Romans 1:8–12Scripture
Everybody turn your Bibles to Romans chapter 1.
And we're going to look, last week we explored verses 1 through 7, and today we're going to look at 8 through 12.
All right, it says this: "First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God's will I may now at last succeed in coming to you.
For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you, that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith." I just want to pause there. I'm not talking about that part, I'm actually not even going to visit that part, we could preach a whole sermon on just that part, but notice here he is excited about, he is encouraged that we, everybody say "we,"
Point 1We need each other's faith in true community
May be mutually encouraged by each other's faith. We live in a very individualistic society.
I think a lot of things have led to us being very individualistic. I was in a class recently and having a personal conversation with my professor, and he encouraged me to go back and look at the Enlightenment era and how much the Enlightenment era really did play a part in our individualistic mindset, specifically in regards to the way we do church. See, I've always thought it was mainly just about, you know, social media, and we just engage people and we have this like superficial connection, it's not truly a connection, and because we have it we think we have a connection via online, and we're looking at people's lives, we think we're connected, we never really get connected. And at the end of the day we've found that it's easier to engage people online than in person because we have less conflict with them.
They don't talk back. We can like what we like and don't like what we don't like. We can say things and very little, people talk back when they're an avatar, and so we've learned to appreciate that, and I thought that's what it was, but he said you should go all the way back to the Enlightenment era and you should look at how individualistic mindset has infiltrated the evangelical church. And I think that we need to remind ourselves, even from the words of Paul, that there is mutual encouragement that happens when we come together. This matters. And I would compel you today that although this matters, this even is superficial. You are not looking at each other today. If you were to look at each other, it would simply be at the back of the head of the person in front of you, and then once this closes, once you hear the word proclaimed and it closes, very little conversation happens. That's true. Conversation, most of it's surface level.
It's kind of like this: how are you doing this week? Well, great, how are you doing? Good. Lies. We don't really share life with each other. I'm not saying you have to have trouble and share trouble to be real, I'm saying that a lot more happens than "everything was great."
So we move then our superficial conversation into true community when we go into people's homes and we share the gospel, we share what we're learning, we talk about God's word. And this is what Paul is talking about, not simply that he'll come and he'll preach a sermon and then it edifies them and he leaves, that they would edify each other.
That matters. People that are a part of the generation beyond mine, I need your encouragement, I need your challenging, I need your faith. People that are younger than me, I need your challenging, I need your encouragement, I need your faith.
It's not a unilateral expression where my faith blesses someone else that has less faith. It is mutual. It is we, it is united, it is together, we encourage one another. Don't miss that. I hear a lot today, and I've said it the last couple weeks, but we just, you know, we are the church, right? We notice, we are the church. It requires us all.
Let me just say this: if you've checked out from true community, check in, because we need your faith.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 6:00
We need it.
We need that in the fellowship. I want to finish now, I didn't really plan on talking about that, probably got off on a tangent and then wasted a lot of my time anyway, so it says "that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine." Both yours and mine. Both yours and mine.
Could it be that God wants to use your faith to encourage someone else, and could it be that you've cut yourself off from so many people that God cannot do with you what he intends to do? Oh, that we would become a living sacrifice and that our lives would be able to be used by God.
Right now I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this very simply today, I just want to really hammer down on a few things.
I believe that this, what I believe we should gain from this, and then probably next week is the continuation of it, is that when we look at this story, we see Paul's life now beginning in verse 8 all the way probably through 15 and the beginning of 16, what we're beginning to see here this week and next week is that Paul's life truly is marked by service. Right now some of us in the church today, we think of, well, I make coffee today and that is service. I'm not disputing that, it is a service that is necessary. Can I get an amen for everybody who needs coffee? It's needed. We thank you, we bless you for serving us this morning, we are grateful for that. But more importantly than just our life being marked by service, there is a specific way that we are called to serve, that regardless of what we do, our life is not just marked by service but it is marked by a specific kind of service. So I believe as we look in here that we can gather from Paul not just that his life was marked by service, but his life was marked by a specific type of service that hopefully our life then will be marked by as well.
