Portraits: Paul-Total Sacrifice produces Total Transformation

Portraits: Total Sacrifices Produces Transformation

Speaking Date: March 27th

Place:  Refuge(Christian Challenge/BSU)

Series Title:  Portraits

Message Title:  Total Sacrifice Produces Total Transformation

Key Passages:

Philippians 3:4-11, Romans 12:1-2, James 4:1-3, James 1:13-15, 2 Corinthians 5:14-17

CIT:  Total Sacrifice produces total transformation

SO:  My hearers will understand that true transformation occurs when they wholly sacrifice themselves to Jesus.

Transition:

Please watch this video clip on the screen (cue video)

1. Prayer:  Father God, I thank you for the opportunity we have tonight to gather together and worship.  Please fill me with your Spirit and let me decrease as you increase.  Father you know the hearts of everyone here.  You know all the every care and concern we have.  You also know how the pursuits of some of the things we want make us wretched creatures like the Beast.  But Father, thank you that through the Total Sacrifice of your Son Jesus Christ we can be transformed and made new.  Let your Spirit reign in this place and let Your Word transform our hearts and minds.  In Jesus Name, Amen.
2.  Good evening. We’re glad that you could join us tonight.  I know it’s been awhile since our last Refuge so to refresh your memory or for those of you that are new; we’ve been going through a series this spring called “Portraits.”
3. We’ve been learning about God through His relationship with different characters in the bible. 

Introduction

1.        Tonight we will be looking at the life of Paul and exploring the idea of Total Sacrifice and the role it plays in our personal Transformation.

2.       Sometimes the pursuits of things we want make us wretched beastly creatures.

3.       But through the total sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we can be transformed from beasts into something new and beautiful. 

4.       We’re going to be examining several passages in the bible to see what God has to say about this subject. 

I.                      We are wretched beastly creatures(ME)

a.        Before we talk about Paul we first need to talk about this guy named Saul.  The first time we’re introduced to Saul is in Acts 7.  The scene we’re given is of a mob gathering to stone a devout follower of Jesus named Saul. 

What the Bible Says: (EXP)

Acts 7:57-58

“yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him.  Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.” 

1.        Saul condoned the murder of an innocent man

Acts 8:3

“Saul began to destroy the church.  Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.”

2.       Saul hunted innocent people to bring them to prison

Acts 9:1-2

“Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples.  He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, (that’s what Christians were called) whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.”

3.       Saul wanted to murder followers of Jesus

Transition

a.        So this picture we’re getting of Saul isn’t a good one.  There seems to be this progressive decline of morality in Saul.  But something you might ask is why or how Saul starts down this dark path.  What would motivate him to hunt innocent people to imprison and kill them?

b.      Well Saul was a devout Jew.  We’re told in Philippians 3 that Saul was a Hebrew of Hebrews.  He was a Pharisee and unqeualed in his religious zeal.    In his own words Saul says that in regard to his religious fervor he persecuted the church.  As for righteousness based on the law, faultless.

c.       So Saul is doing all of these beastly acts because he wants to be a good Jew.  He’s just doing what he needs to due to pursue his desires. 

d.      And don’t we do this too?  We all have things we want that we think will make us happy. 

What the Bible Means for you: (APP)

1.        We are like Saul in pursuing what we think is best for us

2.       We are like Saul in eliminating or destroying the things that will keep us from getting what we want.

·         Lying to get people to like us more

·         Lying to get a job

·         Cheating on an exam

·         Stealing by downloading media or music

Transition:

a.        These things that we do to get what we want, do they make us beastly?

II.                   The pursuit of our pleasures cause conflict and discontent(ME)

What the Bible Says: (EXP)

James 4:1-3

“What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you? 2 You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. 3 And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.”

Transition:

1.  Ouch!  Does that passage describe us?  Do we like Saul become so focused on getting what we want that we lose sight of how our behaviors and actions affect others?
2. The bible is saying:

1.       The cause of our discontent and conflict in life come from our evil desires(v1)

2.       Our selfish behaviors and actions hurt other people because we are blinded by the pursuit of our pleasure(v2-3)

What the Bible Means for you: (APP)

1.        We disguise our evil desires in religious language

·         A desire to be spiritually mature, trying to correct someone but doing it harshly or with the motive of asserting our spiritual maturity

·         A desire to show how loving and attuned to the Spirit we are by gossiping to other Christians about faults we see in others under the guise of prayer

2.        We pursue things that give us pleasure without thinking about how it affects others

·         The pursuit of a relationship with a person of the opposite sex, feel affirmed and good about ourselves, but not interested

·         Sex industry, selling of humans in Tucson

Transition:

a.       These things that we want and we pursue a lot of the time it hurts other people but what does the pursuit of our pleasures do to us? 

b.      After all is said and done do we end up more content or happy after chasing what we want? 

c.       What happens when we give in to things that tempt us?

III.                 The pursuit of our evil desires leads to death(ME)

James 1:13-15

“No one undergoing a trial should say, “I am being tempted by God.” For God is not tempted by evil, and He Himself doesn’t tempt anyone. 14 But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desires. 15 Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death.”

