Summer in Rome | Romans 12:1-2

This Sunday, Pastor Ben Kaempfer taught in Romans 12:1-2 talking about the response to God’s mercy, and why believers surrender themselves fully to God and are transformed instead of shaped by the world. 

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Romans 12, verses 1 and 2, a living sacrifice. 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. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing, and perfect will. You may be seated.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Kids, y'all may be dismissed. Thanks for joining us this morning. What up, Bo? Good to see you, young fella. All the other young fellas and young ladies. Anderson. All right, my name is Ben, and I have the honor of serving as a lead pastor here at uh Downtown Community Church. We are in a uh brand new series uh that we're gonna be going through through the summer. I'm something to pray for us as we as we begin today. Jesus, as we are gathered in your presence, we pray that you would speak to each and every one of us, no matter where we are in terms of our relationship with you. Jesus, for those of us who, when we walked into the room, we have been loving, serving, following you for a while, would you make today um helpful, fresh, challenging, um renewing for our faith? For those of us who have recently started following you, would you help us to see what it looks like to live a life completely sent for you, King Jesus? And for those of us who are in the room who are still trying to figure this whole thing out, God, Jesus, Church, Bible, will you help us to see that Jesus, when you walked on the planet, when people saw you clearly, you changed everything in their life. And they wanted it, they loved it, and they loved you. And so we pray that that would happen today, King Jesus. No matter where we are, if we see you clearly, King, that our lives would change, eternity would shift towards and for you. And it's in your name we pray. Amen. Amen. So we are going through some of the book of Romans. And I want to tell you a little bit about how we're gonna segment this summer and why we're gonna do it the way that we're gonna do it. We are going through the latter part of the book of Romans, specifically on Romans 12 through 16. If you have ever read the Bible, um, then you maybe have known this, or you spent a lot of time reading the Bible, and you maybe know this. But Romans, Romans is written by someone named Paul, a man named Paul, and it was written one of the first uh letters that we have. There's four accounts of Jesus' life: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Then there's kind of a story of what happens in the early church, which is the book of Acts. Immediately after the book of Acts, we hear hit a series of letters written to churches. And this one specific is written by Paul to the church at Rome. And as he's writing to the church at Rome, the first 11 chapters are basically, they're one of the most comprehensive outer workings and inner workings weaving of the gospel. And then in chapter 12, he takes a shift. And it goes from this then is the right thought, the right doctrine, the right belief, to this then is how you should live from chapter 12 on. And we're not gonna leave chapters 1 through 11, but at times people have said, Ben, we should go verse by verse through the book of Romans. And I said, That sounds awesome. So, what would you like to do four years from now when we get done with that? I kid you not, I heard a um uh listen to a bunch of different sermons from a bunch of different people. I heard this one from a guy named John Piper, this was a long time ago, and I remember him talking about, he was given an overview of the beginning of chapters just nine through 11. He says, So we're gonna answer all of these questions in this series, and I kid you not, he says, so if you're here for the next couple of years, we should be able to get through all that. So, one interesting thing, and the reason I say this is, and I found this to be true in my study, it's so beautiful, both in the micro and in the macro, that when we go verse by verse, there's all of these individual slices and individual verses that you chunk out and you think, man, that's incredible, that's incredible, that's incredible. But what I wanted to do is talk about what this book is doing as a whole and why it matters to us. Because there's this fascinating thing that happens. What Paul essentially is doing in 12 and on is saying, there is something that God is doing. There is kind of a new sense of humanity, a new sense of what it means to be alive, a new sense of human flourishing, of what it means to be a Jesus follower. And he's gonna go through all of what that means. But he's gonna pull from all of what he just talked about. Because in the book of Romans, and in Rome specifically, what we're gonna talk about today is a little bit of the backstory and why that matters so much to chapter 12, verse 1. Because this is what he says in 12, verse 1. He says, if you got your Bible, in fact, you can open up to Romans chapter 12. This is Paul. He's saying, I appeal, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers. Now, one of the most classic lines I've heard in the Bible is whenever you hear somebody say, therefore, you have to know what it's. You guys are so smart, I'm telling you. Now, if you did