Bobby Bosler: All right, well, I just want to thank you all for coming here this evening.

I know that many of you have come, not because this is just a fun time.

In fact, as I've been promoting this event on the podcast and through other means, I've had to remind myself, oh yeah, we've got like competitions and stuff.

Because I really do believe that many of you are here because you believe that God has something great for your life.

You believe that your life matters.

You believe that if you will get a hold of this matter of total surrender to God, and total dependence on his power.

This really could happen that you, young man, you, young lady, could turn the world upside down with the gospel.

And I love the fact that there are young men and young ladies here in this room.

There's almost a certain sense in which we don't have to start from scratch.

We're almost starting with young people who are spiritually minded.

And I just have to say, It is such a joy to be able to have you here this week.

It's such a joy to be able to, in a certain sense, partner with you this week.

You know, I just want to tell you something, young people.

When I look at a crowd like this, I don't see kids.

Now, granted, you all have been probably born less time than I've been out of college.

I'm realizing more and more I'm getting old, okay?

I was talking to Brother Weary about that in the lobby.

We are both getting old.

When I had my team this summer and I realized every single team member was born after 9-11, I thought, oh boy, what has this world come to?

But that being said, whether it's my team or whether it's you young people, I want you to know something.

You're a part of the same team I'm on.

You're a part of God's team.

and if we all here this week can grab a hold of the great things that God wants to do in us and if we can grab a hold of the great things that God wants to do through us, listen, we really can turn the world upside down.

And you can be an important part of it.

It doesn't matter if you're here today and you're struggling with stuff.

Can I tell you, listen, God wants to help you with that.

God's got everything that you need to get victory in areas that you may be struggling in right now.

You might find yourself walking into the room here tonight, as Pastor Van mentioned earlier, hurting, feeling twisted up inside for a variety of different reasons.

Can I tell you, I know the great untwister upper.

I don't think I said that right.

I know the one who can heal those hurts, who can untangle your heart, who can set you straight.

So whether you're here and man, you just want to serve God and you're excited about coming to an event where you can be with other young people that just want to serve God or whether you're here and you're thinking, man, I'm not like the kind of person he's describing.

I'm struggling.

Can I tell you what?

For all of us, the solution is the same.

It's Jesus Christ.

And if we'll get a hold of what it means to yield to him, to surrender to him, to depend upon him, I'm just telling you, a crowd this size, as Pastor mentioned earlier, really can change the world.

That being said, if you could turn with me in your Bible to the text that God's put in my heart.

I've really been mulling over this for quite a while.

The theme here for tonight, my family and I, we got away for a few days back at the beginning of September.

And as we were there just trying to spend time with the Lord, my heart was drawn to this text.

And I began to study and I began to dig through this text.

And I will tell you what, young people, God gave me a brand new perspective on this text.

He gave me a brand new deep appreciation.

I found myself anew and afresh, yielding my life to God, as this text is going to say.

What I want to do here tonight is I want to read the text.

We're just going to focus on verse 1 here this evening.

I want to pray, and then I want us to dive into this.

I want to explore what it means to present ourselves as a living sacrifice to God.

I want to zoom in here tonight and even here this week on what this key plank of the generation is all about, this matter of total surrender.

Look at the text here with me.

Romans 12, verse 1 says this, 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.

What I want to speak to you about here this evening is a message entitled, One Master.

Let's seek the Lord.

God in heaven.

I just want to thank you again for the young people you've brought here tonight.

I want to thank you for this text, for how it's spoken to many, many millions.

since it's been written, how you've used this text to change the life trajectory of young people, of older people, how you've used this text to just radically transform people.

And I want to ask tonight, would you take this text again?

It could never be preached too much, but would you take this text here tonight and I pray that you would use it as you see fit.

God, I want to ask in the name of Jesus, would you fill me with the Holy Ghost right now?

Lord, I yield my life to you.

I yield my mind to you, my tongue, my lips to you.

And I just pray that you would say what's on your heart to these young men and young ladies here tonight.

And God, I ask that you would cause your presence to come down upon this congregation of people tonight.

And would you cause the word to go with freedom into every heart.

Lord, accomplish all your will now.

