, like, for real, dude. Aaron, he was the worst, right? And you think Jesus is going to be like, I know, thanks for bearing that burden for me, brother. No, no, obviously Jesus likes everybody. And some of my Bible scholars in the room may go, well, hang on, he didn't seem to like the Pharisees very much. And I'll give you that. He was stern with the Pharisees. But we also see a Jesus that when one of them came to him in John chapter 3 named Nicodemus and wanted to talk with him and ask him more questions, and he asked to meet Jesus at night. Why? So that his Pharisee peers wouldn't see him meeting with Jesus and so bring shame upon his good name. He wanted to meet with Jesus in secret, and Jesus knew that. And what did he do? He didn't say, no, I don't care for you. I don't like your kind. You want to talk to me? You talk to me in the middle of the day in front of everybody. No. He said, all right, let's talk. And he had an open, honest, generous conversation with Nicodemus. Well, he didn't seem to like the Pharisees very much. Okay, well, he was stern with them from time to time. But do you not think that Jesus wanted to see them in his kingdom? Do you not think that Jesus knew who they were inside and out and wanted to see them come to faith and use the influence that they had been given to usher other people into that faith? Do you not think he saw the best in them and wanted the best for them? I think it's a really, really difficult argument to make that Jesus simply doesn't care for some people. That Jesus has an attitude towards people of, you know, I really don't like them very much, but I'm going to be nice to them if they're around. I'm going to try to think positively of them, which should really inform the question for us, am I allowed to simply not like someone? Well, all I know is that we're instructed in Scripture to have the same mind towards others that Jesus has towards them. And we're told to accept people as Jesus accepts them. So let me bring this more personal, if we're still having a difficult time with the concept, and ask you this question. How did and does Christ accept you? This is a really important question. Because you're here this morning, it's a Sunday, most of you woke up and showered, you put on decent clothes, you're presenting yourself. This is an environment in which it is imminently easy to be liked. All you have to do is shake the hands of people who look at you. If someone says good morning, you say good morning back. If someone says, how are you doing? You say, good, I hope you are, or good, how are you doing? It's really easy to put on the facade. Just be nice to everybody, you'll leave likable. It's harder with the people you see every day. It's harder at home. And it's harder for the people who know you the best to like you the most. That's why we love to be fully seen and to be fully known. To be fully seen by your spouse and to be fully known by them is this great picture of love, to really know your kids and know what they're capable of and understand all the ugliness in them and go sweep it aside and love them deeply anyways. And for people to offer you that is exceptional love. And it is very rare for someone to know us deeply and yet still like us. That's what makes friends and spouses so deeply important and meaningful in our life. But even those people who know us the best don't know us completely. They don't know every racist thought we've ever had. They don't know every pretension that we hold. They don't know every time we look down on someone else and so elevate ourselves. They don't know what we really think of that person that posts that thing on Facebook. Even the people who know us the best don't know everything that's happening in us all the time. And the reality is that for most of us, we think and feel pretty confident that if they did, they would not still like us. Jesus knows all of those things. And Jesus likes you, accepts you completely. He knows what's worst about you. He's been with you through the Holy Spirit. His presence has been brought into your lowest moment where no one else was and that you never talk about. And Jesus is excited for you to come to heaven with him. He likes you. So I would ask you again, those people in our lives that we don't like, we're told by Scripture to accept them as Christ accepted us. So how did and does Jesus accept you? And I love thinking about this. Jesus accepted you when you accepted him, knowing everything that you would be and become after that, the good and the bad. And he still likes you. He still wants you around. So that's how we are supposed to accept other people. This is difficult, right? And I know that some of us might go extreme with this. Do you mean that Jesus really likes the terrorists from 9-11, Nate? He really likes them? I believe that Jesus loves them. I believe that Jesus was hurt deeply for them. I believe that Jesus saw impressionable young men that were deceived by evil and led to believe things that were fundamentally untrue to a place where their life was defined by hate, which is the exact opposite of what Jesus wanted for them. So I believe that he grieved for them, that he did love them. Many of us in our life have people who have hurt us deeply. Nate, it's easy for you to say that I'm not allowed to not like somebody, but you don't know what my dad did to me. You don't know what my mom was like. You don't know what my ex-husband did. You don't know what my ex-wife did. You don't know how awful my brother was growing up. You don't know that. I have a right to my disdain. I have a right to my dislike. You probably do. You probably do. All I can tell you is that Paul prays that we will learn to accept them as Christ accepts us. All I can tell you is that Paul tells us that we should have the same mind towards them that Jesus has towards us. Now here's, and I want to say this before I move on. I believe those extreme examples