“Sacrificed Bodies & Renewed Minds, part 1” September 23, 2012
Romans 12:1-2
SI: This fall and winter we’re looking in detail at one
chapter in the Bible—
Romans 12.
As I told you last week, I chose this chapter because of
conversations, interests of several
Over the past months several
members have talked to me about their burden
to be more generous, hospitable, and
compassionate—
that whole area of Christian service that we
usually refer to as mercy ministry.
Meeting the needs of people,
particularly physical needs, in the name of Christ.
What does the Lord call us to do, and how
are we to do it?
Several members have also
told me they want to know more about spiritual gifts.
What they are and how they can be used in
the church.
So
as I began to mull over those concerns and burdens, I found myself coming back
again and again to Romans 12. This is a great passage on mercy and gifts.
I’m excited about how the Holy Spirit is
going to teach us and guide us.
I know I need to be stretched and challenged
in these areas.
But
I’m nervous about the preaching part.
We just finished Psalms. To me, Psalms are the easiest part of Bible
to preach.
I love the way each Psalm encapsulates a
theme. I love the poetic imagery.
When
you study the Psalms, you take them in one gulp—the way to read a poem.
But
Romans is different literature.
Theological treatise by greatest apostolic mind.
You can’t take it in a gulp. Have to go line by line. Sometimes word by word.
There’s
a history of preaching Romans point by point, line by line, examining
Paul’s careful argument. Martyn Lloyd-Jones took 25 years to preach
Romans.
We
won’t go at that slow of a pace, but we will take our time,
and try to uncover all that the Lord has for
us in this amazing chapter.
INTRO: Last October I was in India teaching two
week-long seminars
on the topic of Christian worship.
One
of the groups I taught was 35 pastors, many of whom were from animist
backgrounds. Their ancestors and their
relatives and villages worshipped
many gods, goddesses, and spirits with many
rituals and superstitions.
We
were studying the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, looking at
Leviticus.
And I pointed out that in all of the Old
Testament animal sacrifices,
the same order was followed. The worshipper would bring an animal—
a bull, sheep, goat, or pigeon—and then he
would put his hands on the animal.
And
then, after he did that, the priest would kill the animal and proceed with the
rest of the ceremony. That was always the order. It was never reversed.
First,
you put your hands on the animal, then it was slaughtered by the priest.
And I asked:
Why that order? What did it
signify?
It signified substitution.
Laying
on hands signified transfer of guilt from the worshipper to the animal.
And then it was killed in his place as his
substitute.
That
order of sacrifice pointed forward to Jesus Christ and his great work of
substitution on the cross. Our guilt was transferred to the Lamb of God,
then he was slaughtered in our place.
So,
I said, the Old Testament sacrifices were all about God’s grace—
His provision of forgiveness through a
substitute.
And
that means the motivation for bringing a sacrifice to the Temple was not to get
God’s favor, it was simply gratitude for all
that the Lord would do through Christ.
Well
when I said that, and after my translator had translated it—
the room erupted into very animated
conversation. The men started talking
very loudly and making gestures, as if they
were demonstrating something. Others
were nodding and clearing agreeing with what was being said.
So I asked the translator what all this was
about.
He
said the men love this point about the order of biblical sacrifices.
Because
in the religion of their villages there are animal sacrifices—
but they are performed in the opposite
order.
The
animal is killed first, and then the worshipper comes and puts his hands on it.
So I asked, why is that significant? He said, Don’t you see?
It’s
a way of saying to the gods, this animal I’ve just killed is my gift to you.
Now you have to bless me. You owe me blessings because I’ve done this
for you.
The
order of biblical sacrifice is God’s grace.
We give our offerings to God out of
gratitude for all he has done for us.
The
order of sacrifice in our native religion is not grace but works.
It’s giving to the gods in order to get
their favor.
What
a profound observation about sacrifice, and a perfect set up for these verses.
Paul
says that we are to present our bodies as living sacrifices to God.
We’re going to get into what that means—
but even at first reading it sounds like
pretty serious business.
Why
are you supposed to give your body to God in that way?
Is it to gain God’s favor? Is it to get into his good graces or stay in
them?
Is it the path to getting his
blessings?
Is
it so you can say: I’ve given myself to
you, God, now you owe me?
