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| Order Of Worship (Liturgy) Song of Praise: “O Praise Ye the Lord” # 149B Service of God’s Holy Word |
Living Sacrifices
Romans 12:1-2 (Text: Vs. 1)
Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, as you can see, the sermon title for this morning’s message came directly from the text of Romans 12:1. The Apostle Paul calls us to present our bodies as “living sacrifices,” holy and acceptable to God. For many of us here, we’re familiar with that verse, that phrase, and it doesn’t really shock us or surprise us.
This morning I want to revive some of that shock and surprise, because the very idea, the very thought of a living sacrifice is incredibly provocative. It should grab our attention. It should pique our interest. We need to ask, what exactly does this mean? What does this passage have in mind?
In the Old Testament, for example, we have the account of Abraham and how he was commanded by God to offer his only son Isaac as a sacrifice, the very son whom God had promised to Abraham and Sarah. Hebrews says that by faith Abraham was willing to obey God, believing that God would raise him from the dead, but then God stayed his hand and provided a ram in the thicket instead.
Isaac would have been a kind of living sacrifice.
Later on, in the book of Leviticus, the Lord gives to Moses very detailed and meticulous instructions about how Aaron and his sons were to be ordained and consecrated at priests. Then the Lord revealed the sacrifices that these men were to offer up to God on behalf of the people and themselves: the guilt offering, the burnt offering, the grain offering, and the sin offering. They were to be careful to do everything exactly as the Lord commanded (the type of animal to be sacrificed, to the way it was to be butchered, to what was to be eaten, what was to be given to God, what was to be for the priests, etc.).
For the Jews, there was this long history of animal sacrifice. But here Paul is talking about something else – he’s talking about offering their bodies as living sacrifices – what does that mean?
I’ll make three brief observations. First, Paul is clearly teaching the priesthood of all believers. In Christ, we share in His anointing as prophets, priests and kings, and here the priesthood is emphasized as we offer to God our lives of holiness as our spiritual act of worship.
Secondly, the kind of sacrifice Paul has in view here is in fact a spiritual sacrifice not a physical sacrifice. We know that the ‘once for all sacrifice for sins’ had already been made in God’s son, Jesus Christ on the cross. God has no interest in the spilling of human blood.
A third observation is this: the sacrifice we offer up to God does include death. Something is put to death, and that something is indeed part of us. But as Christians, it is the part of us that we want to die. It is the part of us that must be put to death. It is our sinfulness. This is what it means to be living sacrifice for Jesus. Every day of our lives we die a little more to sin each day.
Now that we have a little better idea of what this means, let’s see how it all fits together in our text. Here, God Calls us to Offer Ourselves as Living Sacrifices. This morning we’re going to look at the motive for this, and then this afternoon, we’ll look at the manner or method.
The motivation for offering ourselves up to God as living sacrifices is clearly stated in verse 1. Paul writes, “I appeal to you, therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice.” The NIV puts it this way: “Therefore, I urge you brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices.
What is the motivation? It is the mercy or the compassion (or the compassions) of God. Among other things, it refers to God’s love, grace, kindness, goodness and so forth. As we’re going to see, there’s no stronger, no higher, no sweeter, no more grand and glorious motivation for living the Christian life than this.
And when Paul refers to the mercies of God, he’s not just pulling this concept out of thin air, but instead, he’s drawing upon everything he has written thus far in this letter (the previous 11 chapters). We know that because of the presence and function of the word therefore.
Paul uses this word throughout his letter like a building block, or maybe it is better to call it a link in the chain as he is building his argument. Remember Paul was well versed in the law; he was the Jewish equivalent of a lawyer in our day. So, as he is writing this letter, he is carefully and meticulously presenting his argument. And Paul uses the word therefore as a marker, as a way to wrap up one aspect of his argument, and then to build on it, as he moves to his next point.
What we’re going to do here today is take a closer look at each of these instances and then see how it all comes together here in Romans 12. We find the first “therefore” in Romans 2:1. It is what some commentators have referred to as the “therefore of condemnation”. It has in view the incredible opening chapter of this letter, where Paul makes the case that all men everywhere, anyone who has ever lived at any time, who has ever lived and breathed and walked the face of this earth owes unto God all glory and honor, all worship and praise and thanksgiving.
That’s because God is the Creator God, and it’s because God’s eternal power and divine nature are clearly discernable in what God has made. But because man has fallen into sin through Adam, he is spiritually blind, and he is so proud and arrogant, so conceited and full of hatred and contempt for God, that sinful man refuses to acknowledge God. He willfully suppresses the truth of God in unrighteousness, and he serves and worships the created things instead.