Point 2Many wrong reasons we serve the Lord
It's important. People serve the Lord today for many different reasons. I'm gonna name a few of them. There are some people who serve the Lord because of legalism. How many of you grew up at a very legalistic church? Okay, I did. That's two people. Oh wow, awesome. Well, just don't listen to me for about five minutes and then i'll get to you in a minute. There are some people that serve the Lord because of legalism. They're afraid not to. I was afraid growing up that if I didn't serve the Lord a specific way that I would go to hell. My life wasn't marked by service. The service kept me.
Grace saved me and service kept me.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 9:07
They served the Lord because they think that's what he requires, and if you're to get into the kingdom you best serve, and you best do it with a smile on your face and a pep in your step. There are actually some cults that even teach if you don't go to the mission field for a couple years you'll never make it to heaven. There are people within the framework of Christianity who serve the Lord strictly because they feel bound to do that or else God may pop their balloon and make their life miserable and cause them to suffer.
Then there's another type of person. There are some people who serve because of prestige. You either know them or you are them. I would say I have been that in seasons in my life, quite innocently actually. It starts out to serve the Lord and it ends up being about me. Have you ever been there?
Most of us at our job don't serve to be a help, we serve for prestige's sake. Many of us are trying to make a name for ourselves. Can I get an amen up in here?
I want my life to be marked by something for me. Many of us say, well, I'm going to make the Lord's name great, but in the process of venturing out to do that we end up trying to make our name great. Their life is marked with service, but their life is marked with a type of service that is all about their name and not about his name. So, right, even here, right, even here on just kind of the second type of service, we see that it's not good enough to just have your life marked by service, but it has to be the right kind of service.
See, in the church, pastors have preached sermons to try to get people to serve, but we failed to teach them how to do it properly, with the right heart, with the right mindset, with the right focus. Paul is teaching us how to serve properly. There are many of us who want to be highly esteemed. We serve to be esteemed.
There are some who want to use their service and position to lord it over men. They want to seek a chief seat, the head seat, not the lowest seat.
They play the role of a man in the Bible, Diotrephes, who was a self-seeking troublemaker, and in 3 John, first, second, third John, we don't know much about him, we just know he's a troublemaker and he only cared about himself and he wanted every, he wanted to lord his position over everybody. He loved to have preeminence. Then there are some people who serve the Lord because they want to be thought righteous. If I do all of these things, if I serve all of these ways, then God will forget how much the goofball I am, he'll forget about all my wrongs. So I'm serving that God might see me as righteous.
Ladies and gentlemen, God will never see you as righteous unless you're hidden in Christ, period.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 12:45
It don't matter how much you serve, it doesn't matter how you serve, your service will never position you properly in God's kingdom. Only your life hidden in Christ will. That's it. There are
Pastor Shawn Gray · 12:54
some who want to be thought of as holy or godly or religious, so they serve and they serve too much in the church and they say yes to too much in the church. Are you with me? There are some people who serve the Lord because of peer pressure. Well, the pastor asked me, how can I tell him no? It's simple. It goes like this: no.
And I never ask somebody to do something with an expectation that they'll do it. I simply ask because I won't know if it's yes or no unless I ask.
I never expect people to say yes. Sometimes I don't ask around here because I'm just afraid that you'll be scared to say no, because
I would never want you to say yes to serving, to do something, and no to your family, because every yes you give, you have to give something else a no.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 13:49
This is good, it's good, just listen to me.
And some people would rather say yes to the things of the church and no to their first responsibility, which is their home. Okay, we see this in workaholics.
They'll say yes and they feel like they're providing for their family, but your family needs you more than your money. So we have got to learn how to say the right yeses and the right nos. You know how you do it? You know how to say the right yes and the right no? You know how to do it? You don't make it about you. You don't make it about you. You understand that there's only so much time in the day to give. Listen, different phases allow you to say yes in one season when in another season you would have to say no. My kids are 19 and 21, so the yeses that I can give in life now are very different, because they don't need me as much. They need me, but not in the same way as they did when they were five. We have to be careful about our yeses. Peer pressure, just because someone asks is not a good reason. Everyone else is doing it and they've got on the bandwagon so I guess I better do it too. Wrong. Listen, and they won't understand, they're going to wonder why you don't say yes. Who cares? Who cares? All right, people are not going to understand you, and if you're a Christian, if understanding, people understanding you, is the thrust of your life choices, you're in trouble, because very few people understand you as you follow Christ. There are some people who serve the Lord because they have been forced to do it by someone else, maybe their parents. Listen to me today, this is important.
