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Romans 9-16

Applying Righteousness: Towards the Lord

Gary Wright · Sunday, 19 October 2025 · Romans 12:1-2 · 45:32 · 6,281 words

Romans S26 · 12:1-2 Burton

There is no public page for this message yet — the transcript below is the whole of it.

The sermon walks through Romans 12:1‑2, calling believers to present your bodies as a living sacrifice in response to God's many mercies. Using a monkey‑and‑coconut story, the preacher urges listeners to surrender the old habits that trap them and to trust Christ for salvation. The message also explains communion, inviting those who have faith in Jesus to examine themselves and worship Him as they remember His broken body and shed blood.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

sacrifice 34 surrender 21 transform 23 animal 13 mercy 25 band 8 shed 9 use 21 aid 6 blood 13 appeal 9 conform 12

Topics

Atonement & Sacrifice 11 Sin 7 Faith 6 The Holy Spirit 4 Sanctification 2 Salvation 2 Justification 1 Prayer 1 The Gospel 1

Scripture referenced 25

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Romans 12 0:06 Romans 12 0:06 Romans 12 0:12 Romans 12 0:31 Romans 12 0:56 Romans 12:1 0:56 Romans 12 3:44 Romans 12:1 3:44 Romans 3:23 9:22 Romans 6:23 9:50 Romans 5:8 10:45 Romans 10:9 11:28 Leviticus 4:20 14:59 Hebrews 4:10-4 16:32 Hebrews 10 16:56 Romans 3 20:04 Romans 3:10-15 20:08 Romans 12 26:38 Romans 12:2 26:38 Colossians 1:28 32:29 2 Corinthians 3:18 33:01 Hebrews 10 40:35 Hebrews 10:9-11 40:35 Hebrews 10:4 42:32 1 Corinthians 11:27-28 43:14

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

Today we're going to be continuing our walk through the book of Romans.

Today we're going to be in chapter 12, and I've been looking forward to chapter 12.

I have been.

I've really been looking forward to chapter 12 because it's a transition.

And the first 11 chapters we talked about, God speaks.

It's about God speaking to us about what he has given us,

the mercies that he's given us, and he has given us mercies, hasn't he?

But in chapter 12, Paul, he's changing things up.

He's now going to talk to believers about what they need to do

or what they need to give to God once they receive these mercies.

And that's where we're headed today.

If you have your Bibles and you want to turn, open them.

I'm encouraging you to open them.

Chapter 12, starting at verse 1.

Scriptures will be on the screen as well, but I encourage you to open your Bibles up.

But let me pray, and then we will get going in this.

Father, we love you.

Thank you for just another day of life.

Thank you for our spiritual life, for salvation.

Thank you for all that you're doing here at the River Burton, Lord.

We praise you.

We know it's all about you, and we praise you for that.

Be with our lesson today, Lord.

I pray that you speak to each and every one of us.

We pray that you speak to each and every one of our hearts, wherever we are,

and help us to see where we need to go as an individual, Lord,

and as a church, Lord, to speak to us.

We love you.

We thank you.

In Jesus' name, amen.

So this week when I was reading, I always look at a lot of different things.

Sometimes I get distracted and look at different things too,

but that's a different story.

But I was watching this video about how guys, hunters, catch monkeys.

This sounds weird probably to you, right?

So what they do is they take a coconut, and they drill a hole in it

where the monkey can only fit his hand in like that, okay?

They hollow it all out, and what they do is they put a piece of fruit inside that coconut.

They attach the coconut to a tree or somewhere where you can't pull it away.

And what happens is the monkey comes along, and he wants that fruit.

And he can get his hand in there.

And he gets a hold of it, and he makes a fist.

Well, guess what?

When he's making a fist, he can't pull his hand out.

And the monkey is a lot like we are in our old life.

We give our lives to Jesus, but we don't want to let go of the old.

So we hang on to it, right?

But this monkey holds on to it, and he will refuse to let go,

refuse to surrender that fruit.

And the guys just come up and get him because he won't give it up.

He won't surrender.

And today, that's exactly what we're going to be talking about, believers.

Paul's talking to us about living a surrendered life.

These two verses that we're going to be studying today are incredible.

