ACCEPTABLE SERVICE

TEXT: Rom 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

INTRO: What is acceptable service to God? Lost man cannot render it. Much that the saved do doesn’t qualify.
1 Cor 3:12 Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
1Cor 3:13 Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.
1Cor 3:14 If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
1Cor 3:15 If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

When Paul penned the words of  Eph.2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. giving the simple plan of salvation, he followed in verse 10 with God’s purpose for our lives AFTER salvation;
Eph 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
God has ordained a walk for those he has saved. No other course of action will please Him. The details of this walk are not left to the discretion of man.

As citizens of our nation we may choose to worship God according to the dictates of our consciences but TRUE worship cannot be regulated by human government nor can it be decided by the whims of man. Nowhere in all the Bible do we find that God has left it to the decision of man as to the way He should be served.

Cain tried to worship according to his own desires and incurred God’s displeasure. King Saul sought to offer sacrifices which God had forbidden and lost his throne as a result. Much of the Old Testament is taken up with instruction to Israel as to HOW to worship God. God determined each detail of their relationship with Him, each other and the world around them.

He has so ordered our walk for today. It is not according to the dictates of our consciences that our lives are accepted. It is according to the dictates of the Word of God!
Keep in mind, we are not discussing how to be saved but rather, how to serve after we are saved.
There is one thing that the salvation of our souls and our rendering acceptable service have in common; Both require complete surrender to the will of God.
Luke 9:23 And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.

When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, it wasn’t just a pretty little thing to recite. We must learn to mean it from the very depths of our being when we say “Thy will be done.” To do this might cost you something previously held dear. It might mean changing some of your long held ideas. It could even mean surrendering to some Bible truths you have resisted previously. These things may seem severe, but you will never be able to really worship or offer acceptable service to God until you do.
There was a question asked on the Day of Pentecost that pretty well demonstrates the problem that faces those who would please God. They had witnessed the rejoicing of the disciples who had, up till now, been hiding in the upper room. They had heard, in their own languages, the testimonies of the members of the Jerusalem Church. They had listened with amazement to the masterful dissertation of a Galilean fisherman called Peter as he preached on some of the most difficult passages of Old Testament prophecy.
They had heard about the wonderful plan of salvation through Jesus Christ. They had heard about and even witnessed the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the Church as Joel had prophesied and as Jesus had promised. They had heard of the death burial and resurrection of Christ and of the coming judgment.

The Holy Spirit had used the Word and had convicted them.
Acts 2:37 Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart,
Peter’s sermon had covered the fact of their sin when he laid the responsibility for the death of Christ squarely upon them.
Acts 2:22 Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know:
Acts 2:23 Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:
These keepers of the Law of Moses suddenly knew that all their supposed righteousness was worthless and they were exposed to the wrath of a righteous God.
When a person realizes that Christ does, indeed, sit at the right hand of the throne of God and that he is aware of what men are doing on this earth, he has to know that such a one must be honored and served. Peter had told them these things in his sermon.

Then came a question from the humbled hearts of these men, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” The answer was honest and straightforward. They did NOT ask how to be saved or the answer would have been the same simple answer given the Phillipian jailer when he asked it.
Acts 16:31 And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.
Instead, when faced with the message of salvation and the demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit in the Lord’s church, they wanted to know how they might participate in it all. ‘What shall we do?” They might well have asked, ”How can we please this one who sits on the throne in heaven and how can we too enjoy the great blessings we have witnessed here today?”
The answer to them is still valid today,
“Acts 2:38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.”

One must repent and accept Christ as his savior. This is the first step and it is an absolute essential. This saved individual cannot serve in a way pleasing to God, however unless he heeds God’s divine order. Baptism IS ESSENTIAL. Not to salvation but for service. It is the first acceptable work of righteousness that a child of God can perform after salvation. It is the first of the building blocks we can lay as we begin to build upon the foundation of Jesus Christ.
1Cor 3:11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

Following the Lord in Baptism does not complete our responsibilities to our Lord. It only enables us to enter into a life of service as a member of His church. It is the outward manifestation of the new life that is ours in the new birth.
It is a burial and Paul so states it in
Col 2:12 Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.
When one follows Christ in baptism he acknowledges that he is dead to sin through the new birth. He buries the old man, not to make him dead but because he IS dead!
Rom 6:1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
Rom 6:2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
Rom 6:3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
Rom 6:4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
Rom 6:5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:
Rom 6:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
Rom 6:7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.

Baptism is also a raising from the dead. As one comes up out of the watery grave, he illustrates that he is being raised to walk in a newness of life.
Rom 6:8 Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:
Rom 6:9 Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.
Rom 6:10 For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
Rom 6:11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Rom 6:12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.

Only after this can one begin to participate in all the spiritual blessings that are ours in the body of Christ, His Church.