I yield to you in Jesus' name.

Amen.

There's a man in the pages of history, a man who found himself in a very challenging dilemma.

At the start of the American Civil War, Robert E.

Lee faced a profound moral and political dilemma.

He was a career military officer in the United States Army and was offered command of the Union Army by President Abraham Lincoln.

However, his home state of Virginia had seceded from the Union, and despite his personal opposition to secession, Lee felt compelled by loyalty to his state and chose to serve the Confederacy.

Confederacy.

His internal conflict between his duty to the United States and his loyalty to Virginia forced him to make a painful decision.

His choice to follow Virginia's path led to his involvement in the Confederate cause, even though it meant fighting against the country that he had sworn to serve for most of his life.

Listen, his internal struggle between his loyalty to the union and his loyalty to his home state of Virginia, I believe, serves as a powerful example of what happens when a person is torn between two competing allegiances.

And Lee ultimately had to make a choice.

He could not serve both causes without compromising his integrity and his future.

His decision shows the deep cost of divided loyalty.

And while history has passed judgment on the side that he chose, the reality is clear, trying to serve two masters.

It's impossible.

it doesn't work obviously jesus said that his words in matthew 6 cut to the heart of the issue he said no man can serve two masters can i say this young people we cannot claim to serve god while allowing other competing allegiances to take control of our hearts whether it's the pursuit of money whether it is the pursuit of personal ambitions or the approval of others listen young people, these masters will inevitably pull us in opposite directions, demanding our time, our energy, and our devotion.

And just like Robert E.

Lee, we will be forced to make a choice.

The call of this text echoes this truth.

It urges us to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice to God, fully and completely surrendered to God.

Listen, this text leaves no room for divided loyalties when we are called to be wholly and completely surrendered to Jesus Christ.

And the sacrifice he asks for in this text is our whole selves, offered in true service and worship from an undivided allegiance to one master.

Look at the text again.

I want us to see this.

I beseech you I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service what I want to do here this evening is I want to walk through this text I want to walk through this verse phrase by phrase and I want to take a look at what it means to have that singular allegiance that total surrender to that one master what does it mean what does it look like

to be totally surrendered to God?

I want us to see this first here.

We've got the appeal to start, the appeal of sacrifice.

He says, I beseech you therefore, brethren.

I appreciate Paul so much and how he interacted with the Romans.

Those of you who are here who study the book of Romans, you probably know he himself personally had not been there to that city.

He

other than the fact that he was an apostle sent by God and was speaking for God by means of inspiration.

And yet even just as a human being from person to person, there's a certain sense in which he approached the Romans with a sense of dignity and respect.

He did not come to the Romans and just try to do a power grab on them.

He didn't come to them with a power trip.

He didn't even come to them and just try to guilt trip them into serving the Lord.

he says, listen, I beseech you.

I am begging you.

I am appealing to you, brothers and sisters in Christ.

One commentator said this of this phrase here, I beseech you.

He says, its semantic range lies somewhere between request and command.

An exhortation comes with authority, but the authority of a preacher who is the mediator of God's truth rather than the authority of a superior issuing the command.

In other words, Paul was saying, hey listen friends, listen Romans, hey listen folks there in Rome, I'm going to ask you something.

I'm going to give you an ask and I'll tell you it's a big ask.

Can I tell you young people here this week, we're not commanding you to do anything.

I'm not standing up here as some sort of a guru or authority.

I'm nothing of the sort.

I'm standing up here and I'm just saying, hey, listen, folks, can I encourage us?

Can I make a request of you all here this week?

Let's surrender our lives to Jesus Christ completely and entirely.

Now, he makes this request on the basis of something.

The basis of his request is not himself.

He doesn't say, hey, look at me.

I'm amazing.

Hey, look at me.

I have a podcast.

You need to do what I say.

That's not what he says.

He doesn't say, hey, look at me, I'm the preacher, so you better just do what I say and follow what I say.

He doesn't stand up and say, hey, listen, I'm your pastor.

He wasn't your pastor.

He just appealed to them on a basis, and that basis that he appealed to them was by the mercies of God.

In other words, the authority, or if we could say the foundation of his request, was because of the amazing things that God has done.

