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You're listening to Heed the Word with our pastor and teacher, Ken Davis. Pastor Ken is the senior pastor of Calvary Chapel, Southwest Metro. Please join us as we study our series entitled Lessons in Christian Living.

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The Bible tells us that God loves us, and not only does he love us, but he showed us that he loved us. It says that God demonstrated His love for us in this that while we were yet sinners, before we stopped drinking, before we stopped sleeping around, before we stopped cursing and swearing and hating people, before we stopped beating people up with our words or with our fists, whatever the case might be, while we were still sinners even in the midst of all of that wickedness in our lives, christ the case might be. While we were still sinners, even in the midst of all of that wickedness in our lives, christ Jesus died for us.

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There's no shortage of self-help books, motivational speakers and opinions out there about how we're supposed to live on this earth, but as Christians, we need to take our direction in this area from the Word of God. So we're bringing you our series entitled Lessons in Christian Living, taken from the 12th and 13th chapters of Paul's letter to the church in Rome. There are many people today who believe the old saying Jesus only helps those who help themselves. They think that in order to approach the Father, that we have to fix ourselves first. This is a lie. Jesus wants to come to him as we are, with a heart of repentance. It is then that he begins his work of grace that changes us. Don't forget to stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Heed the Word, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, please open your Bibles to the book of Psalms, chapter 29, verse 1, as we join Pastor Ken with the beginning of part three in our series entitled Lessons in Christian Living.

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Psalm 29, verses 1 and 2, say this Give unto the Lord, o, you mighty ones. Give unto the Lord glory and strength. Give unto the Lord the glory. Do His name. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

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The phrase there that stood out to me was give unto the Lord the glory that is due his name. You know, we owe God a sacrifice of praise, do we not? We owe God the glorification that is rightly his, that we would honor him, that we would glorify him, that we would speak the truth about him and about his goodness. When I think of giving the Lord the glory that is due his name, I am reminded yet again of Romans, chapter 12, verses one and two, where we find ourselves beginning this morning, in which Paul writes I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God, the glory due his name, that which is your reasonable service, amen. It is reasonable that we should glorify God because of all that he has done for us and because of all that he is.

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You know today we're going to be moving on into verses three through eight, but before we do that, I need to speak for a moment to those who are not born again. I need to talk to you this morning If you have not come to that place in your life where you have confessed to Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, where you have not come to that point where you have confessed your sins before God and repented of them. Repenting from your sins means to be sorry for your sins, but it also means to be sorry enough that you don't want to commit them anymore, that you want to turn away from your sins in order to follow God. If you are here this morning and you have not confessed Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, if you have not repented of your sins, if you have not sought God for the forgiveness of your sins and asked him to come and live in your heart and to be your Lord, you are the one that I want to talk to for just a minute or two Now. The reason I want to talk to you specifically for just a minute or two is because the rest of the time, I'm going to be talking to people who are already Christians, and so, before I get to all of that, I need to talk to you for a moment, you who are not believers in Jesus Christ.

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We stand here today together, a church, a fellowship of people who once were just like you. There was a time in each of our lives when we did not believe in Jesus Christ. We might have acknowledged that he existed, but we hadn't put our faith or our hope or our trust in him, and we certainly didn't acknowledge him as our Lord. You see, that word Lord means master and owner, and if I am born again, if I am a Christian, that means that Jesus is my master and owner. And you know what? That's actually a really good thing. We were all once just like you.

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Maybe you're skeptical. This morning, some of us were skeptical. Maybe you just have never heard before about Jesus Christ and all that he has done for you. Some of us had never heard before. Or maybe you are so wrapped up in your own thing, in doing what you want to do, that you're not willing to let go of that in order to follow Jesus. Some of us here this morning were once just like you.

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But you see, something happened to us. We began to realize that there was an emptiness in our hearts, that, no matter what we did to satisfy ourselves ourselves were never satisfied. No matter what we got, we wanted more. No matter what we did, we found that, even though it might distract us for a little while, in the end we were alone again and we were lost in our sin. And one day someone shared with us the truth of what Jesus Christ has done and we believed what we were told and, as a result of that, we confessed our sin. In other words, we admitted that we had done wrong and that God was right and that we needed to turn from following ourselves and going and doing the things that we wanted to do, to turn and follow him, that we might do the things that he wanted us to do. And we came to the cross. You know, you hear that phrase we came to the cross. Well, what does that mean? Does that mean I have to go to a couple of two-by-fours? No, we came to the cross. What that means is this the cross is the place where Jesus died. It's the place where the one who knew no sin he'd never done anything wrong became sin for us, you see that we might be declared righteous by God.