No,
our motive for all we do as believers is gratitude for God’s mercies in Christ.
Remember
our study last week.
The significance of this word
“therefore.”
“Therefore, brothers, in view of God’s mercy
. . .” Paul is making an argument.
He’s
referring to all he’s written in the letter so far,
which is a magnificent presentation of the
Gospel of grace, mercies of God.
Eleven
glorious chapters of the most profound theological teaching in Bible.
The Father choosing you. The Son dying for you. Holy Spirit regenerating you.
You
are predestined, called, justified, glorified.
No condemnation.
All things working for good, nothing can
separate you from the love of God.
And
then, only then, does God say to you:
Therefore, this is how you are to live.
So
Paul is making a shift chapter 12. He’s
getting practical.
This is how you are to live as a Christian
because of what Jesus has done.
These
are the offerings of gratitude, these are the sacrifices God wants you to
bring.
He has some very specific instructions.
But
before he gets to the specifics, Paul describes the Christian life broadly.
He says that living for God, responding in
gratitude to God’s mercies means
offering your body as a living sacrifice and
being transformed by the renewing
of your mind. Sacrificing your body, renewing your
mind.
Those
go together, but we’re going to split them up for our study this Sunday
and next.
This morning let’s focus on offering bodies as living sacrifices
under three headings. I’ll give them to you as we go.
MP#1 The importance of your body to God
When
Paul tells us to offer our bodies to God as living sacrifices,
at first blush he seems to simply be saying,
offer yourself to God.
Give your whole life to God. Give yourself to the Lord completely.
But
there is more going on than that.
Paul is deliberately drawing attention to
your actual body,
to the physical, flesh and blood aspect of
your personhood.
Your
actual hand, feet, mouth, eyes. Your
body is precious to God—
and the fullness of your salvation is
inseparable from your body.
When
you look at Paul’s comments about the body, not just in Romans,
but in many of his letters, you quickly
realize that Paul was pushing back
against a culture that sounds very familiar
to us.
First
century Greco-Roman society was pornified—just like our own.
There was an idolatry of bodily form, a
sexualizing of the body,
a divorcing of personhood from the body so
that people were seen as objects,
and God’s image denigrated.
Greek
philosophy separated the body from the soul.
That led some people to extreme asceticism,
where the body was denied.
But
it lead more commonly to the idea that I can do anything with my body and it
won’t have any negative effect on my
soul. That provided an excuse for
participating in pervasive sexual immorality
and violent entertainment of culture.
Against
all of that, Paul proclaimed a high view of the body.
In
order to save us, the Son of God took on the flesh of a human body.
He
ministered and proclaimed the good news through the means of his body.
He offered his body on the cross as a
sacrifice for our sin.
God raised us that body in victory over sin
and death.
The
Son of God has linked himself to us for all eternity as an embodied man.
He ascended into heaven and assumed his
place at the Father’s right hand
in glorified human flesh.
One
day God will raise our bodies, our self-same bodies, new and glorious,
like the glorified body of Lord Jesus. And we will live embodied for all
eternity.
So
it’s clear that your body is incredibly important to God.
That means what you do with your body
matters to him.
Listen
to some of Paul’s comment s about the body elsewhere in Romans,
and in some of his other letters:
Do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you
obey its evil desires. Do not offer the
parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer
yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer
the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.
The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for
the Lord, and the Lord for the body. By
his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. Do you not know that your bodies are members
of Christ himself? Shall I then take the
members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never!
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in
you, whom you have received from God?
You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
Every athlete exercises self-control in all
things. They do it to receive a
perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.
I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to
others I myself should be disqualified.
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of
Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the
body, whether good or evil.
So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is
imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it
is raised in glory. It is sown in
weakness; it is raised in power. It is
sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a
spiritual body.
He will transform our lowly body to be like his
glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to
himself.
Your body is precious to God. He made it, he’s saving it.
How can you
do anything but offer it to him as a living sacrifice.
I read you that verse from 1 Corinthians where Paul
compares the athlete’s
discipline of
his body with the Christian life. That’s
another view of sacrifice.
Imagine an aspiring college football player who
said: I’m totally committed.
I want to
represent my school on the gridiron. I
want to help win championship.