I want to remind you, this verse is in the context of the entire book of Romans.

You may or may not be familiar with the book, and yet when you go throughout the book, we've got from chapters 1 through chapters 4 and 5, he's talking about the gospel.

The fact that we humans are rebels.

We are sinners.

We have broken God's law, and it doesn't matter who you are.

It doesn't matter how much you have in your bank account.

It doesn't matter how educated you might be.

It doesn't matter what kind of a church you grew up in.

The fact of the matter is this.

God said don't, and you did.

God said do and you didn't.

And when you break God's law, whether it's lying, cheating, stealing, committing adultery in your heart, whatever it might be, friends, you've broken God's law.

You've earned for yourself a severe sentence in God's eyes.

And the only hope for you was God's mercy.

Thankfully for you and me and all of us, God delights in mercy.

Thankfully for all of us, God is looking for an opportunity to show mercy.

He loves mercy.

And what God did, we find explained in great depth in chapter 3.

He set forth his son to be a propitiation.

He made Jesus publicly put him forth, nailed to that cross, suspended between heaven and earth to show the entire world that God will not stop being just, but that he will be the justifier of any of all who believe on Jesus.

That mercy is amazing.

Listen friends this mercy has rescued you from the plight of sin through the sacrifice of Christ through no work of your own but by the cross work of Jesus Christ.

His mercy not only saved you from the consequences of your sin it also rescues you from the taskmaster of sin through your union with Jesus in his death not by the works of the law not by the things that you can do not by keeping your nose clean but by the power of the holy spirit in you and even though you were not his people

god made a way for all men to glean from his grace and mercy through faith in his blood wow that's some amazing mercy but listen he says listen i'm beseeching you i'm requesting on the foundation, not of my role, not of my title, not of my position, not because I'm higher than you, better than you, not because I am something and you need to glean from my great wisdom.

No!

Because of what God has done, he makes this appeal.

And can I say this?

These lavish acts of mercy that God has done for us, they deserve a response.

Not as a divine guilt trip.

but as a wholehearted reply of gratitude and allegiance listen friends the works of god for us were so great they were so free they were so exhaustive that there was only one response that even comes close to making sense total surrender you see god's mercies and his grace evokes not evoke not only unending gratitude but all-encompassing service and worship as well it's the only thing that makes sense but i want you to look at the words again look at the words in your bible in

your lap here tonight he says i beseech you again i'm not commanding you i'm beseeching you i'm encouraging you i'm i am imploring you i'm making a really big ask here my brothers and sisters in christ on the basis of the great mercy that god has shown forth to you but here's what he asks them to do.

That ye present your bodies as a sacrifice.

Huh.

He's saying essentially, listen.

Listen, friends, because of what God's done, I am begging you, I want you to present yourself as a sacrifice.

What does it mean to present something as a sacrifice?

What does that mean?

Of course, if you know anything about your Bible, If you're familiar with the Old Testament, you will know that there was a whole system of sacrifice that existed back in that day.

In fact, the very language that he used, the word present, the word sacrifice, these were not general terms.

These were highly specific terms that referred directly to this Old Testament sacrificial system.

The picture that every faithful Jew was intimately aware of where they would take a lamb.

They would take a lamb that was without spot or blemish and they would take this lamb.

I don't know the circumstances surrounding the lamb, but I would imagine many times the lamb was a part of their household, right?

This lamb was one that they had amongst the flock.

I don't know if they would name the lamb.

Maybe this lamb was one.

We find, I think, what in the story that Nathan the prophet gave to David, right?

He was a man.

He had the one little lamb and it was like his best friend.

And then the big bad boss guy stole his lamb, right?

Okay, I don't know if everybody had that kind of a relationship with their lamb.

I don't know.

But you've got this cute little lamb that they've had since it was just a little tiny baby lamb.

And it grows up to be of age, to be eligible, to be presented as a sacrifice.

And you know what happens?

What happens when they present that lamb as a sacrifice?

Well, they take the lamb.

This cute, spotless lamb.

And they take a knife.

And they take the head of that lamb and they put it up and they take that knife, put it to the throat of the lamb, and they gouge it in and slit the throat of that lamb.