not hear that, what do you the answer to that question is therefore. Really complex, right? Write that down. Everybody's like, oh my gosh, right? If you're in a church, you can just scream that one back in. They're like, oh, they're saved. That's unbelievable. Paul is connecting. This verse is a hinge that connects what all of what just happened to what's about to happen, where a lot of doctrine, where a lot of thought, where a lot of theology, where a lot of belief goes to meet life transformation. And so he's saying, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God. And what's his appeal to them? He says, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice. Now, in and of itself, this verse is pretty easy to understand what it's saying. But you have to understand what's been built to this point, to understand truly the appeal that he's making. You see, for most of us, we read that verse and we say, okay, in view of what God's done for me, let me live for him. In view of what God's done for me, let me live for him. And that's true. But Paul has done so much more work than that. And let me give you a brief history lesson of what was happening in Rome. When Jesus first died and rose from the dead, the Holy Spirit comes down. What you might not know is initially the assumption was that the gospel, this good news, this message of Jesus by the earliest followers, is it was only for the Jewish people, only for the nation of Israel, only for people who had the history of the law and the prophets and all of the background of the Old Testament. And so for a while, the the gospel is only going to these specific religious Jewish Israelite groups. And then a wild thing happens. The Gentiles all of a sudden start to come to faith. There's this crazy thing that happens with Peter at Cornelius' house, and they realize, oh my gosh, the gospel is not just meant for the Jews, is not just meant for the history, it's not just meant for the nation of Israel. This is for everybody, right? So what we now know is that the gospel is for everybody. And so they're created in that an inner tension between these two worlds. Because you've got to imagine, the gospel, which now said how you come to a saving faith in Jesus, is simply by, well, faith. Well, that was difficult because all of the history before the Jewish folk had known that the way that they're righteous with God is by how well they obeyed God. And then in about year 49 or so A.D., Claudius was the emperor at Rome. And there was an internal division that was happening in actually the city of Rome, amongst the Jewish folk. Because Christianity was originally permitted by Rome because it fell under the umbrella of the Jewish religion. And so what they thought is this falls underneath that. But as Christianity, as Jesus began to be proclaimed, there became this division amongst the Jews, again, because it was originally and thoughtfully for the Jews first. That when these two groups came together, it was this just really tense, really, really intricate. Really, we both love Jesus, but we don't know how to love each other in spite of loving Jesus together. But God's for both of us, but the way that you follow Jesus makes uncomfortable, the Jews would say to the Gentiles, and the Gentiles would say, Well, the way that you follow Jesus makes us uncomfortable. And problematically, Claudius in about 49 kicked all of the Jews out of town. In fact, you can read this in Acts chapter 18, verse 2, when Priscilla and Aquila, they get kicked out of Rome. And so for about five or six years, the only people in the church at Rome, the only people were Jew or Gentile Christians, people who had just recently come to faith. They didn't know, they didn't think, they didn't have the background, and about five or six years later, they're allowed back in. The Jews are allowed back in. So now you've got to think about this. And in fact, if you've ever been away or you have a military family, you've experienced this where you've got mom and dad, they're all raising kids, family, whatever it is, right? And then someone goes away for a little while, they go get, they get deployed, they go to war, whatever it is, and they come back and they're a parent. But my guy, we've been operating this house for a couple years without you. And so now the roles and who does what, and it's all complex and it's all difficult. Well, what's the point of that? This is why I love Romans. Because Paul doesn't see that as a problem, he actually sees that as an opportunity to explain why both groups actually need Jesus and why neither group has an advantage. And what it's gonna culminate into is this view of God's mercy. So we're gonna brief overview build into that pretty quickly. If you got your Bible, you can flip open to Romans chapter 1. Romans chapter 1. He starts off by talking to the popes who were of the Gentile audience. Now again, the Gentile audience, if I was gonna give them a title, a song title, they were the young, wild and free crew, right? Like they just kind of did what they wanted, as long as it looks good, as long as it feels good, travel, experience, progress, productivity, right? It was this, all of these worldly things. And so this is what Paul would say to them in Romans chapter 1. We'll start at verse 19. Now again, they didn't have the background of God, but he wants to clarify, for