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You see, here's the problem. The Bible tells us that everyone has sinned. It says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Let me back up for a second. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That means that if you are not saved, if you are not born again this morning, then you are just like we all were at one time. You're a sinner. Okay, now, when I say you're a sinner, don't be offended by that, because I'm the sinner too. We were all sinners, we were all lost. But the problem is, the Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death, and that means that if you have ever sinned in your life, you deserve to be punished for that sin. The wages of sin is death.

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But you see, the Bible tells us that God loves us, and not only does he love us, but he showed us that he loved us. It says that God demonstrated his love for us in this that while we were yet sinners, before we stopped drinking, before we stopped sleeping around, before we stopped cursing and swearing and hating people, before we stopped beating people up with our words or with our fists, whatever the case might be, while we were still sinners, even in the midst of all of that wicked, or with our fists, whatever the case might be, while we were still sinners, even in the midst of all of that wickedness in our lives, christ Jesus died for us. So, as rotten as we were, god still loved us enough to send his son to die for us. That's a lot of love, isn't it? That is a love that we don't deserve.

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And when you receive something that you don't deserve, the word for that in the Bible is grace. Grace is when God gives you what you don't deserve. The word for that in the Bible is grace. Grace is when God gives you what you don't deserve, you see, and it says that the thief or the enemy comes but to steal and to kill and to destroy. But Jesus came that we might have life and that we might have it more abundantly. So God loved us so much that he sent his son to die for us, to die in our place, so that we could be forgiven of our sins and have eternal life in Jesus Christ.

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Now, the rest of us, who were just like you, who did not believe when we came to believe, when we believed in our hearts that Jesus Christ was the son of God and we confessed him as Lord. When we believed in our hearts and confessed with our mouth, something happened we were saved, we were born again, we were cleansed from all of our sins and we were given eternal life, so that when we die, we know that we will be in heaven with God. Now, if you are not a Christian this morning, I want you to know this. Just like it happened to us, it can happen to you. Just as we heard the truth. You have now heard the truth and you can be forgiven today. If you want to be born again, if you want to be forgiven for your sins, if you want to have that hole that is in your heart, that big emptiness, if you want to have that filled up with the spirit of God, and if you want to know that you can go to heaven when you die, that's available for you this morning. All you have to do is believe in your heart and confess or admit with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and that God has raised him from the dead. That's all. So that's what I have to say to you this morning who are not believers? You can do that right now. You don't have to wait for me this morning. Who are not believers? You can do that right now. You don't have to wait for me to say a prayer with you. You don't have to come forward for a prayer service, although I'm gonna give you the opportunity to do those things but you can make that decision in your heart right now, and I invite you to do so Now for the rest of you, for those of you who are Christians, who are born again, who have been forgiven for your sins, who have received the gift of the Holy Spirit and eternal life, or for those of you who've just made that commitment just now. The rest of what I have to say this morning is for you.

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So in Romans, chapter 12, verse one, paul wrote I beseech you therefore, wherefore? Why is he saying? He beseeches us? Because of the gospel that I've just shared with you. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice. That means, very simply Jesus died for you, so now you go and live for him A living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service, and do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God? You see, when Jesus Christ is our Lord, we submit ourselves to his will. And as we submit ourselves to his will and as we live our lives for him, then we discover that God's will is good, that God's will is acceptable and that God's will is perfect. You see, we have a plan for our own lives. We think we know what we want and how we want to live, but God has a plan that is so much better than ours that once we walk into it and once we realize what he's doing, we're blown away by it. We're amazed by it. We're thrilled by the revelation of God's will in our life because we realize how perfect it is.

