Scripture: Romans 12:1-8
12:1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God--what is good and acceptable and perfect.
12:3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
12:4 For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function,
12:5 so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.
12:6 We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith;
12:7 ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching;
12:8 the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.
All in the Family was a popular 1970s CBS series that made Archie Bunker a household name. In one scene Archie’s longhaired son-in-law, Michael, and his wife, Gloria, are in the kitchen. Michael is eating a sandwich and Gloria is baking cookies. Gloria asks him, “Michael, do you love me?”
Between bites he mumbles, "Yup."
“Would you give up your life for me?” she asks.
“Right after I finish this sandwich.”
Then she proposes being lost in the desert, and would he give his life up for her?
“Sure, honey. If we’re ever in the Sahara desert together, you got my life. You got any pickles?”
Gloria sighs and says, “Michael, I’m serious. I mean, if we were stranded in the desert, and we had just enough water for one of us, what would you do?”
“I’d flip you for it.”
Well, Gloria is now visibly exasperated, so Michael adds: “Well honey, what do you want from me? That is a very difficult question to answer. Not many people know how they’d react in a life-and-death situation.”
“Okay, forget the desert,” she says. “Let’s say we’re out in the ocean, and there’s this shark coming at us. Would you swim in front of it to save me?”
“How big is the shark?”
“He’s big. He’s a man-eating shark.”
“Well, then maybe you should swim in front of it to save me.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a man-eating shark. You didn’t say woman-eating shark.”
At this point Gloria has about had enough. “I’m just trying to find out how much you care for me!”
“I care for you, honey. If you care for me, you’ll let me finish this sandwich.”
Gloria grabs the sandwich out of his hands and looks him in the eye: “Michael, we are lost in the mountains. This is our only food—our only chance for survival. Would you give me this sandwich?”
“I wouldn’t have to. You’d take it from me.”
After a few more attempts by Gloria to get him to say he's lay down his life for her, Michael finally gives in, exhausted by the whole conversation. “All right! All right! I’d lay down my life for you!”
With much less drama, 2000 years earlier Jesus had said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Jesus demonstrated His love for us by actually laying down His life for us.
In today's scripture, Paul in chapters 1 - 11 has been laying the theological basis for how we are to live, talking about God's love and God's righteousness. Now Paul is saying, in view of everything I've said, let's talk about the details of how we should live before God.
One of the first things he tells us is that we are to be a living sacrifice to God. Sacrifices were nothing new to Paul's audience. Before the death of Christ as our sacrifice for sin, under the old covenant with God, it was the job of those at the temple to take each person's animal sacrifice for sin, kill the animal, drain the blood, and then burn the body. A sacrifice was to be killed to atone for a person's sins. With the sins forgiven then, the sacrifice was never given back to the one who brought it. It was gone.
So imagine how Paul's audience must have felt when they were told they must be a living sacrifice. Not a dead, but a living sacrifice for sin.
That means we are to take the life God has given us, and turn it over to Him. And it stays with Him, is led by Him, lived for Him, and never taken back.
But unlike a dead sacrifice laying in the altar, the problem with a living sacrifice is that it keeps trying to crawl off the altar. We give our lives to God as a matter of spiritual worship, and then we keep trying to take it back. We say, "Here, God, You call the shots," and then we want to sneak in and take it back. We want to call the shots, make our own decisions, take credit for what we accomplish. "Please God, I'd rather do it myself!"
The problem with that jumps up to bite us right there in the next verse, however. There we read, " Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God -- what is good and acceptable and perfect."
Invariably, doing what we want to do with our life, rather than leaving it to God, involves conforming to society's system of beliefs and values, to what the world wants from us, expects from us, wants to do with us. And all along, that isn't what God had in mind for us. What God has in mind for us stretches into eternity and his plans for us there. And the world has nothing to do with that.
Everything we do here on earth will end one day, and that which isn't of God will burn up and be lost. 1st Corinthians 3:11-15 describes the results: "For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames."
That's what happens to all our plans and earthly accomplishments when the living sacrifice keeps crawling off the altar, promising God their life, then taking it back. But that flies in the face of Paul's words to us that turning our life over to God is our holy and acceptable worship, which is our reasonable service. The word "reasonable" used here in the Bible is from the Greek word for logic. Given all the spiritual riches believers enjoy as the fruit of God's mercies, it follows logically that we owe God our highest form of spiritual service in keeping with an integral part of the Old Testament worship of God, presenting the sacrifice. Except, in our case, because Jesus Christ has already given the one sacrifice for sins for all, ours is a living sacrifice to God. This allows our life to be transformed away from the humanistic beliefs, values and morals of a Satan-dominated world, even as the Holy Spirit leads us in renewing our mind through the manifestation of our inner, redeemed natures in consistent study and meditation on the scriptures.
But this life won't fit with the world. This life stands apart when the world says "Get all you can." "Step on the other guy to get to the top." "You've got yours, let those without fend for themselves." "Me first. Me first. Me first." Still, better to stand apart, with God, enjoying His Word in the scriptures, His promises, His love.
Enjoy the spiritual riches God has for you. Live life to the fullest through the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Experience the full joy of knowing the truth of God's words from Jeremiah 29:11, ”For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." That is a life worth living before Almighty God. That's worth giving your life to God, and keeping it on the altar. Amen.
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