are the exception, not the rule. I believe when I asked you to think of somebody in your life that maybe you just don't care for, that for most of you, that answer was not from some place of deep wounding and hurt. For most of you, it was an answer similar to me. I didn't like this guy. He just rubbed me the wrong way. I never did prefer him. But for both examples, how do we find a path towards that generosity and magnanimity of spirit where we can actually find a way to like people that we don't like? Well, I would like to invite you to learn to ask what I think is a very important question. What are their actions telling me they really need? When I see someone acting in a way that I don't like, what are their actions telling me they really need? When I was looking at Aaron and I immediately decided I didn't like him, not Aaron Gibson, our worship pastor, I still don't like him, but Aaron from the example, the youth intern. And I immediately, I decided I didn't like him. Why did I not like him? I didn't like him because he was trying to get approval from kids and that's not where you should get approval, man. That's not the reason to get in here. So you need to get your fragile ego out of here. I didn't like him because he wanted approval and acceptance. Because he wanted to feel like he was enough. He had never felt before in his life like he was enough. And he didn't, And here's the thing. Everybody wants that. Everybody in this room wants that. Everybody in this room might as well tattoo across their chest or across their forehead, am I enough? We all wonder that. So how could I not like somebody for asking the same question that I do? It's just that some of us figure out how to get that question answered in more socially acceptable ways than he did. But if I would have stopped and just said, what do his actions tell me that he needs and wants? I would have very quickly arrived at, Aaron just wants to be enough. And that's not really something worth condemning him for. Maybe I should show him instead of withhold from him. I've seen clips going around recently about people losing their minds in public places. Groups of people losing their minds in restaurants, yelling at waiters, yelling at owners, throwing things in Chipotle, yada, yada, yada. And it's easy to watch that and be like, those people are completely unlikable. And that's the most mild way I can summarize my thoughts in that moment. We have every right to disdain them and their behavior. But if you ask this question, what do their actions show me that they need or want? What their actions show me is that they want to feel respected. They want to feel like they have some sense of control. They want to feel like their needs are valued like everyone else's. And for whatever reason, something's happened in their life to make them think that nobody cares about them. And so rather than sit back and quietly take it, they're going to be vocal about demanding it. Who among us does not want to feel in control from time to time? Who among us doesn't want to be respected? Who among us is happy with taking a backseat to everyone else if that's the paradigm that we feel like we live with? And so when we ask this question, what do their actions tell me that they need? It gets us to this place of empathy and understanding, which kind of paves the way to liking them. And so I want to ask you this question. What would happen if we chose empathy over disdain? What would happen if we chose empathy over disdain? If when we see somebody that, and we go, I don't like them. I don't like people who vote that way. I don't like people who post that way. I don't like people that agree with that, that are of this political party. I don't like people who whine about this or carry on about this. I don't like high maintenance people. I don't like low maintenance people. I don't like tough people. I don't like weak people. Whatever it might be, the people that we don't like. Stop when we feel ourselves not liking someone. I want you to test this out. For some of you, it's going to happen very quickly. You're going to be leaving the aisle and the person in front of you is going to be going slow and you're going to feel rage well up within you. Why are they moving so slowly? Pause. What are their actions tell me that they need? Time, you jerk. That's what they need. They're old and they need time. And you will be too one day and you will need time. So relax. Next time you feel yourself tempted to not like someone and give in to that, pause. What do their actions tell me that they need? And is what they need really that condemnable? With the people that have hurt us deeply, what do their actions tell me that they need? Some of us, I'm sure, and I don't want to speak too lightly about it, but what we know from research and experience, some people grew up with a dad that was violent. What do those actions show you that he needs? He probably needed a good dad too. He probably didn't have that either. He probably needs to be understood. He probably needs somebody to love him enough to sit him down and say, hey man, this is not the way you should be, but he's never had anybody who loved him enough to say something. I'm not trying to excuse away abusive behavior at all. I'm just saying that there is a way to begin a path towards empathy by asking ourselves, what do their actions tell me that they need? And then beginning to understand what motivates the bad behavior, not defining them by the bad behavior. At the end of Aaron's tenure, he finished being an intern, and he wanted to come on as a youth assistant in a full-time capacity. And I wasn't going to let that happen. And so he asked to meet with me to know why we chose not to hire him. And I told my youth pastor to take the meeting. I didn't want to do anything. No, I'm just messing around. I took the meeting. And leading up to that meeting, I thought to myself, you know, I have to love