Therefore, God holds sinful man accountable. Therefore, he has no excuse. Therefore, fallen man is rightly condemned by God. But that is not the end of the matter. The second great therefore comes in Romans 5. It is called the therefore of justification – how God reconciles lost, undeserving condemned sinners to himself.
Romans 5:1 says, Therefore, since we have been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. About this chapter, Martin Luther wrote, “In the whole Bible there is hardly another chapter which can equal (or rival) this triumphant text.” That’s because it speaks of the incomprehensible, unthinkable grace and mercy of God on our behalf.
Even though fallen man has rebelled and sinned against God, even though fallen man (by nature) hates God and lives in constant animosity and hostility against God, and even though he stubbornly refuses to worship and glorify God as his Creator, God did not utterly destroy him. God did not condemn us to hell and start all over again. No. What did God do? God showed love. God showed mercy.
Romans 5: 8 But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. God did that while we were yet sinners – undeserving, unworthy, unfit to save. This past Wednesday I led chapel at Shalem, and in God’s providence I chose to do a meditation on Matthew 5:7 which says, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”
As I started to define the word mercy, I asked the group gathered there: what do we deserve from God? And you can probably guess what someone said. The answer came back: mercy. We deserve mercy from God. (Now, we did have a number of people at chapel who were from our congregation, but I don’t think the answer came from any of them).
And even though it was the wrong answer, it really helped to reinforce the point. While we may think that we deserve mercy, the truth is just the opposite, because by its very definition mercy is undeserved favor and kindness. I think that also proves to us how easy it is to get the Gospel wrong, beloved.
If God were to give us what we deserve, what would happen to us? We’d be absolutely, utterly and instantaneously destroyed. Fallen mankind, everyone here today, head for head, deserves God’s wrath, judgment and condemnation for all eternity. That’s because God is perfectly just, perfectly righteous and holy, and God will not, God cannot change his holy standards for anyone.
That’s why Romans 5:8 is so beautiful, so powerful, so unbelievable! But God shows his love for us in that while God knew what we deserved, while God would have been right and just to condemn us all to hell, He did not.
Instead of death, God gave us life. Instead of hell, God gave us heaven. Instead of treating us as we are -- rebels and cast-offs and ne’er do wells, God adopted us as His own sons and daughters. Instead of eternal destruction and condemnation, God gave us Jesus Christ and His righteousness!
These are the mercies of God, beloved! This is who our God is. This is what makes God’s grace, His mercy, His love so indescribable and incomprehensible. All we can do is stand in awe and ask: “Why would God ever treat us like this? Why would he ever be so loving and merciful and kind!?”
And if we don’t understand this, if we somehow overlook this or downplay this, then we also get the Gospel wrong. We rob the Gospel of its full glory if we do not fully understand, appreciate or grasp the great salvation that we have in Jesus Christ our Lord. I would go a step further and say, then we also stand in danger of robbing ourselves of salvation. That is what is at risk here.
Sometimes we hear well meaning Christians say something like this: “God hates the sin but loves the sinner.” They say that because they read it somewhere, or heard a pastor say it perhaps -- and in a way, it seems like they are trying to make sense of this very same concept: how can God have mercy on sinners? It’s easy: he hates the sin they do, but he loves them!
But that is not altogether true. We know that because God doesn’t cast our sin into hell. No. God casts sinners into hell. But what kind of sinners? God forgives and God saves all sinners who repent and come to him in faith – but God casts unbelieving and unrepentant sinners into hell. God casts into hell all those who reject the Gospel, who refuse to put their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. God casts into hell all those who reject the mercies of God. That’s the Gospel truth.
And any attempt to water down the message, to make it a little lighter on the ears, a little less abrasive, a little less offensive or more user friendly perhaps, it automatically decreases the power of the Gospel, it guts the Gospel. And at the same time, it blasphemes and belittles the saving work of Jesus – and all the suffering and shame and wrath and condemnation and forsakenness that Jesus Christ took upon Himself for our sake. Jesus was cast into hell on the cross for our sake. Don’t ever forget that.
The third important therefore of the book of Romans comes in Romans 8:1, There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
This is called the therefore of assurance. Here in Romans 8, the Apostle Paul points out that because of our new and righteous standing with God in and through the finished work of Jesus Christ, nothing can ever separate us from God’s love – not any person or power or force in heaven above or on the earth below – not even Satan himself.