There is a lot in here.

I encourage you to study not only these two verses, but study this whole chapter.

It's a great chapter about walking with the Lord if you're a believer.

So let's go ahead and read.

Verse 1 in chapter 12, Paul says,

I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God,

to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God,

which is your spiritual worship.

So Paul starts off with the word appeal.

And the word appeal is the same.

It's the same.

The noun version of the word appeal in the Greek language is the word we use for the Holy Spirit.

This is the verb form of it.

But it kind of means the same thing.

It means to come alongside and help.

And Paul's saying, look, I'm appealing to you.

I'm encouraging you to do what I'm about to ask you to do.

And I'm willing to come alongside you and help you.

And that's what the church is all about.

As we walk together as believers, we encourage.

We encourage one another.

That's why it's important to be here and fellowship and grow in relationships.

Right?

We need a relationship with Jesus, but we also need a relationship with others here

because we need each other.

Paul, he's given a command here, but he's doing it in a loving way.

He's saying, I'm encouraging you.

And he goes on and he uses the word.

He says, I appeal to you, therefore, the word therefore.

And if.

You probably, hopefully, you've heard me say this before.

But when we see the word, therefore, we have to ask the question, what is therefore?

That's right.

We need what he's saying is because what I've already told you is true.

This is true.

So we must go back and look at what he's been talking about.

And in this case, it's the previous 11 chapters, all the doctrine, all the mercies that God

has provided us.

And he says, I appeal to you, therefore, by the mercy, brothers, by the mercies of God.

So what are the mercies of God?

What are the mercies of God that we've been learning about in the book of Romans or that

Paul's been writing about in these first 11 verses?

I've listed some of them, but there's way more than this.

Okay.

Has given us eternal life.

That's a mercy from God.

We're sinners.

We don't deserve nothing.

But God made a way for us to be reconciled to him.

That's a mercy that he gave us.

He gave us forgiveness.

When we come to him in faith, he forgives believers of their sin.

He reconciles us.

We were separated because of our sin, but because of our faith, we now have a relationship

with the heavenly father.

We're justified when we come in faith.

God looks at us as just.

As if I've never sinned.

Just as if I've never sinned.

Okay.

We have the gift of the Holy Spirit when we come to him in faith.

What a mercy that is.

Could you imagine living life as a believer without the Holy Spirit guiding you?

No, it would be rough.

I can't even imagine it.

He gave us saving faith.

And this is the one I love the most.

He adopted us into his family as sons and daughters.

He has given us mercy.

And Paul also uses the word in this first sentence, brothers.

So every time we see the word brothers, we can add the word sisters to it too.

He's talking to believers here.

He's saying, I appeal to you, therefore, by the mercies of God, by everything that God's

done, brothers and sisters in Christ.

So everything that we're going to be talking about today is about...

About those who have put their faith in Christ.

Okay.

And you may be sitting here this morning and be thinking, you know, if you haven't been

in church, maybe you don't even understand what I'm talking about when I talk about being

saved or putting your faith in Jesus.

So I just want to take a minute here and just explain the gospel.

Okay.

The gospel is this.

First of all, we have to understand, and I don't think that there's anybody in here,

that would argue with this fact that we have done things that our God don't approve of.

We've all rebelled against God.

And the Bible refers to that rebellion as sin.

And Romans 3.23 says, all of us have sinned, for all have sinned and fall short of the

And that sin separates us.

I told you a few minutes ago that we're reconciled to God, but before faith in Jesus, we're

sinners, we're separated from God.

I mean, God's here, but as sinners, we're far from him.

There's no relationship there.

And the verse that talks about that is Romans 6.23, for the wages of sin is death.

And death means separation.

The wages, the cost of our sin is separation from God.

So if we know we're a sinner, we know we're separated from God.

Without Jesus, and that's really the next thing this same verse talks about.

The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life.

And I love he uses the word free and gift.

He's like saying it twice.

Look, this is a gift from God.

Salvation is a gift from God, and it's through Jesus Christ and his work on the cross.

He went to the cross to pay the wages of sin.

He died for us.

He died for us.

And he rose again.

And God did this because of his love.

God chose his love for us while we were still sinners.

Christ died for us.