him enough to tell him the truth. I have to respect him enough as a human to tell him the truth. And we met and he said, why can't I move forward at this church? And I said, and I told him, I said, man, here's what I think. I think that you need to take a break from youth ministry because I don't, I don't think that you're really happy with yourself. And I think that you're in this to try to gain the respect of others, but getting the respect of some students is really not going to make you feel okay about yourself. So I think that you need to get involved in a small group of your peers. You need to let God speak to you. You need to pause and consider whether youth ministry is really the career that you need to take or if you're just doing this for selfish reasons. And once you've reconciled with those things, I think you should move forward with whatever path God gives you. But right now, I think you're trying to get into ministry for the wrong reasons and you're going to end up crashing and burning. And he thanked me. And he went on and he, honestly, he followed my advice. He did what I told him I thought he should do. He took some time off, got involved in another church, met a nice girl, decided ultimately to go back to school to get a Bible degree and to get into ministry. But he called me years later and he said, I just want to thank you for that conversation because you were right. And God did have some work to do on me. Now here's what's really important. That story works out like I'm the hero, but I never tell those stories because I'm not. Here's where I failed him because I let my dislike get in the way. I could have had that conversation with him in May. And I could have been a part of helping rehabilitate him, helping him grow through that. And in September, he didn't have to experience the rejection that I imposed on him because I refused to love him enough to tell him the truth about himself. And because I was a coward, and because I didn't love him enough, I was happy to just sit and dislike instead of asking myself, what do his actions tell me that he needs? And then acting according to that empathy rather than disdain. I withheld from him. And the other way I withheld from him, and this is awful, nobody needs my approval. Nobody cares what I think about them. I'm not here to claim that. But if you just think about the dynamic, here's a young 20-something kid, he's 21 years old. I'm at the time 36 or 36. No, I was 34 or 35. And I had, by all measures, accomplished what he wanted to do with his career. I was what he wanted to be. Now, that's just a position. It's not me personally. It's just the position. We understand the dynamics of someone early in their career, seeing someone that's progressed in their career going, I want to learn from that person. Meaning because of my position, realizing that all he wanted was to be told that he's enough, I could have gone to him and I could have said early on, hey dude, Jesus loves you. You are enough. I think you're going to be great. Here's your challenges to what greatness could look like. Here's where your character may be getting in the way of what God wants to do with you. But I believe that if you're willing to be open about that and move on from them, that God can do some powerful things with you. So you stick by me and we're going to tackle this together. How much better does that look than just simply choosing to not like him for justifiable reasons for the five months that he was in my care? What does choosing to not like him win me? What did I prove to him? What did I prove to myself? What benefit is it to us to have people that we've simply reconciled to ourselves? We're not going to like them. None. But here's the benefit if we do. I'm skipping two points in your notes if you're following along. The last thing is the result. Verse 7, complaining about. The result of refusing to dislike someone, even when it's justifiable, but offering them grace and searching for empathy instead and seeking to understand what their actions tell us that they need and loving them for what motivates them, not judging them for their behaviors. The result of that is that people bring praise to God. The result of that, if we can practice that here, is to create an environment where everyone feels loved and everyone feels accepted and everyone feels like they're part of the church and everyone feels like they're welcome here and everyone wants to be a part of what they are. And because they're so accepted here, they will accept other people. The result of that is not just about grace. It's about the kingdom and the community of God. What if God's children would quit seeing it as an option to simply not like people because we can and we don't want to? But what if the kingdom of God took upon itself to see people with grace and with empathy and to understand what lies behind the behaviors and to love the person that has the same motives we do, to like, to be loved, to be known, to be respected, to be cared for? What if we began to see people for that and how we were instead of seeing them as the world was and looking for reasons and excuses to disdain them? How much more attractive and fragrant would our faith be? How much more praise would be brought to God if we would simply quit letting ourselves dislike people for reasons that ultimately don't matter and start making ourselves ask for God's empathy, for God's acceptance of them, for Jesus's mind towards other people that Jesus has towards other people. What if we started becoming people like that? What if the kingdom of God started offering empathy like that? How much more praise would be brought to the God that we all serve? So let's stop not liking people. Let's knock it off. Let's find paths to empathy so that we can accept everyone with the same mind that Jesus does. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for these seniors that have graduated and are moving into a new phase of life. God, I pray specifically that you would be with each of their moms as they worry here for the next several months, probably in a continued way. Give them your peace of spirit as their children go and step into these new phases. Lord, I pray that we would be a people who like folks the way you do. That we would find paths to empathy and understanding so that we might think the best of them. So that we might love them well as you do. God, where there are roadblocks to this, where there's difficulty there, where we just have a person that we just can't get around to liking, I pray that you would help us begin to break down those walls and show them your love and your acceptance and your grace and your goodness. In Jesus' name, amen.
