A LIVING SACRIFICE - Romans 12:1-3
When you hear the word "sacrifice," what comes to your mind? Some words one might associate with "sacrifice" are forfeiting, giving up, giving away, letting go, losing. The word sacrifice doesn't exactly give us the warm fuzzies, does it? Our natural instinct is not to want to sacrifice anything. But what exactly does it mean to sacrifice? In biblical times, priests offered animal and grain sacrifices — as thanksgiving or to seek forgiveness for sin. Sacrifice meant the death of that which was being offered up to God. One dictionary definition of sacrifice says: Sacrifice is the surrender or destruction of something prized or desirable for the sake of something considered as having a higher claim. First Peter 2:5 says to believers that “you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices."
Paul in the first 11 chapters of Romans provides us with a complete systematic theology of all that God has done for us. Then in chapter 12, Paul lays out a challenge to us that involves both an immediate and ongoing commitment.
I. The Challenge - Present yourselves a living sacrifice
A. We are called to make a personal sacrifice - "yourselves"
1. The Old Testament worshiper brought animals to the temple, to be killed and laid on the altar. Paul reversed the imagery. Bring yourself to the altar.
2. 1 Samuel 15:22 "Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams”
3. "The sacrifices of God,” says Psalm 51:17, “are a broken spirit and a contrite heart
4. Take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee.
Take my moments and my days; let them flow in ceaseless praise.
Take my hands, and let them move at the impulse of Thy love.
Take my feet, and let them be swift and beautiful for Thee.
Take my voice, and let me sing always, only, for my King.
Take my lips, and let them be filled with messages from Thee.
Take my silver and my gold; not a mite would I withhold.
Take my intellect, and use every power as Thou shalt choose.
Take my will, and make it Thine; it shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart, it is Thine own; it shall be Thy royal throne.
Take my love, my Lord, I pour at Thy feet its treasure store.
Take myself, and I will be ever, only, all for Thee.
B. We are called to make a perpetual sacrifice - "present...a living sacrifice"
1. Present (paristemi - from para = beside or near + histemi = set) literally means to place or set beside or near hence to place at someone's disposal.
2. Romans 6:13 "and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God (place yourselves at God's disposal) as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God."
3. The Old Testament worshiper brought animals to the temple, to be killed and laid on the altar. Paul reversed the imagery. Bring yourself to the altar. But do not DIE for God: LIVE for Him!
4. One Sunday morning during a service, a 2,000 member congregation was surprised to see two men enter, both covered from head to toe in black and carrying sub-machine guns. One of the men proclaimed, "Anyone willing to take a bullet for Christ, remain where you are." Immediately, the choir fled, the deacons fled, and most of the congregation fled. Out of the 2,000 there only remained around twenty. The man who had spoken took off his hood, looked at the preacher and said, "Okay pastor, I got rid of all the hypocrites. Now you may begin your service. Have a nice day!" And the two men turned and walked out. I wonder how many of the twenty remaining though willing to die for Christ were willing to live for Him.- copied
5. It is one thing to say I'll die for you. It is far more difficult to say I will live for you.
6. A living sacrifice is dead to self, dead to my desires, my agenda. I am to live sacrificially for God. I am alive, but I live for God; I am dead to myself, but alive to God.
C. We are called to make a proper sacrifice - "holy and acceptable"
1. First, only the true Christian who has been saved by the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ can respond to this call to offer “a holy and acceptable sacrifice.” Jesus Christ offered to God the one perfect sacrifice for sins once and for all. There is therefore no need for any other atoning sacrifice for sin, and there can't be any other atoning sacrifice because we are sinners. Only the perfect life of Christ would ever be acceptable to a holy and righteous God. God has dealt with our sin problem once and for all, and all that is required of the sinner is to genuinely repent of his/her sin and to believe on Christ as his Savior and Lord.
2. God wants us to offer our body, that is our actual body, which consists of all the components of who and what we are – how you think and how you reason, all that you are as a human being, our body-spirit-and soul - in holiness or separation unto Him.
3. Paul encourages us to look on every aspect of our lives as an act of worship.
4. In consideration of the mercies of God and all that He has done for us, and in contemplation of Christ's work of redemption at Calvary and the great sacrifice He made there, it is only proper and reasonable that believers give their being back to Him as living sacrifices for service. Nothing less than a complete presentation of our bodies, however, will ever be acceptable to God. Our "sacrifice" must involve an entire and full surrender to Christ."
II. The Cause - A Love for Christ (by the mercies of God)
A. We should be motivated by the Grace of God - "by the mercies of God"
1. In chapters 1 through 11 of Romans, Paul expounds on all that God in his mercy has done for us. and now in Romans 12:1–2, Paul moves instruction to exhortation, from the indicative—what God has done for us—to the imperative—what we are expected to do in response to what He has done.
2. In the opening chapters we are told that those who embrace the grace of God, who become one with Christ, are rescued from the devastating effects of sin. All true believers are justified, declared righteous in God’s sight, and thus have a secure hope for salvation from the wrath to come. They have been delivered from the penalty of sin and are no longer under condemnation. Nothing can severe the relationship they have with Christ.
