There are five things that a person must do immediately after coming to know the Lord. First, he must see a vision and understand the will of God. Second, he must learn something about the life that he now possesses, so that his life may grow in the Spirit. He must also have a share in the gospel, and he must know God’s Word.
There is one more matter that we would like to share this afternoon: he must learn to serve in the church.
When one comes to know the Lord, immediately he must learn to serve in the church. If he fails to serve in the church immediately and begins only later, he will have some difficulty. More than that, he has already wasted some very precious time.
Every young person, after you come to know the Lord, must learn to serve immediately in your church.
When the Lord sent Moses to Egypt, He said to Pharaoh:
Let My people go, that they may serve Me.
When God delivered the Israelites and set them free, it was not that, after they were liberated, they could simply do what they wished. Formerly, in Egypt, they were slaves; now they were liberated. But why were they liberated?
Let My people go, that they may serve Me.
After we have obtained grace, the purpose of redemption is that we may serve our God. The aim of one’s life is to serve God and to worship Him.
When the Lord’s people were brought to Mount Sinai, God revealed to them the purpose of their redemption:
If ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant,
then ye shall be Mine own possession from among all peoples:
for all the earth is Mine:
and ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests.
Priests are those who are set apart for the purpose of serving God. All of us who have been saved have been set apart by God for the purpose of serving the living God.
When we come to the book of Romans, we find in Romans 1–11 the multitude of God’s mercies and grace.
In Romans 12:1, Paul says:
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
to present your bodies a living sacrifice,
holy, acceptable to God,
which is your spiritual service.
The word therefore refers to Romans 1–11. We were previously in sin, but because of the blood of Jesus, no matter how much we have sinned or how deep our sin has been, He washes all our sins away.
Not only did He deal with our sins; He also took the sinner to the cross. We were crucified with Him there. Not only did He remove the old man, but He also gave us His very life and gave us the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit bears witness that we are the children of God. We who were once Gentiles and outsiders have been brought near. In Christ, Jews and Gentiles become one.
Before the creation, God chose us in His beloved Son. It is a mystery, but when the gospel comes to us, we believe with our hearts and become His children. Praise God.
The ways of God are most marvelous:
For of Him, and through Him, and unto Him, are all things.
To Him be the glory for ever. Amen.
All of us are recipients of the manifold mercies of God. What, then, should be our response?
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
to present your bodies a living sacrifice.
When I newly believed in the Lord, I attended a summer retreat. I wanted to be saved, but I wondered why other people seemed to be saved so easily while I had such a difficult time.
I grew up in a Christian home. My father was a minister, and in our family we had family worship in the evenings. I was quite familiar with the Bible and knew some truth. Yet I was still not saved.
At the end of myself, I said, “God, show mercy to me.” On the last day of that retreat, the minister preached on consecration and said, “You must offer yourself to preach.”
At the front was a large map of China. The minister said, “If you really love the Lord, you must offer yourself to be a minister. You can choose where you want to go. Come to the platform and put your finger on the place where you want to go.”
I was only seventeen and newly saved. I thought, “I want to go to the furthest point, to show that I love the Lord.” So I went to the platform and put my finger on Mongolia, because, to me, Mongolia was the furthest part of China.
I was very serious. I was determined to go to Mongolia. From that day, I spent a whole year finding books about Mongolia. I even thought that going to college would be a waste of time, so I chose a barber school. I thought that if I became a barber, I could go there and preach.
I have never been to Mongolia, because God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts. But there was one major mistake: the minister was preaching wrongly, and I understood it wrongly.
I thought that to consecrate oneself was to preach, and that if one did not become a minister, one could live for oneself. No, that is a wrong conception.
The Bible says, “Brethren.” It does not say only prophets, preachers, teachers, or pastors. It says:
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
to present your bodies a living sacrifice.
All those saved by grace—brothers and sisters alike—must offer their bodies as a living sacrifice.
Why does Paul mention the body? Because the body represents our whole life. It represents every aspect of one’s life.
Having obtained God’s mercies, we cannot hold ourselves back. The love of Christ constrains us. When one died for all, all died; therefore, those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them.
This is what it means to offer the body.