As we take a hard right turn into a Mother's Day sermon, I do like to acknowledge this on Mother's Day. Mother's Day is hopefully for many of us, if not most or all of us, a day in which we experience some sense of gratitude and some sense of joy. I hope that today is a day of joy for you. I hope that today you get to celebrate a mom that was and is good, that you have many fond memories of her, that she's an easy person to celebrate, and it brings you joy to be able to do that today, and hopefully it brings her joy to be celebrated. And I hope that your kids can celebrate you, and I hope that you can reflect on what it is to be a mom and the blessing that it is and all of those things. But I also know, in part because mine and Jen's story for a long time was that she desperately wanted to be a mother and she was not yet. And so every year this day would come around, and it would be difficult to go to church. It would be difficult to go to places where mothers are celebrated, and the celebration reminds you of what you are not. And sometimes the celebration reminds you of what you had but no longer do. And so Mother's Day, while being a day of joy, can also be a day of grief, a day of sometimes sadness, and a day of hardship. So if Mother's Day for you is difficult, first we love you and are praying for you and hope that Mother's Days in the future will be brighter. Another thing that I decided to do on Mother's Day a few years ago is I don't really do a Mother's Day specific sermon for a few reasons. There's only so many mother's passages you can find in the Bible. It gets a bit redundant. And the other reason is I'm not one, so I feel like having the room full of women and preaching to you about what it means to be a mother is a little bit, well, it's a stupid idea. So a little bit out of touch. That's what I was trying to think of, but stupid idea fits. But this morning we continue in our series, and I'll also say this amidst a long preamble. I know that at least a third of you are here not because you care at all about what I have to say. You were here for the babies. Everything else is white noise. So I'm going to go quickly for you and get you to your brunches, I promise. But I would like to spend our time today making a simple point that I do believe is actually in line with motherhood because we're going to be talking about the passage in Romans that says we should live our lives as living. We should offer ourselves as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. And I don't think that this idea of being a living sacrifice is imposed on any human more than it is imposed upon a mother. Because there is just this part of being a mom where you just give yourself wholly to your children. And so perhaps the understanding of this passage is unique and worth celebrating on this day. But the reason we are here this morning is because in the spring we went through Romans chapters 1 through 8 that kind of meticulously built the case for the gospel and our need for Jesus and established it as true. And so this series is called In Light Of, and it presupposes that you accept Romans 1 through 8 as true, that you've accepted God as your Father and Jesus as your Savior. So if that's you this morning, then this is for you. If that's not you this morning and you're kicking the tires on religion, then this is for you to kick and test out on your own. But I'm not preaching to you. We're just kind of giving you a glimpse into what we Christians believe and how we think we should live. And so this series is called In Light Of, meaning in light of the truth of the gospel. Francis Schaeffer, a thinker in the mid-20th century, put it this way, how should we then live? So in light of the gospel, how should we then live? And we've been looking at how Paul answers that question in each chapter of Romans 9 through 16. And this morning we arrive at Romans 12. And his answer to how should we then live is this. Because they feel low, and we're going to have to read the Bible in a minute. Let's jack those puppies up. Don't be scared. There we go. So Romans 12, 1 and 2 says some interesting things. It says, offer yourselves as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship. I think that's an interesting phrase. And then it says, be renewed, be transformed by the renewing of your mind, not conforming to the patterns of this world. And I think both of those are pretty interesting because I think a lot of times, and you've heard this before, but a lot of times when we hear the term worship in a church setting, we think of what we just did where we're singing songs to God and that is worship. But this is the critical passage on theology of worship and what it means to actually worship God. He says, do it with your whole life. Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice. This is your spiritual act of worship because it's not just worship to sing to God, but it's worship to love others in the name of God. It's worship to love others, to give of your time, talents, and treasures in the name of God. It's worship to be calm when the people around you are escalating. It's worship to model to your children what it means to be a godly father or a godly mother. It's worship to sacrifice yourself for the sake of your spouse. It's worship to sacrifice your time for the sake of others. It's worship to give of yourself and to offer it to others or something else in the name of God because God inspired it and so you give. We talked last week about the fact that we don't serve God out of this crippling sense of ought and duty, but rather out of an abundance of gratitude. And so when we exist in a place in which we are so grateful for what God has given us and what God has done for us, it is right and good to turn that and offer that to others. And living in that sense of gratitude and offering yourself as a sacrifice is a holistic, embodying way of worshiping with your whole life every day, not just in moments where we would mentally ascend to the fact that we are praising or worshiping now, but living a life of worship is what God asks of us. And then he follows it up, Paul does, with, he says, be transformed by the renewing of your mind, not conforming to the patterns of this world. And I think that's an interesting thing to put there because it's an implicit admission and what Paul admonishes us with at the onset. That to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice, to not prioritize ourselves and to prioritize the others around us all the time and consider that worship to God as it flows from gratitude and humility because of what he's done for us. That's counterintuitive to what the world tells us to do. The world tells us, this is a phrase I learned years ago, it's cheesy, but it makes sense. The world tells us to get all you can, can all you get, and then sit on your can. That's what the world tells us to do with our life. But the Bible says, no, no, no, go serve others with everything that you have, with all of your capacity, go offer it to others at all times, and I'll take care of you and whatever it is that you need. And so doing this transforms and renews our mind to make us begin to think differently because the world says, sure, give to others. Sure, be nice. Sure, be kind. But you have to look out for yourself. You have to set borders and boundaries and take care of yourself. You're the most important person in your life, so you need to look out for number one. And there is a degree to which we ought to care for ourselves. But what we'll see, hopefully, as we move through is that by caring for others, we actually care for ourselves the best. And it runs counterintuitive to what the world would have us believe. And so this morning, I thought it was incumbent upon us to ask what a sacrifice really is. What does it mean to sacrifice something? What are the crucial components of that word? If I am to offer myself as a living sacrifice, what does that mean and what makes something a sacrifice? And I would submit to you this. You're welcome to disagree with me, just preferably not vocally during the sermon, but you're welcome to silently and mentally disagree with me. But here's what I would proffer to you. To sacrifice is to give something completely and unconditionally. To sacrifice is to give something, anything, completely and unconditionally. If we offer the sacrifice and it's an incomplete sacrifice, we offer part of ourselves but not all of ourselves, then what we've just done is we've retained control. And we've undercut the nature of what sacrifice is. If we retain control, then we've turned it into some sort of a bargain. And then we are unable, if we retain control by offering an incomplete sacrifice, we're unable to offer it unconditionally. Because when we offer a conditional sacrifice, that's called a payment, not a sacrifice. When we offer it conditionally, it means as long as these standards are met, I will continue to offer it to you. But once you stop meeting my standards, then I won't. If we give to a nonprofit, and I'm not assigning rightness or wrongness to this because there is some wisdom in this mindset, but if we give to a nonprofit sacrificially, but then that nonprofit starts to do things that we don't like or we don't approve of, then we withdraw that money. We're no longer giving it sacrificially. It's to bargain when we give sometimes. If we give in that way, I'm going to give to you as long as you meet my standards. Well, now that's a bargain. Now we're still retaining control. So something that is a true sacrifice is to offer it completely and unconditionally. And I found this to be true. I learned this several years ago when a buddy of mine asked me to help him move. And it was still in our 30s. It was loosely acceptable for this to happen. It was loosely acceptable because I'm not in my 20s. I'm not going to be lured with pizza and Gatorade. That's not like a great deal. Like come help me move, like sweat for four hours and I'll give you a sports drink and pizza as a thank you. And I'm like, I'll tell you what, I'm going to give you 50 bucks to try to hire a mover. And then I'm going to buy my own pizza and not sweat. How about that? But my buddy asked me to help him move. And I've asked people to help me move before too, but I have policies. I have strict policies. If I ask you to help me move, this is my solemn promise to you. When you come to my house to help load the U-Haul because I'm too cheap to hire movers, when you do that, the only things remaining in my house will be things that require either two of me or one of Zach to lift. That's it. Two of me or one of him, but there's nothing left in the house that I can pick up on my own. So that's my deal with you. And it takes like an hour, hour and a half. So my buddy asked me to help him move his name, um, for just, uh, anonymity. We'll call him Justin Wojak. So Woj was asked me to help him move. And I was like, yeah, dude, absolutely. You got me on Saturday. Saturday's yours. And I show up at Woj's house, me and this other dude named Rusty, who's now my