what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, they've been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world, and this and the things that have been made. Said, so they are without excuse, for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. What happened? They became futile in their thinking and foolish, and their hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. He's saying, Okay, so here's here's the here's the essence. If I was gonna, Paul would say, kind of categorize a lot of what's happened with the Gentiles, is though a lot of times internally, and they had a compass, a moral compass on their heart of what they ought to do and ought not do, and they had all the things that are right and the things that are wrong, they they just kind of did what was right to them, what felt good to them, what felt right to them at the time. And and a lot of times what that created was was not a worshiping of God, it was a worshiping of things above God. And so Paul looks and says, Here's the here's the brief of it. Therefore, God gave them up in their lusts of their heart to impurity and to the dishonoring of the body amongst themselves because here's why they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator who was blessed forever. He says, You know, you know what the the end of this is? They loved, served, worshipped the created instead of the creator. And there's a bunch of us who are in the room who that's us. And we know this because we keep running life and it keeps getting more tiring. We keep thinking when we get to that point, when we get to that point, when we get to that point, we're gonna be okay. If I can get in this relationship, if I can get into this program for my undergrad, if I can get into this master's program, if I can get this job, if I can get this internship, if we can move to this neighborhood, if we can have this many kids, if I can finally get this promotion, if we can start to save enough, if we can, once they finally get out of the house, then we'll be able to. And now they're finally out of the house, and who are you? Who are you, right? And then you kind of go through this life continually looking for what's next to make us okay. In our lives, sacrifice around something. You see, one of the things that Paul says again in 12, 1, is he says, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice. And when we hear that in religious language, we think that Paul's asking more of us. Can I tell you this? Every one of our lives sacrifices to the altar of something. And Paul is looking here and saying, okay, if it's just about what feels good, if it's just about what feels right, but Paul's gonna encourage us is to say there's something greater than the creature. There's something greater than the created. It's the creator himself. And so don't sacrifice your life to something lesser. But problematically, we all have. Now, the other side of it, and you know this, is for some of us, you heard that and you'd think that's right. I mean, y'all need to act right. Stop living for all that other type of stuff. Well, here's the problem is Paul basically is gonna say, that's terrible and that's self-righteous as well. In fact, in chapter two, he says this to the nation of Israel, because the problem with them was they knew right. And did they do right? At times, but mostly for the wrong reasons. But more specifically, they were trying to be good enough to get in God's good graces. This is what he says in chapter 2, verse 17. He says, but if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God, what does that mean? He says, and if and if you're the person in here that the way that you refer to and spend time with and that your relationship with God is defined by all of the places and areas of obedience. The amount of times that you showed up to church, the fact that you lifted your hands in worship, the fact that you went to right, here are the things that I've done. He said if you call yourself a Jew and rely and boast on the law and boast in God, and know his will, you approve what is excellent because you are instructed from the law. And if you are sure that you are a guide to the blind, if you are a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of it. He's just like laying on, he's like, okay, so if you think that you're mature, let me say this for every single one of us who have been following Jesus for a while, need to pay special attention to what he's about to say. Because it is the innate nature of any religion to have that start to drive us to a place where that becomes the reason we're acceptable to God. He said, But you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself while you preach against stealing? Do you steal? Now, every single person in here who has ever been skeptical of religious people and looked at them and said, wait, you say that, but then you do that. How can that be? Let me just tell you, you should find so much comfort in this because what you've always felt, this duplicity that you've seen, right? What you've always had a robust sense of opposition to faith because of that, you need to know that Paul sees that too. And he sees the self-righteous boastfulness of the religious elite that look at it and say, look how good I am. And he says, wait a second, wait a second, wait a second. You preach against stealing. Do you steal? I'm like, no, unless it's my kid's