Blood literally pours out of the neck of this lamb.

I know this is graphic.

What happens to the body of the lamb?

Well, there's a number of different things.

I'm not going to go into that here right now, but what I want you to understand is this.

The concept of sacrifice.

It is an end in some ways.

That lamb who had before existed, maybe as a companion, as a pet, or whatever it was, to that family, ended.

The lamb was through.

It was done.

And can I tell you, the concept of sacrifice is an end of sorts.

But it's also a beginning.

Let me read this here.

Some things that I'd written.

This presentation of our whole selves to God is making ourselves completely available to Him.

To His will.

To His leadership and His guidance.

It's making ourselves available to his purposes and his plans.

It is the sacrifice of life as we would have it.

So that he can have our lives as he would have it.

This concept of sacrifice.

It's the end of life as we know it.

And the beginning of life as he wants it.

Do you understand the concept of sacrifice is an end?

when the lamb is presented as a sacrifice, it's the end of that lamb.

And listen, friends, there are some things in your life that need to come into an end.

There are some ways of thinking, young men and young ladies, that need to come to an end.

There are some thought patterns and habits in your life that need to come to an end.

There are some apps on your phone that need to come to an end.

There are some spending habits that need to come to an end.Friends, because this concept of sacrifice it's an end but praise god it's not the endWhat is it that we're supposed to present to god as a sacrifice if you look at this this actually gets a little bit grotesque here if you really think about it what does it say he says i'm beseeching i'm requesting man because of what god has done for you listen present yourself take your body and give it to god as

a sacrifice God wants us not to give a lamb but to give ourselves specifically our bodies one commentator put it this way in romans 12 1 however the sacrifice we offer is not some specific form of praise or service but our bodies themselves.

It is not only what we can give that God demands.

He demands the giver.

And listen, it's not just some act of service.

It's not just some words from our lips.

It's not some money out of our wallets that He wants.

It's not even a segment of our day or a portion of our life, whether a day, a month, or a decade.

God wants our bodies.

Young people, God wants your sack of bones.

And so often, the sacrifice that we give him is something less than that, right?

Oh God, I'll give you my Sunday.

I'll focus on you here today.

I'll let what I want to end here for this portion of time, but let me tell you what, when that portion of time is done, it's back to me, me, me, okay?

Listen, when it comes to the things that end, listen we might say hey listen sure I'll give up my music but I'm not giving up my future you might say hey listen I'll give up that certain portion of my wardrobe but I'm not giving God my dreams and plans oh no listen friends God's not looking for you to give him some God is looking for you to give him all God's not impressed with somebody standing and just giving a sacrifice of praise when you in

your heart and in your mind are just living for yourself.

He's not impressed at all.

What God is requesting here in this passage is not your Fridays or your afternoons.

It's not your morning devotion time.

It is your body.

What does that mean?

Listen, listen, he wants you to give everything.

Don't, he doesn't just want us to compartmentalize our devotion to him into some cozy corner of our life where we can control it.

He wants us.

He wants our entire bodies.

This outward shell of flesh that houses every part of us from our minds to our thoughts, from our hearts to our will, from our dreams to our plans, every part of our material and immaterial man.

Our body, soul, and spirit.

He wants us to take all of that and to give it to him as a sacrifice.

Listen, when God gets your body, he gets all of you.

When God gets your body, he gets your brain.

When God gets your body, he gets your feet.

He gets your hands.

He gets your tongue.

He gets your voice.

He gets the whole kit and caboodle, friends.

He gets all of it.

And what God is requesting here is give me your body as a sacrifice.

but you know what else he gets when he gets our bodies he gets our futures too right listen when you yield up your body to the lord you end your right you end you present all of not just who you are right now okay when you present your body to god yes you are giving yourself to him as you currently are but listen friends we're also presenting him all of who we may become as well because friends if we give him our bodies now we'll

also be giving him our future selves as well because the deeds of

today determine the course of tomorrow what we could become ends as we submit it all to the lord listen i'm talking to young people here in this room you need to give your body to god you got plans that are your plans they're not god's plans and a part of giving yourself every part of you here today is saying god i am yours today and therefore i am yours tomorrow and therefore i'm yours next week next month next year i am yours to do with

as you see fit listen when we present our bodies to god we're giving him our whole selves we're giving him our whole futures and we're giving him all of our masters.