What the Bible Says: (EXP)

1.  God doesn’t lead us into evil(v13)

·          “God is Tempting me”

2. The pursuit of our evil desires leads to sin(v14)

·         The pursuit of the desire leads to sin not the desire itself

·         Giving in and giving up

3. The pursuit of sin leads to death(v15)

What the Bible Means for you: (APP)

1. Don’t try to justify the indulgence of sinful behaviors/actions

·         I have a sex drive and like girls/guys so its ok for me to have sex with them as long as they consent, it’s just sex

·         When I blow up and go off on people it’s ok because God gave me an angry temperament

2. Take Responsibility for your actions

·         Someone abusing alcohol or doing drugs because they grew up in an environment where substance abuse occurred

·         Blaming your actions or attitudes on someone else.  They made me get angry.

Transition:

1.  So now we know that we all have evil desires and that if we give in or pursue these desires it leads to death
2. But what about times when we don’t know if the desire is good or bad?  How do we discern whether or not our desires are evil? 
3. I think the bible gives us the answer…

IV.                 Let God Transform the way you think(ME)

What the Bible says: (EXP)

Romans 12:1-2

“And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. 2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”

1.  Sacrifice yourself to God(v1)

·         Step one God is telling us that if we want to avoid being led to death by pursuing our evil desires , we need to sacrifice ourselves

·         Total sacrifice

2. Let God transform you by changing the way you think(v2)

·          The other thing we learn is that we’re to let God transform us by changing the way we think

·         God changes us not us

Transition:

1.  I want to come back to this idea of sacrifice.  What does this mean for us to sacrifice ourselves?

What the Bible means for you: (APP)

1.  Sacrifice every action, attitude and thought to God

·         Sacrificing part of the chicken, give up everything not just our exams and boyfriends/girlfriends

·         Giving a good gift

2.  You must die to your old self to be transformed by God

-The best way I could think to illustrate this was by comparing caterpillars to butterflies.  Caterpillars are fat disgusting grubs the kind of stuff that Timon and Pumba eat.  They crawl on the ground and destroy plants, cause that’s what they eat.  Their perspective of the world is all from the ground in dirt and nastiness.  But then you compare the caterpillar with the butterfly, totally different perspective.  For one, butterflies don’t eat.  They drink.  They don’t wiggle all over the ground they’ve got wings and can fly.  Their perspective of the world is totally different from the caterpillar.  They have a concept of the world that the caterpillar will never have.  So compare nasty grub to beautiful floating creature. 

·         Caterpillar and Butterfly, different perspectives different creatures, butterflies come from caterpillars, God transforms caterpillars into butterflies

Transition;

1.  Something we need to take into account is that the transformation process is irreversible.  Once we surrender control of our lives to Jesus and lay ourselves up on the altar there is no going back. 
2. Listen to what the bible says about this:

V.                   Once transformed you can’t go back(ME)

What the Bible says: (EXP)

2 Corinthians 5:14-17

“Either way, Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life.15 He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.  16 So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! 17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”

1.  Dying to self means Christ is in control of our lives(v14)
2. We should live for Christ because He died for us(v15)
3. When God transforms us we aren’t the same as before(16-17)

Transition:

1.  I want us to pay attention to this idea of not being the same as we were before because I think that a lot of us think that being a follower of Jesus simply means changing some of our behaviors.
2. If we think about caterpillars and butterflies again, the caterpillar doesn’t become a butterfly by going on a diet finding itself a pair of wings.  These external signs haven’t resulted in true deep transformation.  Now all you got is fat worm with clip on wings. 

What the Bible Means for you: (APP)

1.  True Transformation only occurs through our whole-hearted surrender
2. We must allow Christ to change us from the inside out

·         Caterpillar and Butterfly, Caterpillar dies, chrysalis(tomb), God Transforms, emerge from tomb as new creature, butterfly

Transition:

1.  This stuff we’ve been talking about is hard, it’s not easy.  We’re talking about dying to everything we know all of our hopes and our dreams.  But listen to what Jesus says in:

Luke 9:23-24

“Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. “

1. If we want to be totally transformed we need to totally surrender our lives to Jesus. Because true transformation only comes when we wholly and totally sacrifice ourselves to Jesus. 

Conclusion

1. At the beginning of all this we were talking about a guy named Saul.  Well, fast forward to later in his life and find Saul a totally new person.  He’s no longer Saul.  Saul had an encounter with Jesus Christ and that day Saul laid himself on the altar and said Jesus you’re the boss of my life.  That day Saul died.  The person who emerged after that encounter with Jesus, his name was Paul.  Paul went on to become one of the most prominent apostolic figures in the early church giving birth to churches all throughout Asia and Europe.  He went on to compose several letters of instruction and encouragement to the people Saul had once persecuted. 
2. As we come to a close I want to leave you with some words from Paul found in Philippians 3:7-11.  Some things Paul says about sacrificing himself to Jesus Christ.  (from memory)
3. “But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

Directions for Response:

1.  As the band comes up for our time of response everyone bow your heads and close your eyes. We’ve gone through a whole lot of material tonight but if none of what we’ve heard makes a difference in how we live then we’ve missed the point.  (Start Fill Me Up, background) 
2. Tonight you may have been listening and realized you’ve been a caterpillar trying to make yourself look like a butterfly.  If that’s you tonight would you raise your hand?
3. Some of you may have been convicted of some desires or behaviors you didn’t use to think were evil, but know now that those things are leading you toward a path of death.  If that’s you would you raise your hand? 
4. As we sing this song together make this your prayer, make this your response to God’s leading in your life. 

Lyrics

You provide the fire
I'll provide the sacrifice
You provide the Spirit
And I will open up inside

Fill me up God
Fill me up God
Fill me up God
Fill me up

Love of God
Overflow
Permeate
All my soul