Sacrificed for Service
Notes
Transcript
Have you ever walked into the middle of a conversation that others were having and tried to figure out what they were talking about? It's one way that rumors or gossip gets started because you only hear part of the conversation and you attempt to guess or read into what you've heard said.
A danger that we run into with familiar passages of scripture is that we can put our mind into neutral and not really engage with what the Holy Spirit wants to say to us through it. Take for example John 3:16, most everyone has at least heard the verse. If you watch some sporting events you'll even see people holding signs that say "3:16". But what does the verse really mean?
Today's scripture passage is one of those passages that we've heard lots and lots of sermons on over the years. Some of you could probably do a better job than I in preaching on it. This is one of those passages that's like walking into the middle of a conversation and not knowing what was said before you got there.
When I am working on a sermon during the week and the passage is a particularly familiar one I try to put out of my mind for a while all that I've read and heard in the past and just allow the Holy Spirit speak to me new and fresh through the written words.
I don't do that because I think that I'm cleaver and will come up with some new and profound insights into the passage, but rather that I put away any preconceived ideas about it because I really need to hear from the Holy Spirit and what He wants to say to me today.
Paul starts this chapter with that word "so" or “Therefore” in some translations. The dictionary says that it is used to "introduce a statement resulting from, or caused by, what immediately precedes." So when Paul writes there in verse one:
1 So, brothers and sisters, because of God’s mercies, I encourage you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice that is holy and pleasing to God. This is your appropriate priestly service.
He is connecting this urging and offering with what he just wrote about in the preceding chapters.
One author put it this way:
The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Volume 29: Romans Chapter Eighteen: A Sense of Values
The word “therefore” is one of the most underrated in the English language. “Therefore” is like a hinge on a door that acts as the link between the wall and the door and enables the one to relate to the other. In Scripture, “therefore” holds together doctrinal principles and practical application. It is therefore vitally important when we consider the dangers of theory unrelated to practice and practice unrelated to theory.
Something that I've learned over the years of studying the Bible is to not just read your favorite verse or verses and try to interpret just those few verses. If you do that you can come up with all sorts of crazy interpretations.
When you read the Bible for a Bible study you should read the surrounding verses and chapters to help you understand. I grew up in a church where I heard a number of sermons from Ephesians 5:22-24. Paul wrote:
22 For example, wives should submit to their husbands as if to the Lord. 23 A husband is the head of his wife like Christ is head of the church, that is, the savior of the body. 24 So wives submit to their husbands in everything like the church submits to Christ.
There was a lot taught about that passage about how wives are to be submissive to their husbands. If you read just these three verses then you can lay the ground for women being subservient to men. But, that's not the picture that Paul is painting here. Read the next 9 verses where Paul addresses the husbands. He hits the men up with more responsibilities. My mother got in trouble with one of the elders in the church I grew up in when she led a Bible Study for the community women and they addressed this passage of scripture. He didn't like what the Bible said about a husbands responsibilities.
So when your studying the Bible, don't just read the one or two verses, read the surrounding verses and chapters and allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you through them. That was your "How to study the Bible" lesson for today.
When Paul says “So, brothers and sister, because of God’s mercies” he's pointing back to what he had written previously. In my previous studies of this passage I've always brushed over chapters 9 through 11 because Paul is writing about the Israelites. But as I've studied this week I'm seeing the connection. Look back at the passage we learned from last week, Chapter 11:29-32:
29 God’s gifts and calling can’t be taken back. 30 Once you were disobedient to God, but now you have mercy because they were disobedient. 31 In the same way, they have also been disobedient because of the mercy that you received, so now they can receive mercy too. 32 God has locked up all people in disobedience, in order to have mercy on all of them.
God's mercy is Him giving us what we don't deserve. Paul wrote that the "wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Sin deserves punishment, it separates us from God. That's what we deserve, but God gives us Mercy through Jesus Christ.