When you yield up your body to the Lord, you end your right to be ruled by anything or anyone other than God.

By presenting yourself to the Lord, you're revoking your right to rule yourselves.

You're retracting all offers to be ruled by anything and anyone so that you can be ruled by God alone through his spirit.

Okay, so we've been talking about this.

Okay, so we're talking about the end.

Listen, friends, it's time to end your dreams.

Some of you dream of having a certain income level.

That's your dream.

That's what you want to get out of life.

Some of you, you are dreaming of having a certain kind of a home.

You want a wife or a husband, certain amount of kids, and you got the names all picked out, okay?

It's time for those dreams to end, friends.

I'm not saying God isn't going to have you get married, and I'm not saying that God's going to make you be a poor pauper for the rest of your life, But what I'm telling you is this.

We need to present our bodies to Him and let what we have determined, what we have concocted for ourselves, what we have projected out for ourselves, die as we submit all of it to Him.

And to Him alone.

Listen, when I was a teenager, I would have never dreamed that I would be doing what I'm doing here today.

I was a video game addict.

I'm not preaching against video games here tonight, but I will tell you what.

You know what ruled my life when I was a teenager?

My Sony PlayStation 2.

I know that just dated me just a little bit, okay?

That's what ruled my life.

What also ruled my life was the opinions of my friends at church, the attention of girls.

Those were things that ruled my life.

There are plenty of other things that happened in secret that ruled my life as well.

We're not going to get into here at this moment in time, but I'll tell you what.

I wasn't controlled by the Spirit of God.

I was controlled by a whole lot of other things.

Friends, some of you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Can I tell you it's the time for those competing masters' reigns to end.

It is time for your rule of your own life to end.

As we saw in that video, the master is calling you to surrender.

But I want you to see this.

We talked about the lamb, right?

The lamb, when it's presented as a sacrifice, it dies.

I was talking to somebody earlier.

They asked me, are you going to throw a pot on the floor this time?

I said, no, no.

I was trying to think of some kind of interesting visual something, but I said it would get blood all over the place, so I decided not to do it.

But I want you to see this here.

Look at the text again.

I beseech you.

I'm begging you.

I am appealing to you on the basis of God's amazing mercy that you present your bodies as a sacrifice.

There's a grammatical phenomenon going on here.

You may not be aware of it.

But the grammar here is I want you to present your bodies as a sacrifice.

And there are three adjectives that are attached to that word sacrifice.

often we think that the primary adjective is living.

And that is certainly one of the three adjectives, and it's very important.

But I want you to understand this.

All three of them do carry equal weight here.

And yes, it is true.

He wants you to present your life as a sacrifice that's different than the sacrifice of the lamb.

Here's how it's different.

When the lamb ends, it dies.

But when you end, you live.

You see, God's calling us.

Okay, so what's the difference?

Before you were alive, afterwards you're still alive?

What is the difference here?

You see, the kind of sacrifice that God is calling us to is a sacrifice that goes on living, no doubt about it.

But it's a life that is different than it was before.

You see, God expects our lives as we know them to come to an end.

Seeing as that's the case, we might think that he's calling on us to die.

But listen, friends, God is not calling us to die, at least not like the lamb died.

On the contrary, he is in fact calling us to live.

And the offerings that we are to present ourselves as are not offerings that die, but they are offerings that live.

Like we said, the lamb, when it's offered, is slain, its throat slit, its blood spread, its body burned.

but the believer who makes himself available as an offering becomes a different kind of offering.

He becomes an offering that goes on living, yes, but he goes on living differently than he lived before.

Listen, when he's calling you to be a living sacrifice, it's almost like it's an oxymoron.

Sacrifices don't live.

Sacrifices die.

But he's saying, no, I'm not calling on you to die.

I'm not calling on you to commit suicide.

I'm not calling on you to be killed in that way.

I'm calling you just like the lamb became God's.

I'm calling you to take your life and to make that life God's.

And that's actually what brings in the next adjective here.

