This Thing Called Commitment

This Thing Called Commitment!

Romans 12:1

Pat and I meeting.

So in January of 1976 we got married.

We said our “I do’s” and went off into wedded bliss.

We had just committed our lives to each other.

Most of you remember those feelings don’t you?

Those days of dating someone new and exciting.

It was so fun and you were totally into that person.

You went to sleep thinking about them, you dreamt about them,

you woke up thinking about them, and you thought about them all day long.

Before you knew it, you were married and that was an adventure in and of itself right?

Now I need you to help me answer some questions.

Let’s say that after Pat and I had been married for 9 months for instance,

let’s say I started to get a little bored with it all.

So our relationship cooled and I started taking some time off.

I told Pat I needed some space and that I needed some “Rod” time.

But I told her that I would give her all of me on Tuesday mornings,

between the hours of 9 & 11 am.

In that time there was no one else, I was all hers.

The rest of the week though, I was spending time with other women.

I was flirting around with them and having a good time with other women.

How many of you would call that commitment?

How many of you would call that faithfulness?

Ephesians 5:22-27 actually compares the marriage relationship, to the relationship between us and Christ.

Ephesians 5:22-27 (NIV) Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

Now this passage tells husbands and wives, how to live with each other, and how to deal with each other.

But looking a little bit more closely, what else does it say?

What can it teach us as Christians, about Christ?

It teaches us, that there are certain things that are important to Christ.

One of those things is the church.

And to make a long story short, we are the church.

Not the building, this building will never win someone to Christ.

We as individuals, are a part of a bigger team.

We are a part of something bigger.

Individually we make up the church.

This means that there is supposed to be a certain relationship between us and Christ.

That relationship is compared to a marriage relationship.

The Bible says, that we are the Bride and Christ is the Bridegroom.

We walked down that aisle, we saw Christ standing there.

He had a tear in His eye, because we were so beautiful to Him.

We were committing our lives to Him, when we became Christians,

and that made Christ so happy, He cried tears of joy.

We looked Christ in the eye and said, “I do”.

The first few months were great, remember?

Then things started to cool off.

It wasn’t quite as exciting as it was in the beginning.

We started to say things like, “Well you know Jesus, I need some ‘me’ time.”

You see, on the side, we have all these other interests, other things in our life,

that are taking the place, that Christ should hold in our life.

You told God, “Look, you can have me on Sunday mornings between the hours of 9 & 11 AM, and for some of you that’s a stretch. God you can have me on Sunday mornings, but the rest of the week is mine.”

And you leave Christ at home or here in the church building,

and you go off into the world, to do whatever you feel like doing.

How many of you would call that a commitment to Christ?

How many of you would call that being faithful to Christ?

That’s not faithfulness and it definitely isn’t commitment?

But guess what?

That happens every day, every week, every month, every year across America.

Christians are comfy with Christ, but their feelings have cooled.

So now what, they become Christian “couch potatoes” and they just watch the world go by, without lifting a finger toward being anything like what a Christian should be.

The passage that I really want to look at today, is in the book of Romans.

Romans 12:1-2 (NIV) Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Let me tell you right off the bat, any commitment takes sacrifice.

1. Sacrifice?

Who said anything about that?

If you are going to commit to something, and get good at whatever that is, it takes sacrifice.

No one walks to the top of the NFL without sacrifice.

No one becomes a classical pianist in the Boston Symphony without sacrifice.

No one grows in their profession without sacrifice.

And the immediate thing that I notice,

is that Paul says our worship requires sacrificial commitment.

By sacrificing ourselves to God, we are worshiping Him, and that takes commitment.

If you aren’t committed to Him, you will stop sacrificing yourself,

the relationship will cool, and you will just get cozy in your pew.

“Sacrifice myself Rod? Are you sure? I don’t really like that idea?”

Of course you don’t, because sacrifice requires something.

In fact, it is going to be difficult to do.

We don’t like the word difficult in our society.

Tell me the last time you saw a commercial on TV, where the spokesperson said,

“This is going to take some commitment on your part. This is really difficult. You’re going to have to sacrifice family time, golf time, work time and whatever other extra time you have to make this work.”