candy at Halloween, you know? Then it's a paternal tax. You who say that you must not commit adultery. Do you commit adultery? And the problem is, as Jesus said, hey, if you look at anyone lustfully, it's adultery in your heart. You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law, dishonor God by breaking the law, for as it is written, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because this is what he says. And I kid you not, Paul is saying, before this whole thing even jumped off, before we even looked in modernity and said, Oh, this duplicity, Paul said, here's the problem. Even the religious people who know the truth don't do the truth, and in fact, it's it's creating a terrible reputation for God. Now, isn't that familiar? But his point isn't, we're all toast. His point isn't we're all done. What's his point? In Romans chapter 3, he says, both of these groups are trying to find this freedom. Both of these groups are trying to find their way back to God, but both of them have sinned and fallen short. Chapter 3, verse 21. But now the righteousness of God has been manifest apart from the law, although in the law and the prophets bear witness to it. In other words, a righteousness, a right standing with God, has come to us, and it doesn't have to do with how well we obey and the things that we do, although all those things from back then they point to this. This righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all to believe. For there was no distinction. Why? Because they would make distinctions. They'd say some are better, some are worse. He says, no, no, no. Every single one of us, every single one of us in this room, if you are the most religious person in here, then the chances are that your sense of idolatry is self-righteousness, right? And if you're not a hyper-religious person in here, then probably it's just self-fulfillment, self-enjoyment, pleasure, pursuit, comfort, happiness, all of those types of things. He says, but here's the reality. One, the self-righteous is trying to earn their way back to God, of which we never can. And the unrighteous is trading, following God for the things that God's made. And that's just as disappointing. But he would look at the church and say, you know what's true about all of us? Every single person in here is a sinner. In deep need of a savior. We've all sinned. And all fallen short of the glory of God. The more religious you are, the more difficult that is to hear that somebody completely what looks like irreligious to you is just as unreligious as you. Apart from Jesus. Romans 12, 1. What he's saying is not you've done bad, you've done awful. Try to do better. You've done bad, you've done awful. Now, because you've done bad, because you've done awful, present your bodies to God as a living sacrifice, this continual, perpetual sacrifice to God, and maybe God will be happy with you. Notice the order of operations. He says, in view of God's mercy, present your bodies as living sacrifices, right? The idea is it's reciprocation. He's saying, okay, I want you to all see Jews, I want you to see this, Gentiles, I want you to see this, religious folks. I want you to see this, unreligious folks, I want you to see this, that apart from Jesus, we are all up a creek without a paddle. Without Jesus, we are either following the creation, which is a subversion of the creator, or we're thinking that we're God and we can do it enough and that we're holy enough. He's saying, but we've all sinned, we've all fallen short of the glory of God. And so what does God do? God saw that. God knew that. God sent his son to die to cover us, the propitiation, the appeasement of the wrath of God for our sins. And so what do we then do? We present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. What religion will say is sacrifice so that you are acceptable to God. What Jesus says is, I have sacrificed, now you are acceptable to me. Therefore, live for me. It's not doing in order to create, it has been done, so don't go back to that way. Romans 6 picks up on this. Romans 6 it says this. Actually, I don't know if we have this on the screen. I'm going to start at verse 8. Start at verse 5. Oh, we do have it on the screen. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. In other words, that life was brought to nothing, for one has died, for one who has died has been set free from sin. Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him, for the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. He's going through and saying, You got to get this. We have died to sin, now we are alive in Christ. We have died to sin, now we are alive in Christ. Going over to verse 16. Do you know that if you present yourselves to anyone? Now he's using kind of an analogy right here. Do you know that if you present to your anyone, for yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness. But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of the teaching to which you were committed, having been set free from sin and have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms for your natural limitations, for as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. Why do I say all of that? Because I want you to see Paul's argument to leave, to live for God, Paul's argument to say, hey, in view of God's mercy, present your bodies as living sacrifices. Here's what he's saying. Every