Living Sacrifice

Green Present next to white roses in a vase

We've just spent the last eight weeks looking at what happens in corporate worship, the thing we gather to do on Sunday morning. But what about what happens the rest of the week? While we are not gathered together on Tuesday morning, does that mean that worship ceases Monday through Saturday? No. Gloriously not. While there is something special and necessary about Sunday worship, God hasn't left us twisting as to how to think about our lives the majority of the time. There is a wonderful specificity that God gives to us, not just as a body of Christian believers, but as individuals.

Whether you feel or not God has brought you here to this time this place for a specific reason. This is not because He is desperately needy and is just waiting for you to get with the program and advance His agenda. He has brought you to this place to give you a unique opportunity to be blessed by Him and be a blessing to His people. That counts for you kids and seniors alike. All of you are called by God to be a part of His kingdom and have a unique position to fill.

So that brings us to that wonderful book of Romans, specifically looking at 12:1-9. What we are going to see, like we did last week that God has just showered us with blessing and continues to do so, and that is in the foreground of this passage and this concept in general of serving God.

God's Mercy Enables Transformation to Worship

Let's begin where Paul does by appealing to the mercies of God. What He is doing here is pointing back to all the other chapters of Romans to show what God has done for each of us. In Romans 1 we saw the great mass of humanity wandering around worshiping the creature rather than the creator with minds actively suppressing the knowledge of God.

He could have left us there, but He doesn't. He redeems us not even by setting up some sort of rigorous challenge, some feat of strength to work our way to heaven, instead in chapter four He counts simple faith as all that you need. By grace, through faith. He delivers us from death in Adam for all eternity to life in Christ in chapter 5, and all thanks to Christ in whom we have no fear of condemnation in chapter 8. He has lived the life we were supposed to live and died the horrific death we were supposed to die, and rose again so that we might have life! And this is based on nothing that we did or even could do, because God predestines it from the start as we see in chapter 9. Because of pure mercy, pure grace, pure delight and happiness on His part, He has reached into your grave and resurrected your soul, alive and renewed to be a part of His glorious Kingdom forever. You are in His Kingdom because for some reason He wants you and me here. We didn't twist His arm, be better than someone else, or happen to be someone that God needs but doesn't really love in order to get what He really wants. By the pure, unadulterated, unassisted grace and mercy of God, we stand before Him in His kingdom. Praise God!

Based on that we get the rest of the book of Romans and the command we are about to unfold.

So having said all of that, Paul says to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, and acceptable to God. Paul is drawing from Old Testament concepts of sacrifice to make his point. We aren't bringing in animals anymore on the altar. Jesus has been that for us. The sin offering is done. But that isn't the only kind of sacrifice you would bring. You would also bring offerings and sacrifices as a worship of thanksgiving. I think this might be what is in His mind. We don't offer ourselves up to God in order to be saved but because we are saved, He calls us to offer up a living sacrifice.

What is a living sacrifice? It is not a one-time deal, but a consistent pattern of life. Too often the Christian life is treated like a diet. You know how those things go, you need to lose ten pounds for a wedding, and as soon as you don't have to get into those pants anymore the McDonalds ban is over. That's not how it works here. You don't go on a religious diet to lose a few pounds of guilt. You feel bad about your search history, so you show up to church for a few weeks. You offer up your body, your whole self, as a living, constant sacrifice "never neglected or recalled" as Charles Hodge put it, because God has raised you to a life that is far better than so-called pleasure pixels on a screen. He has given you life, so you spend it right back on Him.

But there will always be the temptation not to. Verse 2, Paul warns us not to be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of our mind. How we think is the way that we live. It is not how we say that we think but what we actually think that rules how we live. And that needs to be transformed or it will be conformed to the world. No one is a free thinker. Not really. Not according to verse 2. You are either being transformed by God's infinite and wise perspective or you are being conformed to your own, finite—limited even by human standards— perspective. And when that mind is transformed, you see God's will for the beauty that it is. That is what the rest of verse 2 is about.