Why is that verse important?

Because a lot of times people will come to church, or they'll want to come,

and they're like, I can't come in there.

The building will burn down, right?

But what's this verse say?

Christ died while we were still sinners.

He doesn't want us to get cleaned up first.

He's the one that's going to do the cleaning.

We come to him in faith, and we let him clean us.

And how do we get all of this?

How does all this work together?

What is our responsibility?

Our responsibility is faith.

Romans 10.9.

Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord,

and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you'll be saved.

Basically what that saying is, I know I'm a sinner.

I know I need Jesus.

He's my only hope.

He's the way, the truth, and the life.

That's what scripture says.

And only by turning to him,

and believing that his death on the cross paid the payment for our sin,

and that he didn't stay dead, that God raised him from the dead,

believing that, we will be saved.

Have you done with Jesus this morning?

Seriously, think about it.

Have you accepted Christ as your Savior?

Have you put your faith in Jesus?

Consider that this morning.

That is the only way.

To be reconciled to God.

And that is the only way to spend eternity with him.

I also wanted to let you know, and I've kind of hinted at this a little bit already.

Everything from here on that we're going to talk about hinges on whether you are a believer,

whether you have put your faith in Christ or not.

It's all about those who have put their faith in Christ.

Because Paul says, I'm appealing to you believers because you've received the mercy of God.

If you have put your faith in Christ, you've received the mercy of God.

If we haven't put our faith in Jesus, we haven't received those mercies.

So nothing else applies to us until we do that.

But he goes on and he says,

That sounds crazy, don't it?

Holy and acceptable to God.

And I have to give you a, explain, like, and maybe you've heard about the sacrifices,

the animal sacrifices in the Old Testament.

In the Old Testament, in the Old Covenant,

in the Old Covenant, God required the Israelites to make animal sacrifices.

Now, I'm not going to go into every detail.

I'm just going to give you, like, the basics of what this is.

There were some requirements for the animal.

The animal, when they brought it to be sacrificed, it had to be alive.

They couldn't bring a dead animal.

It had to be alive when they brought it to be sacrificed, okay?

The animal couldn't be some lame animal that you wanted to get rid of anyways.

No, it had to be the best.

It says it had to be without spot, and it had to be without blemish.

It wasn't going to be perfect, but it was, like, the best of the best.

That was the one that you would sacrifice.

Honestly, if you brought one that you didn't, that you wanted to get rid of anyways,

it really wouldn't be a sacrifice, right?

It would be like, oh, go ahead, right?

But listen, this animal was alive when they brought it, but they killed it for the sacrifice.

They shed its blood, and they burn it on an altar.

And it was, the purpose of it was to atone for sin.

And let me read you a verse in Leviticus.

This is Leviticus 4.20.

It says,

Thus shall he do with the bull as he did with the bull of the sin offering.

So shall he do with this.

The priest shall make atonement for them, and they shall be forgiven.

So on this day, the priest would kill the animal, make a sacrifice,

and it would atone.

Now, when we think of atonement, we have to think of atonement,

I think of it like a Band-Aid.

Think of cutting your arm, and you, the first thing you want to do is put a Band-Aid on it.

That's what atonement is.

It's covering it.

Look, the Band-Aid is not going to heal that cut.

It's just a covering.

And here's the thing.

When you put a Band-Aid on, and you take a shower, or you work outside,

guess what you got to do?

You got to change the Band-Aid, right?

Because it gets dirty again.

That's what's going on here.

They made atonement for the priest.

They would bring this animal.

They would sacrifice it.

They would make atonement for their sin, and guess what they would do?

They would go back, and they would sin again, and guess what?

It had to happen again.

Another animal, bring it, sacrifice.

It had to be done over and over.

Because the blood of the animals only covered the sin, it did not take it away.

Hebrews 4, 10-4 says this,

For it is impossible.

It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

It's impossible.

So since the sins of the Israelites was not removed completely,

it was just covered, the sacrifices had to be repeated,

just like the Band-Aid has to be changed.

Hebrews 10-11 tells us that.

And every priest stands daily at his service,

offering repeatedly the same sacrifices,

which can never take away sins.