brother-in-law. And Rusty and I show up and I don't expect that it's empty and there's only two man jobs in there, but there is a certain decorum, right? Like you should be packed. How about that? How about there's not stuff in your cabinets, but their house looked like it looks when you go, when you come home on like a Saturday night after a busy week and you've just been letting it accrue because you know, after church on Sunday, I'm going to get this clean and we're going to get ready for Monday. It was a disaster area everywhere, right? Like if our house looked like that, I'm just saying Jen wouldn't sleep for three days. She just couldn't do it. She would have to clean it. There's stuff everywhere. Like they said, can you help us move the playroom? And there's just toys all over the playroom. So I'm looking around and I look at Rusty and I go, dude, Woj isn't ready to move. He needs to clean and then pack. He asked us to help him come pack him. So I went to Woj and I said, all right, dude, listen, I was going to give you my Saturday. You're not ready for my Saturday. I'm going to give you the best two hours of my life. It's 10 o'clock. You have me till noon. I'm going to give you the best two hours of my life. After that, it's your responsibility to pack the rest and I will come when you're ready to move. That's the kind of jerky friend I am, but I said that for real and in all sincerity, and because he and I are good buddies, he was like, that checks out with your personality, and I did it. For two hours, I gave him the best I had. I'm dumping toys in the toy chest. I'm wrapping tape around it. I'm carrying it to the truck. I'm doing everything I can, but he was not ready to move. And so I thought I was giving him, I was sacrificing my Saturday for him, but I didn't know that it was incomplete and unconditional. Because when I showed up and he didn't meet my conditions, I no longer gave him six hours. I gave him two and I retained control by making it incomplete. I didn't really sacrifice anything for him. He didn't meet my standards. It didn't make sense to me, so I didn't give it over to him. It wasn't true sacrifice. And so when Jesus calls us to sacrifice ourselves, to live as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to him. What he means is that every day we offer ourselves completely and unconditionally. Not incomplete and thus retain control, not conditionally and thus use a bargaining chip and expect a payment. Completely and unconditionally. The truth of it is we are called to live every day in complete and unconditional surrender. We are called to live every day in complete and unconditional surrender. Now, that is a remarkably high bar for what Jesus expects of us. Remember, the question today is in light of the glorious truth of the gospel, in light of the life and death of Jesus, how should we then live? Romans 12 makes it clear. We should live in such a way that we exist in complete surrender to Jesus every day. Completely and unconditionally. Now, as you hear that, you think to yourself, hopefully, I mean, not hopefully, maybe some of you are like super holy, but most of us normal people hear that and we go, I'm nowhere close to that. I've already lived selfishly today. I lived selfishly before I got in the car. And maybe you're sitting here wrestling with what is it even like to offer yourself completely and unconditionally because we'd never do that for anyone, for anything. So how could I possibly attain that level of holiness and sanctification that I can fully and completely surrender myself to Jesus every day. And then once you start asking that question, our brains typically do something like this. They typically go, well, it's probably hyperbole. But just offer yourself. Just kind of live with the mindset of a servant. And then you're doing it. We do this with the verse when Paul says at the end of Thessalonians, pray without ceasing. Well, what does that mean? Does that mean I need to be bowed and prayed all day long? No, it can't possibly mean that. It means to be in a mindset of prayer, just an ongoing conversation with God throughout the day. That's pray without ceasing. That sums it up. Meanwhile, there is a sect of monks in the 1600s who got so distracted from the fact that they couldn't obey that, that they started a monastery for the whole point of praying without ceasing. Now, the kingdom of God would struggle to advance if all Christians did that. But that was the right thing for them. But what we do when we see these incredibly high bars of holiness in Scripture, when we're confronted with them, what we do is we begin to soften them until they feel attainable. Right? God puts the target here. We're like, that's really far away and small. Let me draw a big one right here in front of me. It's like when you were a kid. I don't know if you remember, I'm a child of the 80s and we played duck hunt and you're supposed to stand back from the TV and shoot at the ducks. But eventually there's multiple ducks and because you don't want to fail, you're up against the screen just touching the glass, nailing those ducks. This is what we do with morality and holiness. It's like, that's really hard, but if I can reduce the standard and stand closer to the screen, then perhaps this can be easy and attainable. But here's what we do with that at Grace. Here's what I try to remind you of whenever we're presented with these high standards of holiness. It is not up to us to lower the standard until it becomes attainable. It is incumbent upon us to have the courage and humility and intellectual honesty to look it in the eye and understand that without Jesus and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, we will never hit the target and then surrender to the impossibility of the standard, accepting that it is only Christ working through us that can even help us approach the standard. So we do not dumb it down and soften it