But I’m not going to transport my body many miles for
those away games.
I’m not going
to deny my body the eating and sleeping habits I enjoy.
I’m not going
to make my body get up early and go to the gym for hours.
I’m not going to ignore the many pains in my body and
subjugate them to a coach’s
routine. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m in, I’m committed
100% up here, my heart
is totally in
the game, I’m a team player, but leave my body out of it.
That’s absurd.
If you’re in at all, then you’re in body and soul.
And the
Christian life is no different. Your
body is precious to God.
He made
it. Jesus died for it. You’ll be living in it for eternity. Offer it to him.
MP#2 The influence of your body on your soul
Because God has made us psycho-physical beings, a
tangle of soul and body—
the things
you do with your body, the attitude of your body,
even the
posture of your body affects your soul.
Parents know this very well. We know how body and soul interact in
behavior.
When my children were little, there were a few, very
rare occasions when I had to
spank
them. I very quickly learned the
importance of their bodily response.
If they toughed it out and refused to cry then I could
count on the fact that
they were not
changed inside, and were not moving toward obedience.
On the other hand, when they did cry, and when they
hugged me back when I
hugged them
and told them that I loved them—
when they did
that, they became more softened and sweet.
If a child agrees to obey but does so with a posture
that screams defiance
or
indifference—then the obedience promised is not the obedience needed.
If a child sullenly says, I’m sorry, to a brother or
sister, or if he slouches or
looks
resentfully when you are correcting him, then the heart is not changed.
The military has long known that a sloppy salute might
as well not be given at all.
Theologically speaking, Romans 12 is about
sanctification.
Sanctification is the Holy Spirit’s work of making you
a more holy person.
He does that
by working in you, prompting you to obey, convicting you,
challenging
you, and then empowering you and enabling you.
But then, when the Holy Spirit works, you have to
respond.
You have to
do things. That’s how sanctification
progresses.
That’s how
you become more holy—the Spirit prompts and enables, you respond.
Sanctification is not just working on your attitude,
trying to think right.
But there is this fascinating dynamic, that as you
obey with your body,
and do things
with your body that God commands, it changes your soul.
I know you’ve experienced that. You are convicted that you should do
something
for someone,
some act of kindness or generosity.
After you do it you find
yourself
humbled, or softer and more loving, or more grateful for the life
God has given
you.
It’s no accident that Romans 12 is packed full of
things God wants you to do
that require
bodily activity—serve, teach, encourage, give, share with God’s
people in
need, practice hospitality, associate with people of low position, etc.
And we will get down to these brass tacks in coming
weeks.
But I want to take this idea of the body influencing
the soul,
and go down a
rabbit trail, maybe open a can of worms.
Paul says that offering your body as a living
sacrifice is your spiritual worship—
that can also
be translated your reasonable, or logical service.
He’s making the point that your worship of God, your
service of God,
is not just
something that happens in church on Sunday, you worship God
with your
whole life, Monday through Saturday.
I’m sure you see that.
It’s only reasonable, only logical that if God has shown
us mercy,
that we should serve him all the time.
But what about Sunday?
What about corporate worship? How
does the command
to offer you
body as a living sacrifice apply to worship in church on Lord’s Day?
When you read the Bible’s instructions on corporate
worship,
you find
command after command to put your body in particular positions.
The Bible tells us to kneel, to stand, to lift our
hands.
It not only
command us to do so, it shows us people doing them, both OT and NT.
Through these positions the congregation is embodying
the conviction that we
are in the
very presence of the Lord.
If the risen, glorified Lord, suddenly stood before
us, with eyes like blazing fire,
feet like
bronze glowing in a furnace, a voice like rushing waters, would you sit?
The biblical postures are trans-cultural. Everyone the world over knows what
it means to
kneel. It’s fallen out of use in
American culture, but it remains
in the
marriage proposal. It embodies
supplication, humility, promise to serve.
When the President appears before press corp, when
judge enters courtroom—
people stand
in respect and honor. Stand when
national anthem played.
When little children want something from parents, they
raise hands toward them.
Just watch
after Sunday school today, will see little children raise hands to be
picked up, or
to get change for the coke machine.
Raising hands is also a gesture of exaltation.
There is no hard and fast distinctions in Scripture
for these worship postures.