In the Old Testament, when one offered a goat, sheep, or bird upon the altar, the burnt offering was wholly consumed. It became ashes. This was an offering to God.
In the New Testament, God does not ask us to offer a lamb, a cow, a pigeon, or a dove. God wants us to offer ourselves. He wants us to put ourselves on the altar and become a living sacrifice.
God does not ask someone to kill us. He wants us to be living sacrifices. From this moment onward, I no longer live for myself; now I live for Him.
We sometimes think that consecration means doing something for God. But the most fundamental principle of consecration is simply giving yourself to God—allowing Him to do the work He wants to do in you, so that you may serve Him.
It means that you give yourself to Him, put yourself in His hands, allow Him to manage you, allow Him to control you, and give Him the opportunity to do the work that He wants to do through you.
Everyone who believes in the Lord must consecrate himself or herself. None of us can hold ourselves back from God, because we do not belong to ourselves. The Lord has purchased us with a price.
Consecration is the first spiritual experience of the believer. If you have not had the experience of consecration, you have not really begun your spiritual life.
Many Christians today are merely believers in the Lord. There is no going on and no growth. The key to this problem is that they have not consecrated themselves.
Some have consecrated themselves, but their consecration is not complete. They have not presented their whole person as a living sacrifice.
There is a story of a person being baptized. As he was being put into the water, he held one hand above the water. He refused to let that hand go under, because he wanted to do something with that hand for himself.
Sometimes our consecration is like that. It is not the consecration of all that we are.
True consecration says, “I take everything that belongs to me—what I am and what I will be—and I offer everything up to You.”
This is what it means to offer your whole body as a living sacrifice. This is holy. This is acceptable to God.
How can we be acceptable in His sight? When we offer ourselves as a living sacrifice, that is acceptable to God.
This is our reasonable service, or, as another translation puts it, our spiritual worship. We cannot separate spiritual service from spiritual worship.
When we offer our bodies as living sacrifices, spiritual worship begins. Our reasonable service begins. A person who is not consecrated has not begun the life of service.
We must allow the manifold mercies of God to bring us to offer ourselves to Him. This is our response to all God’s mercies. This is consecration.
We offer ourselves as a living sacrifice. This is the beginning of our service.
Even though we have a new life within, strangely enough, so much of us remains unchanged. What does it mean to be born again?
To be born again is something that takes place in our inner spirit. Our spirit was dead and separated from God. When we believe in the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit quickens our dead spirit and gives us new life.
Yet after we are saved, it seems that our thoughts and minds have not been renewed. Repentance is to change the mind, but this renewal of the mind must become a continuing work in our lives.
After we believe in the Lord, we have a new life, but we may still have an old mind. We still look at things and evaluate things according to our own mind.
Our thought life determines our behavior. Often, Christians are very much like the people of the world. Apart from believing in the Lord, there seems to be little difference. They are still conforming to the world.
Romans 12:2 says:
And be not fashioned according to this world:
but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,
that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Do not allow yourself to be squeezed into the mold of this world. Put plainly, do not be fashionable in the worldly sense. Do not follow the current of this world.
A fish that is alive can swim upstream against the current. But a dead fish floats with the current, because there is no life in it. We have life, and we can swim against the current.
God has given us life, but our minds still need to be renewed. We may still be very much conformed to the world.
I often tell young people, “After you believe in the Lord, you cannot conform to the world. What the world loves, you should not love.”
Before I was saved, I liked to go to the theater. Whenever I had the opportunity, I looked for movies to watch. Although I was a minister’s son, I went to the movie theater on Saturdays.
After I became a Christian, I was told that I should never go to the theater. I would not listen. I thought, “Some movies are good movies; surely I can go.”
But whenever I went, there was an uneasiness within me. I knew that it was not appropriate for Christian conduct. I determined that I would not go.
For several months, I did not go to the movies, and I felt very good. I thought that I was victorious.
Unfortunately, there was a religious film in town, and I was given free tickets. I thought, “This is a religious movie.” So I went.
I sat there for two hours, but I was not watching the movie. Inside, I had a conflict. I wished the movie would come to an end so that I could get out.