God Gives Diverse Faith and Gifts to Use for His Glory

Ok, so I am called to live the entirety of my life in God's way for God's glory. How?

Verse 3. We begin with an examination of ourselves with an eye of looking at what God has given to us. Being cautious not to look at ourselves more highly than we ought, we examine what level of faith we have currently and what gifts we have been given.

Quick side note, it does seem clear that God gives to some people more faith than He does to others. We can see that in Romans 14:1. Faith is always a gift, but just because it is a certain way today doesn't mean that it will be at that level always (2 Thess. 1:3; Eph. 6:10). It can be grown by reading (Romans 10:17) and prayer (Mark 9:23-24). We don't get to use the excuse that "I don't have enough faith for nursery." No, you might not right now, but be praying for the opportunity to receive children and receive Christ along with them (Matthew 18:5). The source of such faith is just a prayer away.

All right, side bar over, back to our text.

When we get into verses 4 and following we find that God has a really interesting approach to the Church. He makes one Body, one unity with different people all having different gifts. He compares it to a body that has all kinds of different parts, so different we have to have a million different doctors to help us sort through them all. Yet each of these parts is interdependent on each other. Paul develops this metaphor more in 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 by imagining an eye saying to the hand that the former doesn't need the latter. Silly! Our eyes need our hands and vice versa, and the same is true for each of us. Paul's list here isn't exhaustive but it makes the point. You need my teaching gifts, and I need your mercy gifts. We need each others serving gifts, generosity, administration, discernment and many others.

God hasn't set up the church to be run by one or two superstars. He has set up the church such that we are always in need of each other. I can't do this thing by myself, nor am I going to try.

These seven gifts are not exhaustive, but give a sampling of what sort of gifts God gives and how different they are. You've got teaching gifts like prophecy (which at that time was new revelation, something we no longer require), teaching (explaining), and exhorting (urging to obey). As well as serving gifts like serving in general, leadership, mercy, and generosity. In each of these we are called to serve in the areas that we have been gifted in and not try to be jealous of each other's gifting. The point is to fit together, to be a body, to worship in the ways we have been called.

So where does that leave us? My goal this morning has been to invite you deeper into the church. The water is good. What else would be a better use of your energies? Who else is more worthy of such service? Now, there are waves in here. Currents sometimes that feel that you might be swept straight out to sea. But the God has brought you this far will bring you to the finish line. You might sink, but He is always standing there on the water. And along the way He has something for you to do. He has given you a gift that fulfills a purpose far beyond yourself. No one who is in Christ is without such a gift.

If you would like to take a step towards figuring that out, I'm sending out a document with a list of questions that can help narrow the field for you. I'd love for everyone to take it, and then I'd love for us to find a way for you to use that gift. The document isn't inspired, and really the only way to know if a place will work for you is to try it. What I don't want you to do is miss the opportunity to serve God in a way that is satisfying to you. You haven't been given your gift just for fun. You've been given it for God's glory. The point isn't to pigeonhole you forever in one spot or have you in a place by yourself. It isn't even necessarily a way to put you in this building more. If your gift brings you in here more often, great! If you your gift takes you more into the community, great! If your gift brings you more into your home, great! I just want you to be able to bring glory to God in the way He has designed you to.

A living sacrifice when it is given to God is truly living. I found mine, and it lead to a blessed vocation. It doesn't mean it has been easy. It hasn't. But it has been worth it, not because of results that I've seen, not because of accolades, not because of victories or defeats, but because He is worth it. If everything I try to do here burns down, I will still rejoice only if I have sacrificed for such a worthy God. I will be forgotten—I hope I am!—so long as Christ is glorified for all He has done, I will have lived my life the best it could be!

Do you want that assurance? Rehearse what God has done for you everyday. Then pick up that gift He gave you, and see what He will do with you.