We want to encourage our kids, we don't necessarily want to force our kids, but none of those is spiritual service, because all of that, listen, is external and it's not internal.
It's external activity but not internal passions. It's pro, this is religion. Like religion is not bad, it's belief in God. Some people say, I'm in a relationship, not religion, we're in relationship, not religion. It's both, people. We have a relationship because we believe in him. Religion is belief, proper belief in God.
This is just the dumbest thing ever. I know what people mean by it, but it's silly. You can serve the Lord for many reasons. You can serve out of your ego, out of fear, out of legalism, out of intimidation, but none of those is true spiritual service, because it's all external, it's all functionary, it's all going through the motions, it's all cranking out production, I might add. There are some people who serve the Lord, believe it or not, out of their love for money. Oh, let's talk about it.
Let's talk about it today. There are pastors who serve not because they're called, not because they're led of God to do it, but because it pays.
They sell hankies because it pays to sell hankies that are prayed over. I'm not saying all of it's bad, I'm saying some of it is. It pays, and believe it or not, Jesus nowadays is actually a commodity that sells well if you pitch it right.
Remember "What Would Jesus Do" bracelets that sold so well? "Jesus is my homeboy" sweatshirt, I sold well.
I just don't think Jesus is a commodity to be sold. I believe he is a life we should trust in.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 18:36
And so we have to think about what motivates our service. All of these show an external kind of service. We could call it serving in the flesh or for external reasons. We see here in the text this morning that I just read something very different than what I just read. We see this, and you can write this down, what I would refer to as true spiritual service. Now my comparison, before moving into the list that I'm going to give in just a moment of what I see in Paul, is there's two types of service: there's true spiritual service and there's true carnal service. Sometimes we offer up to God true carnal service, or true fleshly service, and we want to say that it's spiritual and it's not. All right, and so today by the end of this I hope that you will be able to see what true spiritual service is and what true spiritual service is marked by. Boy, this is so like this, like, I don't know, like this will be easy to take notes to today, but just track with me, I'm just
Point 3True service is marked by thanksgiving
Trying to make this as simple as possible. The first thing that we see in Paul's spiritual service is that his true spiritual service is marked by thanksgiving, or you could say thankfulness, right? If we go back to Romans 1:8, he says "first." Everybody say "first."
"I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you." That's first. Now here's what I asked, and here's what I teach the students to ask in our most recent retreat, is to ask some questions. Here was my question, it is profound, it is long, it is well thought out: why?
Why is he thanking God through Jesus Christ for all of them? Why? I think that is key, because sometimes it's not just good enough to thank God unless you know why.
Some of us are offering up thanksgiving but we do not know why we are thanking him. We merely are doing it as an external service, and it's religiosity at its best, ladies and gentlemen.
It's pharisaical, and just because the Bible says it and you repeat it doesn't mean now it is spiritual service.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 21:15
There are a lot of people that go through religious motions because the Bible says, with no understanding of why they're doing what they're doing. So we must first, if our life is going to be marked by spiritual service, we must know why he is thanking God. Now listen, Paul wrote most of the New Testament. Paul planted many churches. Paul was the man, all right? Paul was, this is the guy who was going after him, persecuting and killing Christians, and with a group of other men, and they thought they were doing the right thing for God. Listen, his life before was marked by service to God, but it wasn't the way God wanted his life to be marked with service. Are you with me today? He thought what he was doing was for God.
Look how it changes, though, and we see now he is thanking God. But why now? If Paul had been used by God, he was knocked off his mule, got Jesus, he had a vision of Jesus spoke to him, Jesus told him what he was going to do, Jesus said he was going to be an apostle, Jesus said he was going to plant many works, Jesus told him he was going to use him as a mouthpiece to build the church and he was going to do all this, so Paul, in the process of God using him, could have gotten a big head, but here we see that he doesn't, because Rome, the church in Rome, he writes this letter to the people in Rome, the church in Rome, by which, and for a group of people that he didn't establish.
He didn't plant this work. As a matter of fact, he's in Corinth, he has a lot of heat on him, and Corinth is kind of, he loves them but they got problems.