I’ll tell you the last time you heard that on a commercial, NEVER!

Why?

Because everyone wants everything to be easy, simple.

Just like the “Easy” button on the Office Depot commercial.

And what about cleaning products?

Not one of them says, this will take a little elbow grease.

No, just spray on and wipe off.

It’s so easy and you’re killing 99.99% of germs to top it off.

How easy could it be?

Anything to make life easier right?

Pretty soon, La-Z-Boy is going to come out with a remote controller recliner,

that will drive you around anywhere you want to go.

I can see it now.

So you can sit in that chair all day,

hit the easy button for whatever you need,

then take a pill that burns off all the extra calories you ate that day.

No one wants things to be difficult.

We want life to be easy, and we are constantly looking for ways to make life easier, aren’t we?

But let me tell you something,

if you are not committed to a regular exercise program, you are not going to have a buff bod!

If you are not committed to watching your diet, you won’t be slim and trim!

And if you aren’t committed to Christ, you will not be an acceptable sacrifice before God!

But what else does He say, besides sacrifice in that verse?

He tells us what kind of sacrifice we are to be.

He says, “Be a living, holy, acceptable sacrifice?”

So what does that mean?

2. What does all that mean?

A. Let’s start with acceptable to God.

The sacrifice that is acceptable to God, is one that God has designated.

For instance, if in the Old Testament God said I want a bull, and you brought him vegetables,

that is not an acceptable sacrifice to God.

That is not what He wanted.

Since Calvary, the Christian’s presentation of his “body” is the kind of sacrifice that has God’s approval.

This means, that we are offering all that we are,

all that we have, and we’re giving it all to God.

We aren’t keeping anything to ourselves on the side, we’re offering it to Him.

B. Then there is this holy sacrifice.

Holy in this passage doesn’t carry the same idea as it usually does in the NT.

Normally it means “set apart” or “devoted to God”, but here it carries a different connotation.

It means that the sacrifice, you and I, must be free from immoralities, lusts, sinful appetites.

We are to be unblemished sacrifices.

In the Old Testament it wasn’t any different.

The sacrifices had to be spotless, without blemish or the sacrifice was no good.

In the same way today, our sinful lusts, and the sinfulness that we live in,

must be mastered by self-control.

Otherwise our sacrifice is blemished.

This is like the husband, who comes home with lipstick on his collar, and smelling like another woman’s perfume, but still tries to make himself available to his wife.

You all know the kind of look he would get.

He would get that stare, that goes right through your forehead wouldn’t he?

He wouldn’t stand a chance.

Trying to make nice with the wife, when he smells like another woman.

That man is going to get torn to pieces.

Saturday night comes and you’re out doing things you know you shouldn’t be doing.

Your attention is not on getting ready for church tomorrow,

but on yourself and what you want to be doing.

After you’ve done whatever sinful thing it is you’re doing,

you come to church the next morning and you sing,

“Here I am to worship” or “Shout to the Lord” or a hymn, “My Jesus, My Savior”.

And we offer God our blemished sacrifice.

We offer God our tattered, torn up selves.

But unlike the wife, God is much more forgiving.

God is glad you are here,

but He knows there is something wrong. and there is something missing.

He wants to help you, and He wants you to grow up.

However, we have just offered God our “unholy” sacrifice.

c. What about that word “living”?

In the Old Testament, the sacrifices that were offered had been slain, so they were all dead.

But God wants us to be “living” sacrifices.

I’m glad God doesn’t expect me to kill myself to be an acceptable sacrifice.

Jesus has already done that for me.

Now I get to be a living, breathing sacrifice for Him.

But what is the problem with a living sacrifice?

The problem is that a living sacrifice can crawl off the altar.

And we do that, don’t we?

Sunday comes around and we grudgingly say,

“Oh, we have to go to church today? I guess I better get back up on the altar.”

And we slowly, painfully and with a bad heart, climb back onto the altar.

Then when church is over we shout,

“Finally, the preacher is done talking. I can go do what I want to do, I can do something fun now, I can go enjoy myself now, I can go and chill out now, I can go and watch something exciting now, I can go and do my sports now, or go and see by other girlfriend now, etc.”