single one of us is sacrificing to something. And he would look at the Jews and say, you're sacrificing to the idol of self-righteousness, not to the sacrifice of Jesus. And he would look at the Gentiles and say, and you're sacrificing your life for the creatures that the creator created, the creation of the creator. In other words, we're all sacrificing for something dull, sacrifice for something dumb. I don't know how else to say it. If you believe in Jesus, right? His point in 12.1 is this is the outer working of what I've been saying this whole time. Yeah, of course. Why would you, if you're a Jew and you have been living in this self-righteous way that you think that the reason that God doesn't want you to pray is because you haven't prayed. The reason that you haven't read your Bible is because it's been two weeks since you've read your read your Bible, or two months since you read your Bible. And can I tell you this? The thing, the primary thing that keeps us from engaging with God as Jesus followers is how long it's been since we've engaged with God. And the reason is it's because we think it's because of our righteousness that we were able to engage in the first place. You see, that's self-righteousness. He's saying, forget that. And on the other side, he's saying, if you've been living and sacrificing everything for yourself, they don't want you to see how futile that is, how empty that is. And how that really never satisfies. That's why everything I said is a continual, and when this happens, we'll be okay. And when this happens, we'll be happy. You know what he says? He says, I want you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. The best way I can explain this. And I've used this illustration before, maybe once every couple years. But it's like this person's in this courtroom. Judge walks in, you know. The person's sitting, you know, says, All right, you know, everybody does this thing. Sit down. They go through the proceeding. I want you to imagine that's that's you in the courtroom. They go through the proceedings. They're given witness testimony here, witness testimony there, witness testimony here, witness testimony, and you just know you're guilty. You just know it's exactly what you've done. But what you also know is that that's a good judge up on the stand. In fact, it's kind of a crazy judge on the stand. Because you know you've done all of these things and you deserve to be put away. You deserve to be locked away. And what the judge says is all of these things are true. And whether or not you asked for it, I knew that. And whether you are not you asked for it, I have actually paid for every single one of the things that you've ever done. And in fact, I've paid for them. My son is going to receive this punishment that you should have paid. Now, now, court has been adjourned. You are not just. You are not just not guilty, you are not just forgiven. You, I'm gonna treat you like you're my son. In fact, you're gonna become my son. In fact, judge is gonna offer and he's gonna say, you can have everything, you can have the keys. In fact, I want you to know that you can come to my house, you can come every single day, you can spend time with me, you can dine with me. In fact, all that is mine is yours. I want you to know that these things that have been done to you, they no longer define you. I've been, and in fact, I'm not just a judge, I'm the wealthy, wealthy. I own the entire everything, right? And I want you to imagine you're in this courtroom, you've got the handcuffs on, he's just declared not just free, not just forgiven, but a son and a daughter. Nobody can believe it. Everybody's walking out of the courtroom saying, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard a judge say in my life. Of course it would be. And you just sit there with handcuffs on in the courtroom. Because you're still shackled to this old way of life. You never actually get up and walk into freedom. Paul says, if you know Jesus, get up. Walk. If you know Jesus, here's what you do. You present your bodies as a living sacrifice. And I love how he ends it. He says, this is it, it depends on your translation, your spiritual act of worship. One of my favorite versions of this, it's actually the word where we get the word logic from, because it one says it's your rational or your reasonable act of worship. In other words, he's saying this. If we believe God has done all of that, set us free. If God has, no matter where you're from, no matter if it was the self-righteousness, no matter if it was the just young wild and freeness, you know, whatever you were doing, he says, no, no, no. We've all sinned, we've all fallen for the glory of God, we've all been there in handcuffs. And God said to all of us, I have sent my son to have divine mercy, that you not just don't face that judgment, not just are forgiven, but you are a son, a daughter of God. We will spend eternity with him. And he says, now that that's true, to present yourselves, to go and spend time with, to live this new life, to sacrifice, to be with this king, he says, that's the only reasonable thing to do. Did you know that if we believe this, which we do, to do other is actually one of the most illogical, unreasonable things that we can do. And for a lot of people who are critical of faith and reason, it seems pretty reasonable that we would live by faith if we actually believe all this. Because why would we sit in the court for the rest of our lives in shackles? Let me tell you this. The goal of today is not now go and never do anything bad again. You know what he says? You know what he actually says is the action in this? We get so amped up around all the things that we have to do. Here's the command. Romans 12. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers. By the mercies of God, to present. To present your body. Next week, next week, we started doing our sermon and our run-through a number of days in advance. We did next week's whole uh service this past Thursday. And I, not even in the sense of like, oh, this is gonna be good, I got some, like, next week, I can't tell you how much I want you to be here, not because of the fact that it's church, literally because of the fact that this is a sermon that I've been waiting to give, because what we're tempted to do with this is just run and say, okay, God, here's all of the things that I'm gonna do, and I mean it. And what's difficult about this sermon is how do we live our lives as an act of worship, as spiritual worship, as reasonable worship? The way that we worship God is by a sacrifice life, God, anything, everything, but how do we not do that in a way that's self-righteous? It's an incredibly important question, and that's why today's application is not go do. Today's application is simply this. Would we every single day for the next week just be willing to say, God, I present myself to you. Holy, pleasing, holy, set apart, whatever you need, wherever you want. God, my life is a blank check. I'll do whatever you want. Maybe it's for you. You have your schedule for the day, and you pray through your calendar. I had a lady that told me this, I was incredible advice. She said, Every single day, I pray through my calendar, I pray through my schedule. God, please be present here. God, please show me what you just want me to see here. God, please help me to be attentive to the needs here, right? You just say, God, I am presenting myself to you. Do whatever you want, wherever you want. God, I'm a blank check, send me. That's what this sermon is calling for. That's what Romans 12 is calling for. And it's calling us to do that, not because of the fact that we're good enough, but because of what God has done for us. That we look at him and say, God, if you would set me free, then I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna walk out of the courtroom. If it really is by your blood shed for me, I'll do whatever you want. And so, God, it's a living sacrifice to you. In the rest of the book of Romans, we're gonna see in detail what a life that looks like a living sacrifice to God looks like. But if the rest of what a life of a living sacrifice to God looks like is done to earn his mercy and not in view of his mercy, we will simply be another self-righteous church. I want us to be a people who deeply and passionately love and know Jesus. Who, in view of his mercy, give everything back to him. Let's pray. God, would you help each and every one of us? Some of us we've been like the Gentiles who worshiped and served the created rather than the creator. We've chased life and looked for life through progress, success, experiences, travel, comfort, relationships, we've looked for life in all of these created things. And everything leaves us wanting the next thing, none of it fully satisfies. For some of us, we have based our relationship with you off of our performance. What we've done, what we haven't done. How many times that we showed up, how many times we've prayed, how many groups we've led. But Jesus, we know that every single one of us is a sinner in need of a savior. We know that none of this is possible if it wasn't for the fact that you, the God of heaven, loved us, served us. We've all fallen short. But you made a way that had nothing to do with what we do, but what you did when you sent your son to die for us. And so, God, would you help each and every one of us to not have an agenda when we say this, to not have an agenda when we pray this, to not have a preconceived thought or notion of what this even means, but to simply every single day say, God, I am a living sacrifice in view of what you have done for me, in view of the sacrifice that you have done for me, in view of the fact that you have forgiven me, you have set me free, and you have not just called me to you, but you've called me to live for something far better. Why would I settle for the creation when I have the creator? Why would I settle for self-righteousness when in you I have true righteousness? Why would I settle for a lesser sacrifice? Why would I die for things that never died for me? And we would just present ourselves to you, King Jesus, every single day. Whatever you want, wherever you want, whatever you want. That we would wake up every morning and pray, God, I'm a sacrifice for you because of everything you sacrificed for me. And my sacrifice to you isn't a sacrifice and always the painful sense. My sacrifice to you is a call to live for more, a call to live for the creator over the creation and the righteous over the self-righteous. Your mercy is not just my forgiveness and my acceptance, but that you have called me and given me life to live for you. A new life, a new humanity, the Jew and the Gentile under the banner of you, King Jesus.