up to make it more attainable and pleasing and make ourselves feel better. No, we see it for what it is and cry out for the empowerment of the spirit and the grace of Jesus and the guidance of the father so that one day we might move incrementally closer to offering ourselves completely and unconditionally every day. Now, how do we do this? How do we offer ourselves completely and unconditionally? And for this part, this is going to be a little bit different, but it was so good that I felt like it needed to be read and it needed to be heard. So I'm going to invite up one of our elders, Nancy Lasavita. Nancy has three sons. When she's done, I'm going to rank them according to how much she loves them based on private conversations with Nancy. I asked her, and actually, if you'll do this, while I'm talking, there's a Bible in the seat back in front of you. Would you please take that Bible out? And on page 1123, you'll find Romans chapter 12. If you have an app, use that. I've asked Nancy to read the whole chapter from verse 3 down to verse, I believe, 21. And we don't normally do that. That's why I'm asking you to get out your Bible and read along, because here's why. As I was doing research for the sermon and wanted to make sure I had a holistic view of these first couple verses that we're covering in depth, I wanted to know the whole chapter. And as I read it, I thought, man, they need to hear this. This is what it is to live lives of sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. And I know that if you're reading along, you're more likely to continue to pay attention. So let's have this read over us, read it along, read along with it if you can, and then we'll close out in a few minutes after that. So Ms. Nancy, please take it away. Thank you. 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 faith God has distributed to each of you. For just as each of us has one body with many members, Verse 1. We have different gifts according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophecy in accordance with your faith. If it is serving, then serve. If it is teaching, then teach. If it is to encourage, then give encouragement. If it is giving, then give generously. If it is to lead, do it diligently. If it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully. Amen. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath. For it is written, it is mine to avenge. I will repay, says the Lord. On the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heat burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Thank you, Nancy. You should clap. There was like no stuttering at all. You had to hear the chapter. And I would encourage you to do this. If this sermon, if this message, if this idea impresses upon you at all, I tell you often there's no more important habit that anyone can develop in their whole life than to wake up every day and spend time in God's word and time in prayer. If that's something you do or you want to seek to do and you want to answer this question, how do I offer myself as a living sacrifice? Read this chapter every day this week. Just read this chapter. Let it pour over you. There's 14 sermons in this chapter and it still wouldn't do it justice. If you have trouble showing mercy, show it. If you're born to lead, lead in the name of God. If you're born to serve, serve in the name of God. Don't consider others lower than you, but consider them more important than yourselves. Be willing to associate with people who are lower on the socioeconomic rung than you. There's so many challenging things in here, but if you want to answer the question, how do I offer myself as a living sacrifice, this is how you do it. And I had a couple thoughts as we look to wrap up and we consider this task. The first is simply this. This is a high bar and it's incredibly challenging. And if you tried to do all these things at once, if you haven't thought about all of these things, if you haven't thought about what it is to offer yourself as a sacrifice every day, it can be a lot. It's like taking a cold plunge and having to sit in it for 12 hours. If you try to do all this all the time every day and go from zero to a hundred, then you will fail quickly and miserably and you will do none of it. So rather, the standard is the standard and we have to seek to attain it or be grown to it by God. So we don't want to back off of that, but we do want to be realistic about what we can do in the short term. And so here's what I would offer you. If this is kind of new stuff for you, you're not used to this, then pick one thing. Pick one thing. As I encountered this, I'll just tell you what my thing was. I do try to do some of this, but I wanted to add more. And one of the most glaring things that I see, and I hate to tell on myself like this, but maybe it'll be good for me, is I can get in what my family calls task mode. And when I am in task mode, there is no point in my life at which I am less interested in having a conversation with you at all, about anything. When I'm in task mode, I'm trying to get stuff done. And sometimes for a pastor, that's not a great mode. On a Sunday morning when I'm stressed about the service and I'm moving through the lobby and someone's like, oh, Nate, let me tell you about my mom. Nope. And then I just, I have important things to do and your mom's dumb. And then I just go, which is terrible. So I'm trying to hear that when I don't want to and go, okay, God, I'm going to offer myself to this. When I'm someplace, my friends who know me, I'm the king of an Irish goodbye. I kind of look around, I've talked to everyone, I'm going to get in my car and it'll be 30 minutes before they all know that I'm gone and they won't know how long I stayed. Now what I'm trying to make myself do is stay here and have three more conversations. Just stay here. What are you in a hurry to be at? Stay here and connect with people and offer yourself and