This was the church, so he's at the church which he established, he's trying to not get caught and thrown in prison, he is writing this letter, and he tried not to die, actually, and so he's thinking about Corinth, he's thinking about the issues there, he thinks about what he's trying to help them with, and he considers Rome, and he thinks about how wonderful, how steeped, how the whole world knows about Rome, they're steeped and doctrined, they're established, and he doesn't even know who in the world established these people, and then he considers God. So right at the beginning, but first, right, firstly, right at the beginning he goes, thank you, God, because even if I'm dead, if they catch me, put me in chains and kill me, you will build your church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
How encouraging it is to serve and know that it all does not depend on you, that God can build his church without you.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 24:24
Now he chooses to use us, but he does not depend on us. Now I know some of you are like, well, speak for yourself, Shawn, he depends on me.
Well, you would never say that out loud in a small group, but some of you think that God depends on you, and let me tell you, as far as it depends on you, God help us all, but as far as it depends on God, praise his holy name. We have much to be thankful for, because when we can't be somewhere, God does it better. So he starts, his spiritual service is marked with thanksgiving to a God who is building his church when he can't be there. Oh man, how wonderful is that?
So beautiful. Paul's service is marked by being thankful to God for what he does when we can't be there.
It is essential, I put here, that our service is marked by thankfulness for God's sovereign, all-sufficient, providential nature, which is consistently at work bringing about his will in spite of us. Oh man, why is it, why is it essential that we understand that God can do what he wants in spite of us? Why is that essential for us to understand that? Because hope springs out of us knowing that, because if God can do what he wants in spite of me, he can do what he wants in spite of my enemies. That's important.
God is in the business of doing whatever he pleases, and there is nothing that can stop him from doing his will.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 26:26
This understanding should bring about in our hearts and from our lips such boisterous thanksgiving that we do not have time to complain about our woes. But right perspective affects our thankful hearts, stops and reflects on the work God is doing in Rome without us. God chooses to use us but he does not need us.
Matthew 16:13–18 says this, and I'll read it really briefly, you are familiar with this, but I want to give you, I want to give you a word study here that I think will help you and help me and help us. Matthew 16, Jesus is speaking to the disciples, he has asked them who do men say that I am, Peter of course speaks up, and we hear the results in verse 13. "Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, 'who do people say that the Son of Man is?' And they said, 'Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.' He said to them, 'But who do you say that I am?' Simon Peter replied, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.'" And Jesus appeared to him, Jesus answered him, not appeared, because he was already there. Jesus answered him, "'Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.'" Listen, you want a test, you want a test of what type of service you render to the Lord?
Consider how you interpret this text. Do you interpret this text as if God is going to build his church on Peter, or God is going to build his church on what Peter confesses? Now many of us, me included, me included, me included, have interpreted this text and preached around this text something to the magnitude of, God can build his church on what he pleases, even on people like us.
Let me tell you what you are. If I were to talk about the necessary, the need for foundation and building on proper foundation, if you're the foundation, let me tell you what kind of foundation you are: shifting sand. So I think it is important contextually, and also first, to have an understanding, right understanding, that everything that happens by God, for God, through God, and unto his will. Now so let's do a Greek study, though, because I mean we can talk about that and you're like, Shawn, that's cute, you just kind of made it about his confession rather than him, and that works for your sermon today, but how can you back that up? In koine Greek, the original language of the gospel, Jesus refers to Peter here, he calls him Petros, P-E-T-R-O-S, which means little pebble. I love that, right? You're just a little rock. You're just a little rock. Now some of you be like, well, we only need a mustard seed of faith for God to move a mountain, so he has just a little pebble, we only need a little bit of Peter for God to do. No, that's not what it means.
Stick with me. But when Jesus refers to the rock upon which his church will be built, he changes the word he's using here. He's no longer using Petros, but instead he uses the word petra, P-E-T-R-A, which is a feminine gender word. I don't want to talk about why that's important, don't talk about that right now, and it can't be used to refer to Peter but rather his confession. So then who or what was Jesus referring to when he said he would build his church upon petra? Matthew 16:15–17 gives us our answer. It is the testimony that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Messiah, the Christ, that Christ will build his church on, never the authority of a single man. Let me tell you, let me tell you something that's very important: if you think your service unto the Lord is what God's going to build his church on, you're sadly mistaken. Now listen, for me this is important on a different, maybe level than you, not a higher level but just a different level, but there are some of us in the church as a pastor, listen, he's not going to build his church on me, people. He's going to build his church on what I profess and confess and who I confess as Lord. It is that he builds his church with. The same goes for us in our service of the Lord. Listen, it should take some of the heat off you a little bit, and we could have some pastors that would probably make better choices if they realized that the church isn't built on their decisions, right? That's good. Here's some things that I believe that prevent us from being thankful. I'm going to go through them fast because I'm running out of time.