And we climb off the altar, never to make it back to that altar, until the next Sunday.

Some never even make it all the way up onto the altar.

Some forget to come to the altar,

and some just skip the altar on purpose,

because there are just too many other things going on.

And all of a sudden, sacrificing ourselves, even for 1 or 2 hours on a Sunday morning,

becomes a terribly difficult chore.

Is that commitment to Christ?

Is that faithfulness?

Some of you are looking at me now saying…

3. Why should I listen to you?

Paul says that there is a reason to listen to him.

There is a reason to offer yourself as living, holy and acceptable sacrifice.

You’re saying, “Yeah. And it better be a good reason too. I don’t want to sacrifice for nothing.”

Paul says in Romans 12:1, “Therefore, I urge you brothers...”

By the what?

In view of God’s Mercy!

I love the way the New Living Translation puts this verse.

It says, “And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice, the kind He will accept. When you think of what He has done for you, is this too much to ask?”

What has God done for me?

What mercies are we talking about?

We are simply talking about the mercies of God’s love for us, and His plan to save us.

You see, God knew that we wouldn’t always be committed to Him,

so He prepared a way for us to get back to Him.

He planned to have His Son murdered on the cross,

and through that perfect sacrifice, we would have the chance to get back to God.

All we have to do, is realize that we need that sacrifice, and choose to accept it.

The Bible tells us that this gift of salvation is “a free gift”.

You have done nothing to earn it or to deserve it.

And you can never be good enough, to get in to heaven without it.

So now the question is, “How do I receive this free gift?”

After all, a gift is something we must accept and receive.

You can’t just say, “Thanks for the gift”, and never open it,

because then you would never receive the gift.

So how do you receive God’s gift of grace?

It is through a process we call, the Plan of Salvation.

The Bible tells us what to do.

A. First it says you must believe that Jesus is God’s Son,

that He died for you and that He rose again.

You must truly believe that.

Belief is the foundation that starts the plan of salvation.

B. When you believe that statement, then you must repent of your sins.

That means, turning from the sinful lifestyle you are living, and start living for God.

C. Then the Bible says you must confess.

You must confess in front of people, that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the Living God.

It’s a public confession.

D. Then the Bible says that you must be baptized.

Baptism is more than just a symbol,

it’s the point at which you receive forgiveness of sins,

and the gift of the Holy Spirit, Acts 2:38.

God’s grace ultimately saves us.

But in order to accept and receive that gift, we must believe, repent, confess and be baptized.

It is God’s mercy that makes our salvation possible.

It is through God’s mercy that we can become an acceptable sacrifice.

Now I want you to look at 1 John 4:9, 10.

1 John 4:9-10 (NIV) This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

God loves us so much, we will never be able to comprehend it on earth.

You know why the church has a problem with commitment today?

Because we don’t realize how much God has done for us.

We take Jesus’ death for granted.

We have heard the story so many times, that it just rolls off of us like grease off a Teflon pan.

It’s old news, and our commitment has become old and faded as well.

I want to share this final story with you this morning!

A number of years ago, Norman Cousins wrote an editorial in Saturday Review, in which he reported a conversation he had on a trip in India.

He was talking with a Hindu priest named Satis Prasad.

The man said he wanted to come to our country to work as a missionary among the Americans.

Cousins assumed that he meant, that he wanted to convert Americans to the Hindu religion.

But that was not the case at all.

Satis Prasad said, "Oh no, I would like to convert them to the Christian religion. Christianity cannot survive in the abstract. It needs not membership, but believers. The people of your country may claim they believe in Christianity, but from what I read at this distance Christianity is more a custom than anything else. I would ask that either you accept the teachings of Jesus in your everyday life and in your affairs as a nation, or stop invoking His name as sanction for everything you do. I want to help save Christianity for the Christian." B. Clayton Bell, in Preaching, May-June, 1986.

I hope that shocks us, and makes us feel ashamed, at what we have made Christianity in our country.

Where does your true commitment lie?

What or who are you committed to today?

I would challenge you to make, and or renew, your commitment to Christ and His Church today.