Yes, we're supposed to present ourselves as a sacrifice that's living, but also a sacrifice that is holy.

You see, it's not just a life that's different.

It's a life that's devoted.

Like, how differently are we supposed to live?

It says here that the life that's presented to God is supposed to be holy.

What does that mean?

Have you ever looked up the word holy?

Have you ever examined it and explored that word?

I think a lot of times when we think of holy, we think free from unrighteousness, which is certainly one of the aspects of this word but the thing that really stood out to me as i was studying this as he says i want you to present your body as a sacrifice that's holy means that it's a sacrifice that's consecrated that's devoted that's set apart that's no longer fit for average everyday use

this sacrifice this this sacrifice of your body that's given to god no it no longer belongs to you and no longer belongs to anyone else but it belongs exclusively to god to be used for his purposes and his purposes alone again we think about something that's holy in the sense of devoted that's that's dedicated to a very specific use.

I'm sorry, again, this is a teen conference, so I can talk like this, okay?

I've got certain hoses that have to do with my trailer system that are devoted to some very specific uses.

How many of you have ever trailered before?

Let me see your hands, okay, just a few.

So some of you may be completely oblivious as to what I'm talking about.

There are certain things that happen when you live in a trailer, and I'm just going to tell you, we don't run inside the church building multiple times a day if you catch my drift okay i mean i guess i do but not for that purpose um some of you still are completely clueless you have no idea what i'm talking about um there are certain byproducts of living that just kind of happen that need to go somewhere are you following me now are you getting me

okay i'm trying to be cautious and careful and so appropriate i just always fail at that when i preach it's called the black tank okay And the content of that black tank is the kind of thing that most people never have to see again.

Because, you know, you just do a little action like this, and it goes away, and you don't see it again.

Are you following me now?

Okay, I've tried to be clear enough here without being too crass.

But you know, as a trailer person, this stuff has to go somewhere because it's a tank that holds it.

And my tank, I've got two of them.

Each one's about 48 gallons or so that it holds.

And for our family, that lasts about three weeks.

So at the end of the third week, what can happen is we just begin to realize that it's full.

I won't go into all the reasons how and why and all of that.

You can see my 2020 TGYS Friday night message for a very descriptive description of that, okay?

But there comes a point where we realize that stuff's got to go.

And I will tell you, I do not go outside, pull a valve, and hold it in my hand and walk it to where it needs to go, okay?

I do not do that.

I definitely don't just let it all go out on the church parking lot.

I don't do that.

I will say there was one team that did do that once that traveled with me accidentally in Fort Myers, Florida.

It's never smelled the same again.

But typically, we have certain hoses that are used specifically for this job.

That these hoses are dedicated hoses.

These are not hoses that you run drinking water through.

Although one time.

My team, we were at Marquette Manor Baptist Church.

And you know, in the back corner of the field is where they always have us dig the mud pit.Way back.

I don't know if it's southeast corner of the field.

It's a long walk out there.

And that's where when we do Cola Clashes for the church there, that's where they have us dig the mud pit.

And so it's easy to go out there with shovels and just kind of dig, you know, dig, you dig a hole, but then you got to fill it in with water and you got to fill it in and mix the dirt that you dug out to form mud again.

And so it just so happened this time, somebody came with a big old machine and they dug it out and the guys are like, oh, that hole is huge.

It's going to take us forever it back in.

And so, actually, I think one of them's here that was involved in that.

Anyway,

and they decided, hey, we're going to do this, we're going to start in the evening before mixing it and filling it.

So I, as the, you know, the leader, the fearless leader, I went to bed.

And the guy stayed up, and they got all of the hoses out of the bed of my truck, including the black ones.

And they strung all of these hoses together all the way out across that thing, and they filled up the mud pit using my holy hoses.

In fact, I heard later on the next day, because again, I was asleep.

I didn't have a chance to tell them, hey, listen, these are holy hoses.

You do not want to use these for other purposes.

Just trust me.

Don't ask me why.

Just trust me.

but I found out one of the two I think it's the one that's not here he drank out of it multiple times throughout the nightNever been the same ever since it's a holy hose holy in the sense that it's devoted to a very specific purpose I'm going I tell you, young people, when we present our lives to God, we are presenting ourselves for the specific purposes that God has for us and nothing else.