The "therefore" that Paul uses is not just pointing back to his discussion about the Jews and where they fit into this whole new scheme of things that God is doing, but it covers everything that Paul has written up to this point. Looking back to Chapter 3, Paul wrote:
21 But now God’s righteousness has been revealed apart from the Law, which is confirmed by the Law and the Prophets. 22 God’s righteousness comes through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who have faith in him. There’s no distinction. 23 All have sinned and fall short of God’s glory, 24 but all are treated as righteous freely by his grace because of a ransom that was paid by Christ Jesus. 25 Through his faithfulness, God displayed Jesus as the place of sacrifice where mercy is found by means of his blood. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness in passing over sins that happened before, 26 during the time of God’s patient tolerance. He also did this to demonstrate that he is righteous in the present time, and to treat the one who has faith in Jesus as righteous.
How did God demonstrate His mercy to us? It was through Jesus Christ. Sin needed to be atoned for, to be punished and Jesus present himself as the sacrifice. He took upon himself the sins of the entire world.
So Paul then can write "I encourage you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice that is holy and pleasing to God” It wasn't just a suggestion from Paul. In the King James version the word "beseech" is used which means to make an urgent appeal.
That word “present” is the idea of handing over a victim for a sacrifice. That author wrote:
The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Volume 29: Romans The Reality of Your Commitment
There were, of course, two main kinds of offerings: first, those which led to reconciliation; and, second, those which were an expression of celebration after reconciliation had been accomplished.
Jesus is is the one who died so that we could be reconciled to God. This offering on our part is in appreciation and celebration for what God has done for us. There is nothing that we can do to earn reconciliation with God, it is only through what Jesus did. So our sacrifice and offering is an act of celebration for what God has already done.
You've seen commercials on TV from various non-profits looking for donations, particularly after some type of natural disaster. They make urgent appeals for people to contribute money to help with whatever the disaster was. They're not making a suggestion, but they are urging you to make that donation. They almost always show pictures of the suffering that the people are going through and play some sad or emotionally appealing music in the background. They want you to take action.
That is what Paul is doing here. If he could, I think he'd show picture of Jesus being crucified on the cross, you'd hear the nails as they were being hammered into his body. You'd see a picture of heaven and God weeping as He watches the scene unfold. There'd be some powerfully emotional music playing in the background. Wouldn't that get your attention?
God loves us so much that He sent Jesus to die on the cross, be buried and raised to new life so that we could be reconciled to Him, so that we could have a relationship with him, to have our sins forgiven. It's because of all that God has done for us that he calls on us Christians to respond. He's not urging us to just offer a huge thank-you to God. That would be easy to do and really wouldn't require much effort on our part.
It's easy to offer words, it's easy to say "I'm a Christian." It's even easy to tell the world that you're a Christian. But how will anyone really know that you're a Christian?
It's by your actions, living out visibly what you say you are. If you say that you are a Christian but if you beat your wife and kick the dog and curse like a sailor are you showing anyone that you're who you say you are?
The response that Paul is after is the response of offering ourselves as living sacrifices. When we do that we are dying to ourselves while Christ lives within us. We are making ourselves unreservedly available to God.
Remember Paul has just been talking about the Jews. Their sacrifices to God had to be killed. They were only good for a one shot deal. When the lamb was sacrificed and placed on the altar that was it, it was burned up, it couldn't be used again. Our sacrifice is different because it's a living sacrifice.
Paul wrote something similar about this offering back in chapter 6 verse 13.
13 Don’t offer parts of your body to sin, to be used as weapons to do wrong. Instead, present yourselves to God as people who have been brought back to life from the dead, and offer all the parts of your body to God to be used as weapons to do right.
Paul says that there is three things about this sacrifice, it's living, it's holy and it's pleasing to God.