The Old Testament sacrifices, really,

the main thing I think about when I think of the sacrifices in the Old Testament,

is they were pointing to the sacrifice that would take away sin.

And his name is Jesus, by the way, right?

It's all pointing to Jesus.

Look, there used to be a teacher that taught here,

and she said the Old Testament is all about this.

He's coming. He's coming.

He's coming, and when we get to the New Testament, guess what?

He's here, right?

That's what she would teach the kids.

I love that.

Right? Yes, and he's coming back at the end, right?

She was an awesome teacher,

but it was pointing to the one who was going to take away the sin.

And guess what?

Jesus was our perfect sacrifice.

Why?

Because he was sinless.

He was only sinless because he was God in the flesh.

That's what made him perfect.

He was the...

Lamb without spot or blemish.

And that's why John the Baptist, when he seen Jesus coming one day,

he said,

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Jesus is the Lamb of God,

and he's the only one who can take away the sin.

His death and his...

His death, burial, and resurrection is the only thing that takes away sin.

That's the only sacrifice.

Paul is telling us...

He's telling us as believers here to present our bodies as a living sacrifice.

So the animals had to die.

He's saying, no, since you've received God's mercies,

I want you to be a living sacrifice.

And he says this,

Holy and acceptable to God.

Holy and acceptable.

The word holy means to be set apart for God.

It means to be set apart.

It doesn't mean we're going to be perfect.

It means...

It means that God has a...

That we're set apart,

that we're going to do our best to live for him.

And we're going to do our best to be an acceptable sacrifice.

What it really means is we...

He wants us to surrender once we've received the mercies of God.

Once we've been saved, he's saying,

Believers, I want you to surrender your life to Christ.

And he says...

The interesting thing to me is how he says it.

He says, present your bodies.

A living sacrifice.

And it makes me think of Romans 3.

Romans 3, 10 through 15.

I'm going to have to flip there.

I don't have this on my notes.

Paul here is talking about what we are like before we have faith in Jesus.

Who we are before faith in Jesus.

He says, none is righteous.

No, not one.

No one understands.

No one seeks for God.

All have...

With turned aside, they have become worthless.

No one does good.

Not even one.

And this is the part I want you to see because he refers to body parts.

He says, the throat is an open grave.

And their tongues, they use their tongues to deceive.

The venom of asps are under their lips.

Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.

And their feet are swift to shed blood.

Look, Paul says...

He's saying, when we were...

Before we had faith in Jesus, we used our body to sin against God.

So what's he saying here in our passage today?

He's saying, present your bodies.

Present your bodies.

Our bodies are the instrument of how we are going to serve God.

It starts on the inside, but it shows up on the outside.

And we're going to use our bodies, our hands, our feet, to glorify God.

We're going to use our hands, our feet, to glorify God.

We're going to use our hands, our feet, to glorify God.

We're going to use our hands, our feet, to glorify God.

We're going to use our hands, our feet, to glorify God.

We're going to use our hands, our feet, to glorify God.

We're going to use our hands, our feet, to glorify God.

We're going to use our mouths and our tongues,

not to run each other in the dirt or talk about people

or whatever we do with our mouth and tongue.

We're going to use our mouth and tongues to praise God and to lead others to Him.

We are to use our bodies.

We're to surrender to Him and use our bodies as a sacrifice to Him

and use it to glorify Him.

One pastor said it this way.

I love this.

He says, I think this guy's last name is Green.

I can't remember his first name.

But anyways, he's a really smart guy.

He says, I am sure you have heard people say, I'm willing to die for Jesus.

Have you ever heard anybody say that?

And he goes on and says, that's honorable.

But let me say very humbly that God does not necessarily want us to die for Jesus.

He wants us to live for Him.

He wants us to live for Him.

He wants us to be that living sacrifice.

That's why He saved us.

That's why He saved us.

The living sacrifice is that surrendered life.

And the surrendered life, Paul says, is our spiritual worship.

How many of you love our band?

Yeah, they're awesome, aren't they?

Come here on Sundays and we get to praise God with an awesome band, right?

And honestly, when I hear what God's done for me,

the glories or the mercies He's given us in those words of those songs,

it encourages me.

But why?

Why do we really sing the praises to God?

