Text: Romans 12:1,2 " I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."
There are many famous battle grounds. They are places of great victories and monumental defeats. Names like Gettysburg, The Alamo, and Iwo Jima conjure up visions of the battles that immortalized these places. We think of great battles of the Bible; Jericho, Ai, Armegeddon, Gethsemene, and Calvary. Many brave soldier has spilled his blood upon a battlefield because he believed in a cause, and he loved a country.
But there are battles that are being fought every day that will never be chronicled in the annals of history. These unseen battles are being fought this very moment. They are being fought in this very building. The battle ground is not a piece of terra firma. It is not a naval maneuver, or a sortie flown over a distant enemy. The battle is not being fought for land, oil, food, or political posturing. The stakes are much higher than that. The victor in this battle will realize a much greater reward. It is an eternal reward. The battle ground is in our minds.
If there is ever a battle that we must fight, and a victory we must win, this is it! I don’t believe our greatest enemy is Satan. Yes, he is the adversary that is seeking to devour. But the Bible makes it plain that he is a defeated enemy. Jesus defeated him at Calvary, and in hell when he took the keys to death, hell, and the grave! He arose victorious, and gave the victory to his church. No, Satan is not our greatest problem. Our problem is ourselves.
Locked up in the minds of all of us are many things. There are secrets no one will ever know. There are fears we don’t admit, and that we hope remain undiscovered. There are doubts. Doubts about ourselves, doubts about others, maybe even doubts about God. And it is in these secret recesses of our minds that the battle rages. Paul refer to this battle field as "the carnal mind". Romans 8:6,7 states; "For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Simply put, our natural selves tend to fight against the things of God. We are at odds with God and His ways, and have no way of reconciling those differences on our own. The natural man is at war with all things spiritual.
When we try to understand the things of God with the natural mind, we will always come up short. The things of God must be received and understood through faith. Hebrews records; "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God. . ."(Hebrews 11:3a) Man may exhaust all his resources, all his knowledge, all his technology, and still never understand the ways of God. It doesn’t make sense that a spoken word could create a universe. It is not logical to think that an iron ax head could float, or that a man could walk on water. We can’t explain Jericho’s walls falling flat at the sound of a trumpet and a shout of victory. And five thousand men would never be satisfied eating five loaves and two fishes. We only believe and understand these things through faith.
It is precisely here that we face our biggest battles. We have been taught those stories from the Bible since we were small. Many of us have worked through the doubts we may have had, and now embrace them with faith. But faith is not just for the past. "For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith." (Romans 1:17) We must learn to go from faith, to faith. We must take the faith we have relegated to the past, and appropriate it for today! We must live by faith. To do that, we must win the battle for our minds. That is KEEPING THE FAITH WITHOUT LOSING YOUR MIND!
Our text was a passage many of you could quote. I want us to look closely at a couple of words. Paul said the living sacrifice that we present to God was our ". . . reasonable service". Many have preached, (myself included), that what we do to serve God is only reasonable. It is not extreme or excessive. We have construed this verse to mean that God wasn’t imposing anything on us that would be unreasonable, or unusual. Although that is the English definition of the word "reasonable", the Greek is much different. Reasonable could be better translated "rational"-having reason or understanding. Serving God is a choice we make. It is a choice based on our reasoning abilities, our ability to think or to rationalize. The Psalmist wrote; "Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light. Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the LORD: for he commanded, and they were created. Praise the LORD from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps: Fire, and hail; snow, and vapour; stormy wind fulfilling his word: Mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars: Beasts, and all cattle; creeping things, and flying fowl:" (Psalms 148:3-5,7-10) All creation was created to praise God, "for he commanded". Only mankind is given the abilty to make a rational decision to praise God. Fire, hail, snow, vapour, mountains, trees, and hills cannot decide to serve God.
It is the this decision that we battle. Serving God is about choices. Choices only mankind was given the ability to make. Choices that you must make individually. God told Israel; "Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse; A blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day: And a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the LORD your God. . ." (Deuteronomy 11:26-28a) He gave Israel a choice. Joshua said; ". . .choose you this day whom ye will serve. . ." (Joshua 24:15) Jesus said; "...If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." (Matthew 16:24) When we make the choice to follow Jesus, it is "reasonable service". It is a rational decision prompted by faith in God’s word. Anything less leads to a shallow experience that will not last. A decision based on an emotional appeal will seldom see us through. When the emotion is gone, so is the commitment.