see what you have to learn from this. Pick one thing. If you struggle showing mercy, pick places to show mercy. If you struggle to be personable and give of your time, make yourself stick it out a little bit longer. If you are a yapper and you just get your claws in people and you just talk to them a long time, maybe don't do that. Maybe let them go, you know, yeah, there you go. We usually don't do the flip side of that, do we? But maybe consider that inconsiderate, you know? Pick a thing. Sorry, I could go on. Pick a thing. Read the chapter. Pick a thing that doesn't come natural to you and allow God to begin to work through that. And what you'll find is it brings you joy. Last thing I'll say is this. We said at the beginning that this runs contrary to what the world would tell us. That the world tells us essentially to live selfishly and look out for yourself. And I will only offer you this anecdotally. But I think that there's actually more help found in giving of yourself to others. And here's how I know this to be true personally. I want to juxtapose two days in my life. The first day would be a day when my family's going on vacation. They're headed out of town. And that day, you know, Jen usually takes the kids at one point in the summer and I can't, I have to work. And so I stay back. And so this is how that day goes. I wake up and I'm incredibly diligent in helping the kids get packed and bathed and all the stuff like, let me help you. I'm just helping. And then they get in the car and I pretend to be sad and they leave and yes, sweet freedom. And then I like, what do I want to do? And if the bed is, if Jen made the bed before she leaves, I go and I unmake it because I hate that. I like getting just back into the bed. I don't want another chore to remove pillows before I get into bed at night. I just want to get in the bed. So I go unmake it. And then, and then I'm like, I know I'm going to want a steak later, so I go to the butcher shop. I get a steak and some potatoes or whatever, and I bring that back for dinner. And then I just spend the day doing whatever it is I want. Maybe I golf. Maybe I lay on the couch and I play a dumb game on my phone. Maybe I turn on an action movie where there's blood going everywhere, and Jen would be disgusted by it and say, I don't know why you watch dumb things. And now I don't have to tell you why, because I just get to leave it on the screen and do whatever I want to do. And I just do whatever I want to do all day. And it's a glorious day. And then I make myself a steak and I continue to watch something else. And then eventually I go to bed and it's way too late and I get up and whatever. And after, for the first 10 hours of that, that's great. But very quickly, I miss my family. And I've actually thought to myself, it is not good for man to be alone. I should have some responsibilities. And then there are other days, and these are more typical days, where I wake up and I'm a part of the school thing and I'm part of getting kids to school. And then I work and I do. And sometimes I'll go and I'll pick up a kid and take them here. I'll be home early because Jen has a thing and then you go home and as soon as I get home, Johnny looks at me, Daddy, you want to wrestle? And I'm like, no, I want to lay. But then we wrestle. We got a specific bed set up for it. We have to turn on sports while we wrestle because that's what guys do and then we wrestle. And then Lily wants to tell me about her stuff and then I'm helping with dinner or helping with the. And then Jen might look at me and go, hey, do you want to go on a walk? And I'll go, yeah. And then we go on a walk. And then you get the kids down and you sing and you do the things. And then one gets up and you put them back into bed. And then at the end of the day, it's quiet. You can talk to your spouse. And I go to bed. Do you know on which day I go to bed happier? The second one. Have you ever had those days where you can just do whatever you want all day and you don't think about anyone but yourself? When you put your head on the pillow at night, how happy are you? Because I know for me, after a day and a half of that, I always kind of look around and go, I feel down. I don't want to do anything because I've been serving myself. That's empty. That offers nothing. It's the days in which I've been poured out like a drink offering and given of myself, whether I wanted to or not, that I go to bed with the most earned tired and the greatest joy and the most optimism for what tomorrow can be. Offer yourselves as living sacrifices. Find small ways to begin to do it as God sanctifies you towards the bar. And what you will find at the end of those days is greater joy and greater satisfaction and greater optimism for what you can do the next day. Last thought. What if, thinking about the kids that were up here today and the kids that are over there waiting for me to wrap up. What if the children of grace got this, get this before we do? Because we did. What if you figure out now that this is the way to live? And because you figure it out now, the kids who are over there see it in you and get it way before you ever did. And you model for them what it is to live as a sacrifice and they grow up knowing that. How much more will that generation be used than our generation? How much more can we impact through legacy by getting this now? So grace, happy Mother's Day. Moms already understand how to live as living sacrifices. Now let's all of us do it for God. Pick one thing and grow towards the bar. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for this morning. Thank you for the kids and the families that are represented here and everything that you're doing in and through them. God, I pray that we would raise ourselves and our view to this standard so that we might be used by you as we sacrifice for others. Let us experience the joy of pouring ourselves out. In Jesus' name, amen.