Praises, the worship that we sing here, isn't necessarily for us.

It's us praising our God for His mercies.

It is something that comes from the inside, or it should be, that we're praising God.

We see people raising their hands to God, hopefully.

But it's a praise from our heart.

To surrender our life is more.

Than singing songs, though.

It is.

I mean, that's a big part of worship.

But surrendering our lives or being a living sacrifice,

I have to use the O word here,

it means to be obedient to God.

He wants us to sacrifice.

That means we give up what we want, do what He wants.

That's surrender.

Does that mean we have to give up everything we do in life?

No.

But it means that we put God first.

Like, if I...

What do I do when I'm playing hockey?

I use that as a platform to tell people about Jesus while I'm having fun playing hockey.

We don't have to give it up, but we make Jesus the priority.

It means sometimes we do have to give things up.

And we can be like the monkey.

We don't want to let go.

We want to hold on.

We're trapped there.

Right?

God's saying, let go and come to me.

Surrender to me.

Why?

Because we've received His mercy.

It's not...

Surrendering does not save us.

We've already been saved, and we've already received the mercies,

and we surrender out of worship.

Right?

A life surrendered.

Worship comes from the heart, overwhelmed with the mercies of God.

Is that the life we live?

That's what Paul's calling us to do.

Is that difficult?

Who would say yes?

That is difficult.

And some of us struggle sometimes.

Like,

How?

How?

And you may be sitting here this morning thinking that.

How do we live a life surrendered to Christ?

Well, thankfully, the Bible always tells us how.

Right?

So we can look at verse 2 in Romans chapter 12.

Paul says,

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,

that by testing you may discern what is the will of God,

what is good and acceptable and perfect.

So Paul gives two questions.

He gives two commands here for living a surrendered life.

The first one is this, and it's the negative part of it.

One's a negative, one's a positive.

This is the negative.

He says,

Do not be conformed to this world.

Conformed, the word conformed, it makes me think of a potter.

You know, he has his clay on the wheel, and he's forming,

he's pressing to make what he wants to make.

And sometimes the world wants to form us and make us fall into what the world,

the system of the world that Satan is over.

He wants us to conform to that.

And that's what Paul's saying.

Don't be conformed by the world.

I read this too this week.

There was a farmer who grabbed a shotgun because he wanted to shoot a flock of pesky crows

that was hanging around his farm.

And unfortunately, he didn't see his parrot had joined the flock.

Sounds sad, don't it?

It's not as sad as the bird don't die.

I'll tell you that.

After firing a few shots, he walked over to the fallen birds,

and he was shocked when his parrot was badly wounded.

He had a bad wing, right?

But the farmer's children, they came to him and said,

Dad, what happened to the bird?

And the dad says, bad company.

Right?

When we're conformed to the world, we're in bad company.

We are in bad company.

We have to be careful what we let influence us.

The word, we have to break that mold.

The things that the world wants us to do, we have to break that.

And instead, we have to do what Paul tells us next, to be transformed.

Be transformed by the renewal of your mind.

Don't be conformed to what the world system wants you to be.

Don't be conformed to what they want you to believe.

But be transformed by the renewal of your mind.

And listen, you can only be transformed if you're a believer.

And you can only be transformed when we're not conformed to the world.

We're either conformed or we're transformed, right?

There is a process, but the word transformed, the Greek word for that is metamorpho,

which we get our word metamorphosis.

So what does metamorphosis mean?

It means to be changed from one thing to another.

It means to be transformed, to be more like Christ every single day.

And I would love to tell you that this transformation,

it's instant, but really it's a process.

I love the movie Transformers.

You guys ever seen the movie Transformers?

And the Transformers, can you show that video?

Transformers, can you play it one more time because I missed it.

So the Transformers, they can transform instantly from one thing to the other.

We can't do that as believers.

It's a process.

It's a process.

I hope you enjoyed that.

I love that movie actually.

Transforming to be more like Jesus.

It's a process and it's from the inside out.

And it starts with what?

It starts with knowing God's word for yourself.

I know, I love it that you guys come here on Sunday and you hear God's word.

And some of you come to growth communities and you hear God's word.

But listen, you should be in God's word yourself.