3. Someone said that in Romans, Paul got out his yellow pad and made a ledger sheet and on the left side of that sheet he totaled up all the indicatives - the things that Christ has done for His people. Then on the right side of that ledger sheets, Paul put the imperative succinctly in two words and those words were "living sacrifice". - copied
4. Paul is saying that this great grace which we did not deserve ought to be motivation for us to offer ourselves as living sacrifices to God.
B. We should be motivated by the Greatness of God
1. James MacDonald is his book, Gripped by the Greatness of God" asks the question, " When was the last time you were really and truly gripped by God's greatness? "
2. Psalm 96:3-4 "Tell of His glory among the nations, His wonderful deeds among all the peoples. For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods."
3. God is so glorious, so wise, so holy, so powerful, so loving, so abounding in mercy, that when God’s people begin to delight in that greatness, the natural result will be a desire to live for Him.
4. God’s greatness should be at the heart of all we do
C. We should be motivated by the Gift of God.
1. 1 John 4:10, 19 " In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins... We love Him because He first loved us."
2. Ephesians 2:4-5 "But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).
3. Sacrificial service is motivated by Christ's sacrifice on the cross, rather than out of a desire to earn favor with God. Our motivation for serving others is a response to the grace shown us by Jesus, not an attempt to earn God's favor through moral behavior.
4. 2 Corinthians 5:15 (NASB) "...He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf."
III. The Call to Consecrated Commitment - Look like Christ (not conformed to world)
A. We are not to be Conformed
1. One translation (NLT) of the first part of Romans 12:2 says, " Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world..." Another (BBE) says " And let not your behavior be like that of this world."
2. Psalm 1:1-3 "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and who leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.”
3. When Paul wrote to the Romans "Do not be conformed", he used a word in Greek that combines a negative particle with a present imperative conveying the sense of "Stop doing this!". The Romans Christians were already allowing themselves to be poured into the mold of the godless world and acting like the unsaved. Paul commands them to stop acting like that. What he was saying was stop acting like the old man and start acting like the new man.
4. Suschematizo translated conform is a word which refers to an outward expression that does not reflect (or come from) what is within. William Barclay says that what Paul is telling the Romans is “Don’t try to match your life to all the fashions of this world; don’t be like a chameleon which takes its color from its surroundings.
5. 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NKJV) "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new."
6. A believer’s continued practice of conforming to the world's way of thinking and acting is inconsistent with having given his or her body as a living sacrifice to the Lord.
7. Part of the lie that believer's have been duped into accepting is that we have to be like the world in order to reach the world. We have not been called to be relevant but to be consistent.
B. We are to be Changed - "but be transformed"
1. Pressed cookies are conformed; butterflies are transformed. Phillips Translation says, Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its mold, but let God re-make you so that your whole attitude of mind is changed.
2. Transformed - present tense signifying that this is not a onetime event, not a single crisis experience but an ongoing transformation that is progressively realized.
3. To be transformed describes a change on the outside that comes from the inside The antithesis of conforming to the world, being transformed is an outward change in the character and conduct of the believer, that corresponds with one's inward spiritual condition.
4. Christians often fail to change because they try to change solely by breaking bad habits. However, change that lasts will not take place until one replaces the bad habit with a godly habit. Ephesians 4:22-24 explains this as the "Principle of Replacement." It is not enough to Put Off the old man; you must also Put On the new man.
5. Ephesians 4:22-24 "...put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness."
C. We are to be Controlled - by the renewing of your mind
1. Paul doesn't go into how our mind becomes renewed, but his other writings tell us that we are renewed by the Spirit of God using the Word of God.
2. Controlled by the Word of God
a. If we are to live the way God wants us to live, we have to make the Bible the number one thing in life that guides us. God’s Word is greater than anything you and I think, want or feel.
b. Joshua 1:8 “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.
c. Colossians 3:16-17 "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your heart to the Lord. Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father, through him."
d. If we are being transformed by the Word, we won't be conformed to the world.
3. Controlled by the Spirit of God
a. As the believer chooses to saturate his or her mind with the abiding seed, the living and active Word of God, the Holy Spirit progressively "renovates" our mind so that the way we see, think and feel lines up more and more with the mind of God.
b. "The Holy Ghost wrote the Word, and if you make much of the Word, He will make much of you" - Tozer
c. Galatians 5:25 "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit."
4. Galatians 4:5 "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh."
5. Ephesians 5:18 "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;
When asked why God used William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, so mightily, William Booth said, I will tell you the secret: God has had all that there was of me. There have been men with greater brains than I, even with greater opportunities, but from the day I got the poor of London on my heart and caught a vision of what Jesus Christ could do with me and them, on that day I made up my mind that God should have all of William Booth there was. And if there is anything of power in the Salvation Army, it is because God has had all the adoration of my heart, all the power of my will, and all the influence of my life.