Our sacrifice is a living sacrifice, we die to self as Paul wrote to the church in Galatia
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
A commentator on this passage about a living sacrifice had this to say:
It is the choice of for what and for whom we will live, and die. Paul calls for us to offer ourselves in the service of a cause that is greater than we are. We offer ourselves as a living sacrifice so that even our dying may be living in the deep theological sense—living in the “newness of life” of the Spirit.[1]
Our sacrifice is holy. It's not holy because of who we are, because the Bible tells us that our righteousness is like filthy rags. Our sacrifice is holy because it belongs to God. Peter quoting from the Old Testament "Be Holy because I am holy." If God commands us to be Holy then He is the one to make us holy.
We use to use the phrase Christian Perfection to describe holiness. The word perfection causes lots of problems because of how we define perfection. The English word means absolute perfection or sinlessness but that is not the word used in the New Testament. Perfection as used in the New Testament means something entirely different. Dr Greathouse wrote: A thing is “perfect” when it answers to its true end.[2]
This pulpit is perfect not because it's in perfect condition, because it's not. There are some scratches some stray pen and pencil marks. It's perfect because it does what it's supposed to do.
John Wesley wrote about perfection, he said:
“As God requires every man to love him with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength, and his neighbor as himself; then he is a perfect man that does so; he answers the need for which God made him”[3]
He was writing about the Great Commandment from Matthew 22. Jesus when asked what the greatest commandment was said:
37 He replied, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: You must love your neighbor as you love yourself.40 All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”
That is the essence of holiness - loving God with all our heart, soul and mind and then loving our neighbor as ourselves. When we're living a life of holiness we're living a life that is Christ-centered.
Our sacrifice is holy because we're living a life of perfect love, as God intended that is Christ centered. When we sacrifice something it's no longer about me and what I want because I've sacrificed it, I've given it up.
Our sacrifice is pleasing - it's pleases God, it satisfies God's expectations. The writer to the Hebrews wrote:
15 So let’s continually offer up a sacrifice of praise through him, which is the fruit from our lips that confess his name. 16 Don’t forget to do good and to share what you have because God is pleased with these kinds of sacrifices.
He also wrote in Chapter 13:
20 May the God of peace, who brought back the great shepherd of the sheep, our Lord Jesus, from the dead by the blood of the eternal covenant, 21 equip you with every good thing to do his will, by developing in us what pleases him through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory forever and always. Amen.
Our sacrifice is living because we offer it, but it holy and pleasing because of what God is doing in and through us by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Paul says that this offering of a living sacrifice that is holy and pleasing is our "spiritual act of worship. Many translations including the King James use the word Service instead of worship but they both are saying the same thing.
Worship is service. When we gather to worship as a community of believers we are serving God. A commentator wrote: Spiritual worship/reasonable service is not simply what Christians say or do at church in praise of God but also what he does for them, enabling them to praise him through their lives in the world. The ministry of God to his people, as he brings Good News and grace into their lives, is his service to the church. Divine resourcing, enabled by mutual edification, comes as Christians assemble for what is called “worship” [4]
But worship or service goes far beyond what happens here in the church building. True worship or service is what happens as we live out this life of being a living sacrifice that is holy and pleasing to God out in the world. As we live lives that are both salt and light in the world we are worshipping or serving God.
1 So, brothers and sisters, because of God’s mercies, I encourage you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice that is holy and pleasing to God. This is your appropriate priestly service.
Have you offered yourself as a living sacrifice to God? Because of all that He has done for you why not? Why not today say to Him - "Yes Lord, I don't have all the answers but I'm offering myself completely to you!"
Are you living a life of perfect love, loving God with all your heart, soul and mind and your neighbor as yourself? That is something that God enables us to do as He sanctifies our lives through the power of the Holy Spirit.
[1]Greathouse, W. M., & Lyons, G. (2008). Romans 9-16: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition (129). Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City.
[2] Greathouse, William M. (2011). Love Made Perfect: Foundations for the Holy Life (Kindle Location 143). Beacon Hill Press. Kindle Edition.
[3] Greathouse, William M. (2011). Love Made Perfect: Foundations for the Holy Life (Kindle Locations 148-149). Beacon Hill Press. Kindle Edition.
[4]Greathouse, W. M., & Lyons, G. (2008). Romans 9-16: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition (130). Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City.