Furthermore, nothing can separate us or deprive us of our heavenly Father’s care and providence. God makes a promise to all those he saves, that he will work all things together for their own good and for His own glory! Those two things are forevermore connected in our lives. Our good and God’s glory!
What a remarkable comfort this is for us as God’s children who live in a hostile world where there is so much hurt, and pain, and brokenness, where there is so much hatred and anger and contempt for God – and for all things Christian.
And what a powerful and necessary assurance for us who are so weak and sinful and unfaithful, where each day we still give in to temptation, each day we fall – and if it were not for the unchanging nature of God’s love and grace, we would despair of our own salvation!
This too is a great mercy – if not the greatest mercy of God – to know, to be fully assured and confident of the love of God on our behalf; to know that come what may in this life, we belong to our faithful Savior in life and in death, in body and in soul. Nothing can ever change that!
The fourth and final therefore of the book of Romans appears in our text: I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual. This has been called “the therefore of dedication,” and it serves as the all-important link between doctrine and practice, between orthodoxy and orthopraxy.
In other words, correct doctrine must always be accompanied by correct behavior, by righteous living, otherwise all we have is right doctrine, all we have is a head knowledge of who God is and who Jesus Christ is. And while a doctorate in theology might look good on a resume, and it might land us a job at a prestigious university, it is meaningless, it is worthless if it is not connected to heart that loves Jesus. Good doctrine never got anyone into heaven.
And then there’s also this problem or pitfall: we can have right living that arises out of right doctrine, so that we “Walk the walk and talk the talk,” but what if we forget the reason, the motive for why we live the way we do? If that’s the case, then we become the next generation of Pharisees who believe what the Bible says, and are careful to obey God’s commandments, but our hearts are far from God?
That’s why that little phrase of verse 1 is so important -- I appeal to you therefore, by the mercies of God. Once again it goes back to getting the gospel right – which means not only understanding our salvation in Christ, but it also means understanding how we are to live our lives in serve, dedication and commitment to Christ.
The sole motivation for living the Christian life, for offering our bodies as living sacrifices to God, is the mercies of God – which is everything we just reviewed. It’s our understanding, our awareness, making the good confession that without God’s undeserving love and grace shown to us through His Jesus Christ, we’d be lost. We would not know Jesus as our Savior.
That is why we so greatly rejoice in what Grayson and Alesandra have said and done here today. They have professed their faith – but they did not profess their faith in collection of doctrines. And they have committed themselves to a life of obedience – but not for the sake of obedience alone.
No. They have professed their faith in their only Savior Jesus Christ – the One who died for them on the cross to set them free. The have committed themselves to living their life for the one who died for them -- as Galatians 2:20 says: “I am crucified with Christ, therefore I no longer live. Jesus Christ now lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Grayson and Alesandra, in the questions you were asked this morning, some of them had to do with doctrine and right teaching. Do you believe the Bible is the inspired and infallible Word of God, do you believe that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, is your Savior and Lord and do you love Him. But there were other questions that had to do with your daily living, with your desire and intention to live out this faith you are professing.
Do you declare that it is your heartfelt desire to serve Christ according to His Word, to forsake the world and its evil lusts, to put to death your old nature and to lead a Godly life? That highlights what we said at the beginning of the sermon – one of the most important aspects of offering ourselves, our bodies as living sacrifices is that we must indeed put something to death. And that is sin. As children of God saved by grace, as those who are the undeserving recipients of the many mercies of God, we must put sin to death. We must die to our sinful desires, saying no to sin and yes to righteousness.
As priests – we are to offer up to God sacrifices that are holy and pleasing to Him, And when we sin, and when we fail, not “if” but “when”, we do not despair of God’s mercy, we don’t lose hope, and we definitely don’t continue is sin thinking “We’ve blown it, so who cares. What’s the use!”
No, we come back to our merciful God in our sinfulness, with a broken spirit and a contrite heart – knowing as David said in Psalm 51, this is the sacrifice that God won’t despise, but that He accepts, that pleases Him -- and we ask God to forgive us of our sins, to apply that precious blood of Christ to our account, so that we may be forgiven, so that we may have assurance once more, and so that we may go on living each day, presenting ourselves to Him as a living sacrifice.
May God give us all His grace and Spirit to do exactly that. Amen
* As a matter of courtesy please advise Pastor Keith Davis, if you plan to use this sermon in a worship service. Thank-you.
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