Know God's word yourself because that's where the transformation is really going to happen.

Don't take my word for it.

Look for yourself.

Learn for yourself.

And honestly, once you get in the habit of doing that,

you start to love God.

You start to love God's word.

I'm just saying, I'm guilty of that too.

But transforming is a slow from the inside out.

And the transformation starts with God's word, knowing God's word.

And then we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us.

And the Holy Spirit uses God's word to transform our minds, right?

It transforms our mind.

The world is trying to conform us to believe what it wants us to believe.

But when the Holy Spirit's in us and we know God's word,

and we've been studying God's word,

the Holy Spirit begins to transform us.

And it's a complete renovation of thought as we go through.

As we become more like Christ, it's a complete renovation of thought.

But Colossians 1.28 talks about how important the word of God is.

It says,

Him we proclaim, Christ we proclaim,

warning everyone, teaching everyone with all wisdom

that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

Paul says,

Paul wrote that as well.

And he's talking about how the scripture and how teaching the scripture

can transform or learning the scripture for ourselves can mature us as believers.

And then 2 Corinthians 3.18 talks about the Holy Spirit's work in it.

It says,

And we all, with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Lord,

are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory,

to the other.

For this, and transformed to one,

we're talking about being transformed into the image of Christ here.

But for this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

The scripture and the Spirit both play a part in transforming our minds.

And when we begin to be transformed,

when our mind starts being renewed,

we learn something really important from God's word.

We learn something really important from God's word and from the Spirit.

We learn the will of God.

We learn what God wants from us and what his plan is.

And Paul says that in the next part.

He says,

And by testing you may discern what is the will of God,

what is good and acceptable and perfect.

And as we grow in God's word,

the Holy Spirit transforms our mind.

And we learn,

and I love how he describes,

the will of God,

what is good,

what is pleasing,

and what is perfect.

As we transform,

our desire to do God's will will grow.

At first, we're like the monkey.

We don't want to let go of the old.

We're scared of what?

We're scared to let it go.

I want to be in control.

I want to do what I want to do.

I don't want to give that up.

How's my life going to be

if I don't have it?

I don't want to have that in my life.

I used to shoot clay targets on Sundays.

It was something I had to give up.

And honestly, there was times in my life,

I can remember thinking this.

I cannot imagine my life without shooting clays.

I let it go, eventually.

And you know what?

I do not have one desire to shoot a clay target.

I don't care.

I don't want to shoot it.

Because you know what?

God's way is better.

His plan is better.

His will is better.

His will is good and perfect.

And it's pleasing.

And when we start to follow him

and we learn that,

we want to worship him.

We want to be the living sacrifice

he's called us to be.

what is God speaking to you about?

if you're a believer here this morning,

is he asking you

to surrender to him in your life?

What is the next thing he wants you to do?

Maybe you're holding on

to something and you're trapped there.

What does he want you to let go of?

Life is going to be better without that.

It may,

you may miss it for a little bit.

In the end,

you're going to be glad

that you listened and surrendered.

Are you here this morning

and you're not sure if you know Christ?

You're not sure if you put your faith in him.

What are you going to do with that?

Maybe he's speaking to you this morning.

Maybe you need to talk to somebody.

If that's you this morning

and you want to know what that's all about,

or maybe you just want to know what that's all about,

or maybe you just want somebody to pray with you,

come and find one of us who has a lanyard on.

We would love to be able to assist you

in any way we can.

We would love to be able to assist you

and come alongside you

in your walk, wherever you are.

And maybe you're here this morning,

you have been saved,

and your next step is baptism.

Guess what?

We can do that.

We can do that.

You let us know,

we'll have a little meeting,

and then we'll celebrate with you

what the Lord has done in your heart.

Church, I love you.

I love what God's doing here.

But a lot of times,

we're hindering his work ourselves.

Surrender to him.

Father, we thank you for who you are.

We love you.

We praise you this morning.

Help us to worship you

and help us to be the living sacrifice

you've called us to be.

Help us to let go of the worldly things

and latch on to what you have for us, Lord.

Lord, we love you and thank you, Lord.

And we ask this in Jesus' name.

If you want to talk to somebody,

don't let this hinder you from doing that, okay?