True repentance is a rational decision. Some repent for fear. Others repent for convenience. And still others repent because the were caught. But true repentance is by definition a changing of one’s mind. That is why Paul said; "...be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12:2) The life changing power of repentence rests in the fact that we change, or renew our mind! That’s how to KEEP THE FAITH WITHOUT LOSING YOUR MIND-RENEW IT! We must win the battle over the carnal thoughts that lie dormant in our minds. It is an ongoing process. Daily, hourly, even moment by moment we must renew our minds. Paul wrote; (2 Corinthians 10:5,) "Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." That is reasonable service. That is serving God because we choose to serve God. And that is the kind of service that will allow us to "...prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God". (Romans 12:2b)
We have identified the battle ground as our minds. We have established that the choices we make determine the outcome. Let me preach about some of the battles that we fight, and how to be victorious.
There are some things we believe about God that are erroneous. If we allow these wrong thoughts to fester in our minds, the will prevent us from rendering "reasonable service", and from winning the battle.
There are some of you who have determined in your minds that you are too bad for God to love them. Because of past failures, or because of some horrific sin in your past, you feel you are not worthy of the grace of God. Every time you are moved to an altar, a load of condemnation follows you. Every time you think you’ve gotten the victory, that past comes back to defeat you. It is time you realized that the God I’m preaching about is a God of love. He did not come to destroy you. He is not sitting on His throne watching your every move so he can call down hell fire and brimstone.
John wrote; (John 3:17) "For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." Jesus’ one desire is for you to be saved. If you will realize that through faith, accept what the Word of God has to say, make up your mind to serve the Lord, then you will be victorious. You will never understand God’s love for you. At the close of Paul’s ministry, his desire was to comprehend the depth’s of God’s love. Receive it in faith, and let that word change your life. Get rid of the baggage of condemnation.
Another thing we believe about God is right in its verity, but wrong in our application. We believe God can do anything. If I were to ask for a show of hands, the majority would raise a hand to acknowledge that they believe God can do anything. They would be right! God asked Abraham; (Genesis 18:14)"Is any thing too hard for the LORD?" Of course not! The familiar verse from Ephesians states; (Ephesians 3:20) "Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think..." (Don’t worry, the devils also believe and tremble). We can accept the fact that God can do anything, we have trouble believing that God will do anything!
The centurion that came to Jesus believed that if Jesus would only speak the word, "my servant shall be healed". The women with the issue of blood ha said to herself, "If I may but touch the hem of his garment, I shall be healed." It is time we were transformed by a renewing of our minds. I believe God will do, and wants to do great things in our midst, but we have limited him with our "God can", instead of a God will. We boldly proclaim that if you will ask, God will forgive your sins. That’s an easy statement to make. Our carnal man can’t see those sins being remitted. Can we not just as boldly proclaim that God will heal you tonight? Bro. Spaugh, you’re going out on a limb! Faith always goes out on a limb. No one questioned whether or not Jesus would heal. They just expected it. Many of those who had come for healing, or had brought someone else, were not the least bit interested in living for God. They were following only for the loaves and the fishes. And yet Jesus healed them all. How much more does he desire to touch those who love him, and have committed their lives to his cause. I am preaching to you tonight that there is healing here for you.
Finally, we have some wrong ideas about ourselves. We look so often at our inabilities, our frailities, our weaknesses, our personalities, our failures, our shortcomings; and we decide that God cannot use us. God used a crude fisherman to preach his innagural message. He used a scholarly pharisee to spread the gospel around the world. He used a donkey to stop a prophet. He used a slave girl to effect healing for Naaman. He used a lad’s lunch to feed the multitude. And yet we hesitate to think that God can use us. It is time to renew our minds! It is time for a transforming realization and rationalization of what we are in God! How many conventions and special conferences must we attend before we accept what God will do in our lives. Faith without works is dead. It is time we acted in faith on what God desires to do. Claim that ministry. Make the choice to do God’s work. If he has called, then he will empower.
I entitled this message KEEPING THE FAITH WITHOUT LOSING YOUR MIND, but what we really need to do is lose the carnal mind, and put on the spiritual. The spiritual mind sees through faith in God’s word, and chooses to make the sacrifice.
