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 worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:1-2 ESV)
Living sacrifices. That’s the result of being part of Christ. You and I become living sacrifices. It’s about Jesus Christ, after all; in Him the old order of things has passed away. Gone is the temple sacrifice system, gone when Jesus died on the cross as the perfect sacrifice for sin, once for all. Now God asks a new, a spiritual, appropriate, reasonable worship. That is to live a life which is guided and empowered by the mercies of God—living out your calling. The remainder of the book of Romans is largely guided by describing what it looks like for one who has been redeemed by Christ to live that calling. In our Epistle for today, we get a chance to hear some guidelines for that calling.
Note too what Paul calls living out your vocation, your calling. He doesn’t call it living a principled life, or purpose-driven. He calls it your spiritual worship. Being a living sacrifice is your act of spiritual worship.
Just what is that spiritual worship? It consists of not being conformed to the world, but being “transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” The Christian life is one which involves an utter renovation of the heart and mind.
It is the heart of the Gospel, after all, that your sins are forgiven. But it is also true that to be a Christian is to transform, not to stay mired in the filth and muck and emptiness of sin. Jesus forgave people’s sin but also bid them to go and sin no more. Being a Christian is not about getting a top-up in forgiveness so you can go on and keep living in whatever sins you may hold dear. For, as Paul has demonstrated in Romans 6, you don’t belong to the kingdom of sin anymore. You were set free from sin’s bondage in Jesus’ death and resurrection. As such, your life of worship is to be a follower of Christ in every dimension of your life.
This involves testing. You will be tested in this life of faith, in many different ways. The devil, the world, and the flesh are all against the victory Christ has won for you. The devil will try to get you to believe in anyone or anything but Jesus only for your salvation. That’s his biggest ploy. If he can get you to take your eyes off of Jesus and put them anywhere else, he has accomplished his desire, of getting another soul to accuse and take down with him.
The world is full of worries and cares that will occupy you if you let them. Whether it’s the Olympics or your property taxes, the Corn and Apple Festival or the war in Georgia, the pesky neighbours or problems in the family, there is much in the world that can cause you to put following Christ at a lower priority, even if you don’t renounce your faith altogether. It’s easy to get sidetracked and slowly get out of the practice of following Jesus. A living faith is a faith which acts on what it hears. It needs to hear the Word in season and out of season, and most especially on those Sundays when you feel too busy or too tired to come to Church. You need to be where the Lord’s Word is, make everything else secondary to hearing God’s Word. Talk with your family members and point out how important Christ is. All the other priorities need to fall in line behind hearing the Word and receiving Christ’s blessings in Church. I know that for me, growing up, going to church to hear God’s Word was number one—because my parents insisted it should be so. I remember missing the championship game in baseball for my team on more than one occasion, because the game was at twelve and we didn’t get home from church until one. There were several activities we would have liked to do as kids, but if they were going to interfere with church, church won every time. It was a hard decision for my parents to make, but I’m glad they were consistent with it. Same thing with family devotions. Before we could go out to our evening activities, we had to have our family time around God’s Word at the supper table. It was top priority and everything else had to take the back seat. It’s the opposite to how the world wants you to do things, but it is how God wants us to prioritize things. Him first, everything else afterwards. A living sacrifice.
And your own flesh, sin-filled as it is, is against your being renewed by Christ, because that would mean sacrifice, and struggle, and difficulty. The flesh wants to go the broad, easy road that leads to destruction.
The testing is hard. Every day, you are faced with the choice to follow God’s way or your own way. It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit working in and through you by virtue of God’s calling you by His Word, sealed in you through Holy Baptism, that you can ever choose the things of God. During the course of each day, you will be faced with decisions on whether to follow the money or the Lord, whether to pray or to curse, whether to love or to bear a grudge. Every test is one to see whether the Lord is central to who you are, whether you fear, love, and trust Him above all things, or if He is just one God among many in your heart. Idolatry is the most subtle of sins, but it is at the heart of every other—every time you or I fail in our testing, it is because we do not fear, love, or trust God in the way we should.