Amen.

You know, we no longer belong to ourselves or to anybody else, but we belong to God and God alone to be used for his purposes and his alone.

In other words, we not only present ourselves to God, but we become His man.

We become His slave.

We become His property.

We become His tool to use as He sees fit.

And the offering that goes on living does it for an entirely exclusive purpose.

God's purpose.

Can I say this, young people?

Beware of competing masters.

Beware of competing purposes.

Because I will tell you what, you begin to grow up and realize you've got skills.

You begin to grow up and realize you have the ability to make your way for yourself and do things the way you want them to be done.

And you begin to realize that there are people that appreciate you for other things and that you have valuable skills and assets.

And there are people that want you to live for their purposes.

And can I tell you what?

if you present yourself to God in total surrender, you're His now.

And nobody else's.

Listen, we can get so enamored by money that we no longer live for God's purposes.

We can get so enamored with grades that we are no longer living for God's purposes.

We can get so enamored with acceptance that we stop living for God's purposes.

Listen, your life isn't about being popular.

It's about living for God.

Your life isn't about being comfortable.

That's a different purpose than God wants you to present yourself to Him to fulfill.

Listen, it's a life that's devoted.

And he says here at the end of this section, we're supposed to present our bodies as a sacrifice to God in a way that's living, in a way that's holy, and in a way that is acceptable unto God.

I personally think that when he says that it's acceptable, he's not saying that in order to be a sacrifice, you have to be acceptable to God.

I think what he's saying is when we offer ourselves to God to be used exclusively for his purposes, that offering is one that is acceptable unto God.

Listen, God accepts that kind of offering just like he accepts the blood of the altar, Just like that blood that was sprinkled on the altar was well-pleasing to God.

In the same way, the offering of our entire selves to God without reserve is something that thrills the nostrils of God as He smells our lives being consumed for His purposes.

As we set ourselves aside from other purposes and dedicate our lives for God's exclusive use, not dividing our loyalties or serving multiple masters, God is satisfied with that.

He is happy with that.

His heart is thrilled.

He is contented.

He is pleased.

Do you want to know how to please God?

Present your body as an offering to Him to go on living exclusively for His purposes and His alone.

Can I say this?

The sacrifice that pleases God isn't a dead one, but it's one that lives for His purposes alone.

So why?

Why do this?

Why do this?

Why should we present ourselves as a sacrifice to God?

Well, yeah, sure, because of His mercy.

Definitely.

He paid the price for your sins so you can be given eternal life so you can be guaranteed a place in heaven for all of eternity.

Praise God, that's enough.

But that's not all because God rescued you from the taskmaster of sin.

So give your whole life to God.

Don't hold anything back.

But at the end of this verse, he puts it in a slightly different phrase.

He says this whole thing, this matter of presenting your body as a sacrifice that lives, that's holy, that's acceptable unto God.

that presentation says is your reasonable service um one commentator put it this way the only reasonable and by implication spiritual service is to present god with all that we are and all that we have another commentator put it this way reasonable has the idea of spiritual what has the sense of inner it's a worship that involves the mind and the heart as opposed to a worship that simply goes through the motions.

Listen friends, it is not a matter of outward forms, but it's a matter of inward reality.

One other commentator put it this way, he said, true worship does not consist of elaborate and impressive prayers,

intricate liturgy, stained glass windows, lighted candles, flowing robes, incense, and classical sacred music.

It does not require great talent, skill, or leadership ability.

Many of those things can be a part of the outward forms of genuine worship, but they are acceptable to God only if the heart and mind of the worshiper is focused on him.

The only spiritual service of worship that honors and pleases God is the sincere, loving, thoughtful, and heartfelt devotion and praise of his children.

I want you to get this.

When he says it's your reasonable service, the word service was, again, one of those words that had a very specific visual concept to the Jews that would have been reading this.

It wasn't just service in the sense of I'm serving God, I'm going to go soul winning or whatever.

It's not just the idea of being in a service like we're sitting in here.

It's not just the idea of doing stuff for God.