Lack of self-awareness. Listen, the Bible speaks extensively, from the very beginning of the Bible all the way to its conclusion, that mankind is depraved, that mankind desires everything but God, that we're sinners and that we like to sin. It's fun, and you can dress up in a suit and you can buff and shine your shoes and you can look all spiffy, but inside you're a filthy rotten scoundrel, and if left to your own devices you would continue to be a filthy rotten scoundrel. First John actually says the only thing that has you covered and makes you righteous is that you believe in Christ and you are hidden in him. Listen, you may not like this is my opinion, do what you want, you can disagree about this point, you can disagree with it, but even John reminds us that we will continue to sin. We won't practice sin and be habitually sinful, but we will continue to sin. Why?
Because we have not been fully transformed, we're still a sinner, we are only righteous because we are hidden in him, and if we will continue to sin, that means we still are broke on some level. That's why the Holy Spirit is put in us and we are in Christ and we are hidden in Christ. You know why we're hidden? Because God would still come kill you if you were not hidden in Christ. And that's why we eagerly await the day where he finishes his work in us. That's the beauty. It says the Holy Spirit is a guarantee, it is a deposit, it's not the whole payment, right? And that deposit guarantees us something, one day where that payment will be paid in full, and that's heaven, ladies and gentlemen.
And so we need to understand that even as a believer, even now that we're saved, even though we confess him, we still need to be hidden in him because we got issues. That's important. Now that shapes then, it begins to shape our service, and our service then, because we have this right mindset about who we are, our service then is marked with thanksgiving rather than self-righteousness. You get this wrong, you get how you view yourself wrong, your service will be fleshly, it will be pharisaical, it will be religious, it will be functional, it will be outward but never transformative.
We think ourselves better than we ought. We feel everything rises and falls due to our life and work. We don't value others' contribution because only ours is good. We begin to look at other people and measure ourselves by other people.
You are just as depraved as your neighbor,
Pastor Shawn Gray · 36:03
and "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," and all sin is worthy, even the smallest, of eternal damnation.
So I know you think you're better than your neighbor, but ladies and gentlemen, even the smallest of sins gets you eternal damnation, where God unrolls his wrath forever and ever and ever. Are you with me? So we need to get a right perspective of ourselves that we might then have a right perspective of Christ, because it is in having a right perspective of Christ that we can be thankful and our service then be marked as spiritual service, not fleshly service.
Unthankful people are people whose service is marked by religiosity.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 37:06
Paul had actually been raised in Judaism. He knew the Pharisees, he knew the sadducees, he knew the scribes, he knew the chief priests and the elders, and he knew the externalism. He knew that the service was so much mechanics, so much activity, so much formality, so much routine, so much liturgy, and they served and did this in the flesh. They served in the physical, in the external, in the superficial. And he grew up in a Gentile world and he knew how the priests of the pagan gods served.
They served externally out of fear that if they didn't do it the god would step on them and crush them or bring calamity on their city or their town or their country or the nation. All of it was so shallow and it was so superficial and it was survival mentality.
Nothing was done with a true heart of love and compassion for the god in which they served. They simply served because if they didn't they would be crushed, and that is no way to serve. And Paul specifically had seen so much of this, he had seen so much phony functioning in the name of religion, and he sums up his whole approach in this statement: "God, whom I serve with my spirit." In the verse we just read today, it is a
Point 4True service is marked by our whole spirit
Spiritual service. So then what can we learn? We need, first and foremost, our service to be marked by thanksgiving.
Second, we need our service to be marked by our spirit. Notice here I said "our spirit." It does not say the Holy Spirit. Paul is a theologian, he's doctrinally strong, and by the way he's trying to lay down doctrine for the Roman church, for the church in Rome, and he says "my spirit."