From that day on, I never went back to the theater to see a movie. I did return to theaters to preach the gospel, using the facilities for gospel meetings, but I never went there to watch a movie.
The Lord removed that desire from me. My aunt once asked me why I did not go to see movies anymore. I did not know how to reply, but I had more joy in my heart.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you may prove what the will of God is: that which is good, acceptable, and perfect.
Here are two things: the world and God’s will. We who believe must obey God’s will. We must not conform to this world.
Young people have difficulty because there is a desire within. Their minds have not been renewed. This cannot be forced from without.
We sometimes treat young brothers and sisters as though Christianity consisted of rules and regulations: “You cannot do this. You cannot do that.” But this does not help. That is not Christianity; that is law.
Thank God, our minds can be renewed and transformed. This is based upon consecration. When you consecrate yourself, the Holy Spirit does the work of transforming and renewing your mind.
You cannot change or renew your own mind. Only the Holy Spirit can do this work. But He waits until you are fully consecrated to Him.
Then the Holy Spirit begins His work in you. What you loved before, you no longer love. What you despised before, you now value.
Before Paul came to know the Lord, he valued his own achievements, education, and zeal for the law. He was more advanced than many of his contemporaries. That was his goal and his life.
But when he came to know the Lord, and the Lord renewed and transformed his mind, he regarded those former things as rubbish. What he once despised—the cross—became everything to him.
His whole life changed direction. Now he served his God and the One who had saved him.
Consecration is so important because it enables the Lord to renew and transform the mind. Then we can prove what is the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God.
The will of God mentioned here is singular. We often speak of God’s will for my life today or tomorrow, but God has one eternal will.
All the works and acts of God are related to that will, until one day it is fully accomplished.
What is this will? Who can know it? A person who is not consecrated cannot prove what God’s will is. He will never know it.
But God delights to reveal His will to one who is consecrated.
We discover this will in Romans 12:5:
So we, who are many, are one body in Christ,
and severally members one of another.
The good, acceptable, and perfect will of God is centered in His Son. God desires that His Son should have a body.
This body is not the physical body that Mary gave to the Lord Jesus when He was born. This body is the people whom He gathered to Himself through His death on the cross.
The people whom He gathers to Himself become His body. This group of people are members one of another. This is the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God.
In Romans 12:1, the word bodies is plural. Each of us has a body, and each of us must offer his or her body as a living sacrifice.
When all these bodies are offered as living sacrifices, the Body of Christ is manifested. We no longer live for ourselves; we all live for Christ. He is our Head, and we are His Body. We carry out His commands and His instructions.
Today, our service is within this Body. In the Body, we serve the Lord and serve one another. Therefore, we must serve in the church.
The church is the Body of Christ. Our service is not merely for individual activity; it is for the building up of the church.
The Lord loves the church. He gave His life for the church. Therefore, those who are saved by the Lord must love what He loves.
Our service is for the church to be built up, for the Body to grow and mature, and for the church to reach the fullness of the stature of Christ.
The church is also the sphere of our service. We serve within the Body, just as every member of the physical body functions within that body.
In the Old Testament, the priests and Levites were set apart by God for service, and their service was related to the temple. The moment their service became unrelated to the temple, there was a problem.
Consider the story in Judges. In those days everyone did what was right in his own eyes. Micah made an idol, and a Levite who should have been serving in connection with God’s house left his proper place and wandered in search of somewhere to settle.
Micah employed that Levite to be a priest for his household. Later, the tribe of Dan offered him a larger opportunity: “Would you rather be priest to one household, or priest to a tribe?” He went with them and became their priest.
But this was a counterfeit service. The tabernacle of God was in Shiloh, while this priesthood was connected with an idol.
Our service must be within the Body. When we are serving the Body, we are serving the Head.
When we serve, we must have a right attitude. Romans 12:3 says:
For through the grace that was given me I say to every man among you
not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think;
but so to think as to think soberly,
according as God hath dealt to each man a measure of faith.
God, according to His wisdom, has placed us in the Body of Christ. Therefore, we must not think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think.
We often overestimate ourselves or underestimate ourselves. When we think too highly of ourselves, pride comes in, and we become unable to serve other members properly.