It was once again tied to the Old Testament sacrificial system.

It'd be the idea of how the priests served God by means of them presenting these lambs as an offering to God.

the Jewish person, they served and worshipped God by participating in this matter of the offering.

And what he's saying essentially is this.

You want to serve God and worship Him?

Give your body to God.

It's really the true aim of mercy.

It's what God actually wants.

One person talked about this word reasonable.

says in the sense of appropriate for human beings as rational and spiritual creatures of God it's a worship that honors God by giving him what he truly wants as opposed to the depraved worship offered by human beings under the power of sin and let me put it this way and so this complete and entire abandonment of oneself to God to live as he would have us live to be set apart for his purposes alone in such a way that our lives truly please him this

is appropriate service this is appropriate worship.

This is the distilled core of what it means to be rightly related to God.

Forget bulls and goats.

Forget lampstands and incense.

Forget blood and altars.

These can so quickly miss the true aim of God.

Forget ties and suits, okay?

I'd love to.

Forget hymn books and choirs.

Forget pulpits offering plates.

What God wants isn't your attendance or your participation.

He wants you.

He wants your entire heart, your entire allegiance, your entire surrender.

He wants your entire life.

I'm not knocking those things, but what I'm saying is this.

Anything less than total surrender is a sham.

To claim to be worshiping God while merely going through the motions is sham worship.

To claim that you're serving God while avoiding entire consecration to him is a farce and a lie.

To claim to be following God but not presenting everything to him is not only to miss the bullseye but to miss the target entirely.

Listen, to claim any allegiance that shares even the slightest bit of loyalty with God in your heart is to ignore his words.

You can't serve two masters.

God doesn't want to share your loyalty with anything or anyone.

And if you do share, in other words, if your life is committed to God, but also to this, or also to this, or also to them, or also to that, then you're missing true worship.

Divided worship and divided service are no worship and no service at all.

They're caricatures only bearing likeness to the real thing, but not capturing the actual essence of true surrender and worship.

Friends, total surrender is the only service of worship that makes sense.

Listen, don't settle for a near miss.

Surrender all with abandon to God.

Make Him your exclusive Lord.

His mercy has given all, and He requests that we give all to Him.That is what makes sense with His mercy this corresponds to god's true desires for his saintsto truly worship Him in spirit and in truth and can i say this friends don't be guilty of service without surrenderIt doesn't make sense.

Listen i'm talking to young people here in this room as you've come here this week you've come here because you believe that your life can make a difference in god's cause And the greatest thing that you can do here tonight and this week is to take your body, all of who you are, all of who you will become, and to set it at Jesus' feet and say it's yours.

Amen.

I'm all yours.

to be used for whatever you wish and whatever you wish alone.

Listen, it's when you have a heart like that that your worship pleases God.

It's when you have a heart like that that it makes sense.

And so here this evening, as we kick off this conference, this youth summit, I think it would make a lot of sense for us to begin where, unfortunately, many times these kinds of meetings end.

It is an ending, but it's also a beginning.

So what I want to do here in just a moment is I want to beseech you.

I want to make a request of you here tonight.

I'm going to request that you young people that are here before we dot another I, okay, I want to request that you come forward in a minute to this altar tonight and just tell the Lord you know what Lord I'm done living for other purposes I'm done living for other masters you are my master you have my body you have my heart you have my life you know what I think you'll find if you do that over the next couple days God's going to keep

working.

He's going to do something deep.

He's going to do something big in your heart and in your life.

When you put it all on the table and when you put it all on the altar, he can do wonderful things when it's his and his alone.

Can I have everybody stand here at this

time?

Can I have everybody stand here tonight?

Here's what we're going to do in just a moment, not quite yet, but in just a moment.

The piano is going to play and what it does, when it does, I'm going to request here tonight that you come forward here this evening.

Kneel not before me, not before some stage, but kneel before the courts of heaven.

And say, God, I'm yours.

I'm all yours.

Do with me as you please.

This isn't just for the teenagers either, by the way.

This is for all of us.

So if you're here tonight and you'd say, I want to present my body as a sacrifice to God to live differently, to live for his purposes.

As the piano plays, you come and do business with God.