The best way, and I'm trying to summarize what this means, the best way for me to see, for you to see this beautiful phrase, is an affirmation, as an affirmation that his whole being, his whole heart, his whole mind, his whole soul, his whole spirit was in service that he rendered. He wasn't half in. He wasn't a tiptoe believer.
I don't know, I just made that up just now, I like that. He wasn't a dip-my-toe-in-to-see-if-it-was-cold-or-hot. He was a plunger. He plunged into activity, he plunged into obedience, he plunged. He wasn't insincere, he was genuine. He's just saying it's an all-out effort for me. That's my interpretation. How do you get there when he said "my spirit," and you get there that it's an all-heart thing, it's a hundred percent in? How do you get there? We actually, in the world today, we use the word "spirit" sometimes in the same way that they did then.
We may watch an athletic team participate, or an athletic participant in some sport, let's say basketball, and we see one player who just seems to give more than everybody else, and we see other people who are lethargic and indifferent and just going through the motions, they just don't give it all, they just, they kind of, they could have, they had more to give but they're holding back. They just hold back. They have so much more to give. That's just so annoying when you watch sports.
Hey man, that's why I love watching college basketball, because they give out at a different level than the NBA. More skill in the NBA, more heart in college.
It's more spirited in the college. It's more about money in the NBA. And this same dichotomy exists even in the church.
Sometimes you see somebody just go all out, just put out everything, and we tend to say that is a spirited play. As a matter of fact, in high school they gave a spirit award to the person who gave it all, and most often the person who did this didn't have the best talent, but they had the biggest heart. Yeah, come on, listen to me.
God ain't gonna build his church on your talent. He's going to build his church on people whose whole heart and whole soul and whole mind have been given over to him. He don't need talent, he needs your heart.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 41:54
Paul is saying, may my service be marked with thanksgiving, may my service be marked from a whole heart, spirit.
Point 5True service is marked by worship
Another thing, Paul's service was marked by proper worship. In fact, the word "serve," to serve, and I'm going to go through this quick, comes from the Greek word latreo. It is used in the New Testament only for religious service, always for service to God, except two times in the entire New testament it's used for service to idols, those two times, but every other time service to God, but it's always used for service to God, divine service, and frequently the word is translated literally "worship." Latreo, worship, service marked by worship. It always has fascinated me that this word exists in the New Testament and can be translated either as "to serve" or "to worship."
It's interchangeable. Now today, oftentimes, not always but oftentimes, we think of worship, we think of stained glass windows and pipe organs or instruments or guitars, we think of melodies in the heart, we think of melodies in our voice. You'll notice we have no pipe organ, no stained glass windows, no singing, no music, we don't. Paul, I believe, doesn't want us to be confused, so he uses this word. It is not an external worship but it is an internal one. It's not one we give outward with music, we offer outward with instruments played outward, with something we see outward, but he turns it in to himself. The Bible says the same word that means worship also means service.
The greatest worship you'll ever render to God is to serve him and him alone,
Pastor Shawn Gray · 44:24
and Paul says, "I serve him with my spirit." I serve him with my spirit. It is not an external display. He serves him from inside with his whole heart.
We've got to be careful about labeling demonstrative displays as godly. Can they be godly? Absolutely, because David danced naked before the Lord.
You will never see me do that in this house or my house. I'm not saying all demonstrative display is bad, I'm saying that all internal worship is true. We begin to question it, though, however, when what is internal comes outward, because sometimes it can begin true on the inside and it can be perverted and corrupted when it comes to the outside. Are you with me here today?
Somehow or another from the inside to pushing it outside it becomes about us. And he says your service should be marked by worship in the heart.
Paul says, look, I serve with my spirit. How do you know? How do you do that, Paul? Well, by presenting your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, further by not being conformed to this world, but being transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. In other words, your body is presented as a living sacrifice, your soul is not conformed to the world, your mind is transformed. All that is inside is his. Every part of you belongs to God, that our service may be marked by a heart, by a mind like this, that what we just said, that the way that Paul's life is marked for service, spiritual service, that example, that our service is marked with thanksgiving and our service is marked by these three things, that is your spiritual service.
That's the way Paul served. He served with everything he had.
He wasn't a toe dipper, he was a plunger.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 47:18
Not a plunger, but he plunged anyway.
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