But I love communion

because communion is all about

our perfect sacrifice, Jesus.

It is.

It's all about Jesus.

Just like Izzy got up here this morning

and she celebrated.

This is one of the ordinances that the Lord gave us.

She was worshiping God

and following his command

to show you that,

and she was a believer.

Communion is another ordinance

that he gives to us believers

that when we take this,

that we are doing this as an act of worship,

that Jesus says,

when you do this,

remember what I've done for you, okay?

And there's two elements to communion.

There's a cracker

and there's some grape juice.

Look, there's nothing necessarily special about those,

but they represent,

cracker represents the broken body of Christ.

And I'll talk about that first.

And I'm gonna use some verses

that are a little different this morning

than what we normally do.

And I really like the Hebrews.

And we have to remember

what we were talking about this morning,

how Jesus changed the old covenant,

the old way of sacrifices,

and he eliminated those when he died on the cross

and he became our perfect sacrifice.

And that's really what we're celebrating this morning.

But in Hebrews chapter 10, verses nine and 11,

it says, and he added,

behold, I have come,

to do your will.

He does away with the first

in order to establish the second.

And by that, we have been sanctified

through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ

once for all.

Look, the scripture's telling us what I just said.

He did away with the first,

the first covenant, the sacrificial system

to establish the second,

the gospel and the new covenant.

And he did that by going to the cross,

first of all, and breaking his body for us.

He took our place on the cross.

You remember the verse I told you earlier

that there's a cost for our sin and it's death.

Jesus took our place on the cross

and he gave his body for us.

And when we eat the cracker,

our worship from our heart should be about thinking.

He says, Jesus says this,

remember what I've done for you.

Our focus should be on the cross.

Our focus should be on the cross.

Our focus should be on the cross.

Our focus should be on the cross.

Our focus should be on the cross.

Our focus should be on the cross.

Our focus should be on the cross.

And worshiping him and his broken body

as we take the cracker.

The second element is the grape juice.

The second part of the communion elements.

And it represents the shed blood of Jesus.

The shed blood.

And the blood shed is very important.

Matter of fact, in Hebrews chapter 22,

it says this,

indeed, under the law,

almost everything is purified with blood.

And without the shedding of blood,

there is no forgiveness of sin.

You remember the bulls and the goats in Hebrews 10.4

does not take away sin.

Only the sacrifice of Jesus

and the shed blood of Jesus does that.

Jesus shed his blood for us.

And when we take the grape juice,

we should be worshiping him and praising him

in doing that and remembering that he shed,

his blood for us.

And there's one last thing I want to explain

before we hand out the elements.

Paul gives a warning about communion

that we should examine ourselves.

First Corinthians 11, 27 and 28 says,

whoever therefore eats the bread and drinks the cup

in an unworthy manner

will be guilty concerning the body

and the blood of the Lord.

Let a person examine himself

and then eat the bread

and drink the cup.

Paul says, don't do this in an unworthy manner.

So what is an unworthy manner?

The first thing is this.

Have you put your faith in Jesus?

If you haven't,

taking communion is meaningless

because we're celebrating what Christ did

on the cross for us.

And if you haven't accepted that in faith,

it's meaningless.

That would be an unworthy manner.

That can be rectified this morning, by the way.

If you don't know Christ and you want to,

you come and talk to me.

The second way that we can do it

in an unworthy manner, in my opinion,

is not doing it out of worship.

Sometimes we get caught up in the motions of doing this.

But it should be an act of worship.

We should be remembering

that's what Christ told us to do.

It should be out of worship.

And if you're distracted

or there's something in your life

that's distracting you,

it's okay to say, you know what?

I'm going to pass on it today.

It's okay to do that.

I've done that.

So if we don't know Christ

or you don't feel like you're in a place

where you should take it,

it's okay to pass it, okay?

Lastly, as the band's playing

while they're passing out the elements,

I have some friends over here

that are going to do that.

Paul says, examine yourself.

I always like to pray and ask God,

what's in my life, Lord,

that I need to change?

What do you want me to surrender?

What's between me and you right now?

Christ has forgave us for all of our sin,

but he wants us to be in continuous change

and to be more like him every day,

just like our...

our passage talked about today.