Kneeling, standing, and raising hands are all
mentioned in different places as
postures of
prayer. Lutherans, Episcopalians, and
Methodists kneel,
Pentecostals
raise their hands. What do Presbyterians
do? Mostly sit.
Although we
pride ourselves in being biblical.
But if you want the right heart in worship, and if God
made us body and soul,
inseparably
bound so one affects the other, then the right attitude of the body
is an
essential help to the soul. We’ll talk
about this more in coming weeks.
But more to the point of this chapter, Paul’s emphasis
on serving other people
in the church
and using your gifts—it’s an essential part of your sanctification.
You make your hands, feet, mouth and eyes do good
thing, it changes your soul.
The
importance of your body to God
The influence
of your body on your soul
MP#3 The incarnation of your body for others
That’s an awkward way of stating it, but this is the
point—
The main way you offer your body as a living sacrifice
to God is by doing
things for
people in response to what Jesus has done for you.
What is the incarnation?
The word incarnation is not in the Bible, it’s a Latin
theological term.
I never took Latin, one of the holes in my education,
but I did take Spanish.
And Spanish
helps here. What is the word for meat in
Spanish? Carne.
Chili con
carne is chili with meat.
The incarnation was God the Son taking on a human
nature—
which means
he took on a human soul and a true body of bone and muscle.
He ministered in his body. He touched people. He took children in arms.
He broke
bread and fish. He went to the Temple
for the feasts.
He obeyed God in his body.
Do you remember
his first temptation in the wilderness?
He was hungry
and the Devil said, Turn these stones into bread.
But he loved and trusted his Father, and did not
listen to his body.
And, of course, you know where I am going with this—to
his suffering and death.
Christ’s Passion was much more than physical
suffering.
The spiritual
and emotional pain was much greater than the pain in his body.
And yet, his offering up of his body as a bloody
sacrifice as your substitute
is the very
heart of God’s mercies and grace.
The response of gratitude that the Lord wants, is for
you to give your body
as a living
sacrifice—and that means mostly doing things for people.
Earlier I read you those different verses by the
Apostle Paul about the body.
And I pointed out that you can hear Paul pushing back
against the immorality
of
Greco-Roman society. Don’t do this or
that with your body.
He even says
that earlier in Romans, chapter 6.
But Romans 12 is almost entirely positive
commands.
There is very little—Don’t do this. It’s mostly, do this.
Be active in the church body by using your
gifts—teach, serve, encourage, give,
govern, show
mercy, honor one another, share with God’s people in need,
practice
hospitality, rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn,
associate
with people of low position, feed your enemy, give him something to
drink.
And that’s not the whole picture, Paul also speaks
very heavily about thoughts
and
attitudes—love sincerely, hate what is evil, cling to what is good, never
be lacking in
zeal, do not be proud.
Remember, there is this other half of the picture
we’ll get to next week—
the matter of
renewing your mind.
But here is the point worth focusing on. Every one of the commands involve doing
something
with your body for other people. Using
your feet, going to them.
Using your hands to give them things, using your mouth
to say things to them.
Using your
eyes to see their condition and needs.
And in doing these things, you are the hands and feet
and eyes and mouth
of Jesus
Christ.
But there are these words holy and pleasing to God.
Those are pretty intimidating. They are OT worship terminology used to refer
to the
perfection of the sacrificial animal and order of the service.
You could read those words and think—I’ll never do
anything perfectly.
I’ll never do
enough for this person God has put in my life.
I don’t even
know what I ought to do. My motives are
confused.
But take heart, your holiness and acceptability to God
is in Christ.
You are
well-pleasing to your Father because of the perfection of Jesus.
There’s a hymn that is very precious to me. All For
Jesus by Mary James.
First two stanzas go like this:
All for
Jesus, all for Jesus! All my being’s
ransomed powers:
All my
thoughts and words and doing, All my days and all my hours.
Let my hands
perform his bidding, Let my feet run in his ways,
Let my eyes
see Jesus only, Let my lips speak forth his praise.
Is that your heart? Do you want to be all for Jesus, every part of
you?
Then offer your hands, feet, eyes, and lips to
him. Your body is important to him.
Your bodily
obedience shapes your soul.
And with your
body you become him for others