Answering the Call: How to Offer Yourself to God

Paul tells us to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice, referencing the sacrificial system found in Leviticus.   Jesus tells us, "if you love me you will keep my teachings."  Yet do we do all of these things out of the love of Jesus or the fear of retribution from God?

 

God isn't looking for malicious obedience, He is calling us into a partnership to help His kingdom manifest in fruitfulness and multiplication.   Join us as we talk about that!

 

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies
as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.
This is your true and proper worship, Romans 12.1.
So what do you and I do as a disciple of Christ?

(00:22):
How are we to give ourselves as a living sacrifice, day in and day out?
Welcome to the HHP Podcast.
My name is Chris Franke and I am the Senior Pastor of HFF Church in Oklahoma City.
Join me and others from around the country as we talk all things Bible, church and family.

(00:42):
We may be right, we may be heretical, but that's for you to decide.
Drop a like, a share, a comment, subscribe and let's get to it.
Many Gen Z have returned to what many consider to be more of a high church approach in their
worship.
They have left the glitz and the glam of many of the larger churches in search of more simplistic

(01:07):
lifestyle and a more simplistic worship service.
This often includes more of liturgical elements to service, traditional hymns versus what
we would consider more modern worship songs and an exegetical line by line approach to
the teaching of the Bible versus a more topical based sermon every week.

(01:31):
I find a great beauty in that, but I also find great beauty in the other churches'
approach to worshiping God as well.
While a lot of us focus in the Western church on what is appropriate in churches, I would
like to point out that almost every denomination of Christianity and then even if we were to
lump in the sects of Judaism just so we could widen the sea so to speak, there's only about

(01:58):
three to five differences in the core practices.
Traditionally, there's even less than three to five differences in what would be considered
core doctrine.
So why all the fuss about nothing?
Just like Andrew being mad at Peter for being Peter or Peter being mad at Andrew for being

(02:19):
Andrew.
People who find themselves stuck here need to remember a couple of things.
To be in Christ means to offer our bodies as living sacrifices.
That is for all.
If you are in Christ, Paul tells us we are to offer our bodies as living sacrifices.
So how does discipleship fit into the holiness code of living sacrifices that we find in

(02:48):
the Torah?
Specifically, we find great detail in the book of Leviticus.
Over the last couple of days and for the next couple of days, our church will continue to
go through the 28 days leading into Passover chapter by chapter in the book of Leviticus.
So how does discipleship fit into that code?
Well, one, they remind and temporarily removed the burden of our sins.

(03:14):
So a temporary reminder and a temporary cleansing.
They help us remember we are constantly unclean and approaching God.
We harbor sin, we refuse repentance, and those things distance us from a holy God.
It helps us to be aware of the spiritual maturity or lack thereof and carefully maintaining

(03:35):
our body, our mind, and our spirit, both in the physical and in the spiritual realm.
It reminds us that God dwelt in community, not by himself.
Think of that for a second.
A holy God who could have anything in the world set up a system in order for him to
come from on high and dwell with the people who were unclean.

(04:00):
It helps us to be aware of our daily sacrifices, whether they're offered in the morning,
afternoon, or evening for the sins of many.
So we too must listen, do the work of God, and stop trying to help others do what we
want them to do.
We should really focus inwardly, for the Bible says all have sinned and fallen short of the

(04:23):
glory of God.
If you're like me, every day I have enough work to do to sacrifice my own will, my own
desires, my own thoughts, my own emotions, to realign to what a holy God has called me
to be, and then to thrive in those moments.
You can't thrive in those moments if you're being sacrificial to your wants and selves

(04:47):
for yourself.
You can if you're being sacrificial to lay down yourself to be able to become more like
God.
Everyone in Leviticus had their instructions.
Everyone had offerings to bring.
Most importantly, we like to think of sin offerings, but there was a plethora of different

(05:07):
types of offerings.
It was to remind us that everything in the earth, including us, is first God's.
We were created through him and by him, for him.
When we choose to think we were created by us, for us, with us, kind of a sad thought.

(05:27):
It really kind of puts the ceiling on our lives in a very low area.
When we think that the God who created all of the universe wants us to thrive and to
grow into him, it's pretty awe-inspiring.
But most importantly, we need to remember without Jesus in our life, there is no action,

(05:49):
there are no deeds, there's no wishes that can make us clean.
We were unclean and dying.
We were slaves.
Through the acceptance of Jesus as our Savior, we are offered the ability to be reborn clean
and covered by the blood of the Lamb.
And it reminds me, I'm still a man in need of a Savior.

(06:11):
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(06:35):
you