But in this testing you will learn, again through the working of the Holy Spirit in you, what God’s will is. You will learn what is God-pleasing, what is holy, what is blessed, what is good, what is acceptable, what is perfect. You will learn that through going back to the Word, listening to the Scriptures and hearing again of God’s promise in those times of testing and trial. You will learn that through seeing the Lord working through you in those times when you are in situations where it seems there is no clear word from the Lord one way or the other.
As such, there is no room for arrogance among the people of God, as each of us is called to work out our faith in fear and trembling, as the apostle says in his letter to the Philippians. There is no Christian who is more or less important to God than any other; young or old, weak or strong, rich or poor. Each is called to follow and do according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. We all are called to follow Christ and His Word, but we are not all the same. We are parts of a body, and each part serves its own purpose, holds its own function within the greater unit. We are connected to each other, whether we acknowledge it or not. When one person in the congregation hurts, the whole congregation hurts. When one person in the congregation rejoices, the whole congregation rejoices. We need to be open with each other in our hurts and our joys so that we can grow together as a body, loving each other at all times and in all situations—loving in the way Christ loves, rebuking sins and forgiving sinners.
For God gives us the gifts of His grace in order to be the body, not just symbolically, but an actual body in this place. Made one in Baptism, kept as one in the forgiveness of sins and the unity of belief and doctrine we confess by receiving the Lord’s Supper together at the one altar. This is one of the reasons why Lutherans historically have gone forward to the table to receive the Lord’s Supper, to show that we are one, joining together in that one belief at that same spot with all those who have come before and go after, as opposed to the more common practice in evangelical or Mennonite circles today of receiving the Lord’s Supper in the pews, an act which is individually between you and God.
“Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.” (Romans 12:6-8 ESV)
Here there is a gift which touches every Christian, which works to the good of the body, the church. There is nobody whom Christ has called who has not been given the gift of God’s grace in order to serve one another and serve the church. Not all are called to be prophets or teachers or exhorters, three terms describing different types of pastors, those who speak forth the word of the Lord publicly in the assembly of the believers. However, maybe you are called to be a contributor. Maybe you have been given the gift of financial security and stability by the Lord. If so, He calls you to make use of that gift for the good of His kingdom, both in giving to the local congregation and in the worldwide mission of the church. Maybe you have been given the ability to lead. There are always positions of leadership within our congregation needing to be filled, whether on council or in our Ladies’ group or in our Sunday School as a teacher or superintendent. If so, God calls you to lead with zeal, diligently, making the best of your talents and abilities to help build up His kingdom. And every Christian is called to perform acts of mercy and to serve one another. Every day you have opportunities to be merciful to someone—consider who those people are in your family, in your neighbourhood, in your community, and especially in your congregation, who needs some help, some care, some consideration. Every day you have opportunities to serve one another. Consider our Lord Jesus. Although the true Son of God, He did not come to lord it over you but to serve you with eternal life and salvation.
All of the things we do in our vocations as Christians flow out of what God has already done for us in Jesus Christ our Lord. All of what we can do and give in response to Jesus, the only-begotten Son of God, taking on flesh and dying for the sins of the world, is very little. Yet this is how highly God values you, that He should call you to be His own, give His Son to die for you on the cross, and set you free from the bondage to sin. Jesus was the ultimate living sacrifice, whose death sets us free from sin, whose life means we too shall live in Him forever.
God has given you the gift of being His child in Baptism, and He calls you to follow Him as a living sacrifice, to let your life be a life of worship, serving Him in your callings—as a parent, a child, a spouse, a worker, an employer, a student, a teacher, a farmer—whoever or whatever you are. He has called you, that you might be His own and live under Him in His kingdom in all innocence, righteousness, and blessedness.
“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?" "Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?" For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” (Romans 11:33-36 ESV)
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