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.