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Now, before we move forward into Romans 12, I want you to turn to Colossians, chapter 3. Colossians is sort of around the middle of the New Testament I like to think of go eat popcorn Galatians, ephesians, philippians, colossians it's an easy way to remember where that is If you get into the T's which are first and second. You know Thessalonians, timothy and Titus and all those. You went too far. So Colossians, chapter three, in verse one, paul writes if then you were raised with Christ. In other words, okay, if you actually have been born again, if you really are a believer, seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth, for you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. So, in other words, if you profess that Jesus Christ is Lord, then you should be more concerned with seeing his kingdom come than seeing your kingdom on earth established. You understand, our eyes need to be on Jesus Christ and on his kingdom and on what he wants us to do for his glory, rather than on what we want him to do for our pleasure and benefit. Keep your eyes on heavenly things, not on earthly things. In other words, your priorities need to be godly priorities, divine priorities, heavenly priorities rather than earthly priorities.

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Let me give you an example we live in a world where a whole lot of people don't know Jesus Christ. A whole lot of people don't know Jesus Christ. A whole lot of people don't know Jesus Christ. Millions of people today have not heard the gospel, and that is hard for us to comprehend why? Because we live in a country where the gospel permeates everything. I mean, the gospel goes out over the radio waves as we know, we're a part of that. The gospel goes out over the television waves. The gospel is posted on billboards, right? The gospel is available in every bookstore, and there's a church on so many corners today.

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Now, are they all preaching the gospel? No, a lot of them are preaching a lot of false doctrine, and that has happened because people don't have a love for the truth. People rather love other things, right? But comparatively speaking, we have, in the United States, access to the gospel If we want it, if we seek it. It's not that hard for us to find, is it? But there are parts of this world where people can't get their hands on a Bible, world where people can't get their hands on a Bible. There are parts of this world where a little fellowship of believers finally gets a hold of a Bible in their own language and so that they can all have at least a little bit of it, they will tear it into pieces, sections at a time, and each family will take a little section of it home with them and they will read it and they will pour over it and they will memorize chapters, if books, of the Bible that they might have it for themselves. And then they'll come back to the little house church that they're a part of and they'll trade copies so that eventually that whole Bible works its way all around that little church and, compared to some people, they're blessed because there are some places on this earth where people don't even have a copy of God's word in their own language.

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Now, here we sit in our opulence, here we sit in all of our blessing, all of our comfort, and we complain. You see, when we complain, I don't like the fact that I drive a 10-year-old car Praise the Lord, you have a 10-year-old car. Praise the Lord, you have a 10-year-old car. Oh, I don't like the fact that I had to buy my clothes at Goodwill. Thank God there's a Goodwill you could go to to buy your clothes. By the way, if anybody I've had conversations with a couple of you. I'm not aiming at anybody, that's just an example.

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Okay, now if I have my eyes on worldly things and let's say I come into $25,000, $30,000, just boom, wow, there it is. It would be really easy for me to spend all of that on myself, right, and no one would fault me for it. Or if I have my eyes on heavenly things, then I could go to God and I could say Lord, what do you want me to do with this? And he might say I want you to spend it on a house, or I want you to spend it on a car. I'm not gonna say that God would never say that. He might say that, but I at least need to give him the option, don't I? And what he might say is I want you to invest that so that someone in a third world country can get a translation of the Bible in their own language. So a good portion of what you've received needs to go to Wycliffe Bible Translators, right? Or some other missionary venture in which the gospel of Jesus Christ will be promoted throughout the world. You see, that is having your eye on heavenly things. It's not to say, well, I need to do this with it or I need to do that with it, but to have your eye on heavenly things is to go to your father and say Lord, what do you want me to do with it? And acknowledge the fact that he may tell you to do any number of things with it, but seek his will for what he wants you to do with the things and the blessings that you've received.

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I hate talking about money. People get the wrong impression. So please don't misunderstand me. I don't want your money, as far as that goes. You understand. If you are sitting here today and you think, oh that pastor, you know he's just talking about money today, please don't give a penny to us. Give it somewhere else. You understand what I'm saying. If that's your heart, we don't want it.

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You do what the Lord commands you to do. Why? Because he's your Lord, he's your master, he's your owner, he's your boss, he's the one who directs you, he's the one who leads you. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth, for you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Therefore, put to death your members which are on the earth.

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Fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil, desire and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things, the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience in which you also once walked when you lived in them. But now you must also put off all these things anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man, who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of him, who created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all. Verse 12,.