We must look at ourselves with sound judgment. How do we look at ourselves? We look at the self that is in Christ, according to the measure of faith that God has given us.
Serve according to the measure that God has given you.
There are two categories here. Romans 12:6–8 says:
And having gifts differing according to the grace that was given to us,
whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of our faith;
or ministry, let us give ourselves to our ministry;
or he that teacheth, to his teaching;
or he that exhorteth, to his exhorting:
he that giveth, let him do it with liberality;
he that ruleth, with diligence;
he that showeth mercy, with cheerfulness.
Today we serve God with the gifts that God gives. We do not serve merely with natural ability. If we use our natural talents to serve God, we may hinder what God is doing.
God does not place you as a member in the Body without giving you a gift by which you can function. Every member has a gift.
The gifts are manifestations of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit desires to manifest Himself through every member of the Body.
There are two broad areas of service. One is the ministry of the Word: prophecy, teaching, and exhortation.
Prophecy has to do with spiritual inspiration. Teaching is according to God’s Word. Exhortation has to do with practical living. These three areas are related to the ministry of the Word.
The other area is practical ministry. There are widows to be cared for, poor people to be cared for, sick people to be visited, and many practical needs in God’s house.
When we gather together, someone must arrange the chairs, prepare the songs, clean the place, and do many other necessary things. This also is service.
The church needs those who give with liberality, those who lead with diligence, and those who show mercy with cheerfulness. Some people have a sympathetic spirit and can comfort others simply by being present with them.
In our service, there are these two areas: the ministry of the Word and practical affairs. Both are service. We serve according to the gifts that God has given us and under the direction of the Head.
Some may say, “I do not know what my gift is. I do not know how to serve.” It is very simple.
When a child is born, all the members of his body are already there. The eyes are there, but they must develop and be exercised before the child can see clearly.
Life and exercise are both necessary. As we seek the Lord and serve, the gift begins to manifest itself.
Perhaps people do not notice a certain need, but you have a care for it. The Lord puts that burden in your heart. Try to serve in that matter.
As you serve, you may experience the anointing and the presence of the Spirit. People receive help. Then you know that it is a gift from God, and you exercise it.
Samuel, when he was a child in the temple, opened the doors. That may seem like a small matter, but he was faithful in a small thing. The good hand of the Lord came upon him, and he became a prophet.
May we all begin with small things in God’s house. Some people want to open their mouths and have three thousand people saved. But first, learn to open your mouth and witness to one person. Exercise the gift God has given you.
Because you love the Lord and seek Him, He will give you a burden. Perhaps no one opens the door; you open the door. As you do so faithfully, the burden becomes heavier, and God may use you as a watchman in His house.
Do not despise small things. Serve Him humbly.
Serving God not only requires gifts; it is based on grace.
Gift is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. Grace is the Lord Himself. Grace is life—the growth of His life within us until it becomes our character.
This character builds up the church. Gift is not character. Gift is not life. Gift is not the Spirit Himself; it is a manifestation of the Spirit.
A person may still use a gift in a fleshly way. But what truly serves is grace.
The gifts may be compared to the golden pipes in the lampstand. The pipes channel the oil, but the oil is what gives light. The one who is full of the Spirit is one through whom Christ comes forth.
When the life of Christ flows into the church, it becomes oil for the light. The light is a testimony. Through the Holy Spirit, it becomes the power by which we testify for the Lord.
The real ministry is by grace.
At the beginning of our service, we may use more gift than grace. But as we continue in service, we should have more grace. Grace must govern the gift.
If there is not sufficient grace, the church cannot be built up, and people may come into confusion and conflict with one another. But when there is a fullness of grace, even though ministry is channeled through gifts, what people sense is grace.
They do not merely say, “What a gifted person.” Rather, they sense Christ and grace.
Our God and our Lord, our hearts praise You. You are such a glorious God, and yet You call us to serve You. You want us to be Your Body, to be members one of another.
By Your grace and through Your gifts, enable us to serve You in Your house. Stir up the hearts of Your people, that we may all rise up and serve You according to the grace You have given to each one.
Hear our prayer. Amen.