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Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a complaint against another. Even as christ forgave you, so you also must do christian for you. As a christian, forgiving somebody else is not an option, it's a requirement. Do you understand that? God commands you to forgive, doesn't command you to be able to forgive? Only he is able to forgive. But you purpose in your heart to forgive that person and God gives you the ability to do that. But above all these things, put on love, which is the bond of perfection, and let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

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And here's really the verse I want to get to today. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God, the Father, through him. And verse 23 is like it, which says and whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not to men. You see, whatever we do in life, if we belong to Jesus Christ, then whatever we do in life is an act of worship to God. We do in life is an act of worship to God. If I can't do it as an act of worship, then I ought not be doing it as a Christian. Do you understand? Whatever you do, if you vacuum the floor, that vacuuming of the floor should be done with all your might. Do it heartily, as unto the Lord. If you get up and go to work in the morning, you should go to work in the morning not to please your boss, but to please God. If you're washing dishes at home, kids, you're not washing dishes to please your parents. You're washing dishes to please the Lord and you should do it heartily as unto him. Do you hear what I'm saying Whatever you do, do it heartily. In other words, put all of you into it. Do your best, because when you do your best you're bringing glory to your Father in heaven. Do it heartily, as unto the Lord.

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Romans chapter 12 makes all of life holy. It makes all of life a worship service. You see, we worship God on Sunday mornings when we come in here and we sing songs to him. But you should also worship God on Sunday nights when you go home and cook dinner for your family to him. But you should also worship God on Sunday nights when you go home and cook dinner for your family. You should also worship God when you tip the waitress at the restaurant this afternoon for lunch, and you should tip that waitress to the glory of God.

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You know, even when I get bad service, I find it almost impossible not to tip because I think of how gracious God was to me. You know, especially if that person saw me praying over my meal. Guys, if you're not going to tip, please don't give thanks in public. You understand what I'm saying. My pastor back in Bakersfield used to say if you can't afford to leave a tip, go to McDonald's. People used to call it Church 30, when all of the churches would come into the restaurant after lunch, right, notoriously one of the worst times for waitresses and waiters, because a lot of those folks don't tip. Don't bring a bad report upon the Lord. Don't reflect badly upon Him. Be generous as God prospers you and understand those poor folks only make about $2.11 an hour. I wouldn't want to have that on my heart, you know. So, whatever you do, do it as unto the Lord.

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Verse 1 of chapter 12, again Paul urges you. He says I urge you or I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service, and do not be conformed to this world but be transformed or metamorphosized or completely changed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Moving into verse 3, for I say Paul is writing For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. Now Paul writes here that there is a certain grace that has been given to him or a certain something that he did not deserve. That has been given to him, and it is through that which has been given to him that he is speaking.

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Well, what Paul has received, among many other things, is apostolic authority. God ordained Paul as the apostle to the Gentiles. In other words, he was one who was the messenger of God to them. And so Paul is saying, through the grace given to me, in essence, as the messenger of God, do these things. So, in essence, what he's saying is I'm not speaking here in my own authority, but I'm speaking in the authority of God. So Paul writes again, for I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you Now, of course he's speaking to the church in Rome, but he's also speaking to the church in Burleson today.

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Well, that's all the time we have for today. You've been listening to Heed the Word, the radio ministry of Calvary Chapel, Southwest Metro, located in Burleson, Texas. With so many ideas out there about the Christian life, we thought it necessary to share with you a series entitled Lessons for Christian Living, a teaching through the 12th and 13th chapters of the Book of Romans that tackles the issues of Christian life. If you were with us at the beginning of today's broadcast, you know we mentioned that we'd be giving additional information about Heed the Word and how to get a free copy of this message. For more information about Heed the Word, log on to heedthewordorg. That's heedthewordorg.

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At the website, you'll find everything you need our contact information and a link to our online order form, which will allow you to place an order for a CD of today's message in its unedited form. Since all of our materials are free of charge, supplies are limited, so log on to heedthewordorg and place your order today. As we close today, we want to encourage you to not just listen to Heed the Word, but to truly apply what you're learning. Take the Word of God and begin applying it to your life every day. Well, that's all the time we have for this edition of Heed the Word with Pastor Ken Davis. Place a marker in your Bibles and join us next time as Pastor Ken continues with our series entitled Lessons for Christian Living.