Your Body: A Living Sacrifice
Study Text: Romans 12: 1 - 2
Introduction:
- Believers should willingly offer their bodies to God as living sacrifice for His honour, praise and glory, because of His profound mercy to us in Christ.
- Our greatest desire should be to live lives of holy worship and devotion to God. This requires separating ourselves from the principles and patterns of the world, and pursuing God in holy passion and focus.
- Our bodies are to be consecrated to God for a lifetime of worship and service. We are to offer our bodies as dead to sin, instruments of righteousness and as the temple of the Holy Spirit.
- We shall be discussing the topic under three subheadings:
1. A Call to Absolute Submission
2. A Call to Absolute Separation
3. A Call to Absolute Sanctification
1. A Call to Absolute Submission
- Presenting our bodies as a sacrifice is a decisive act at a point in time. Every child of God should come to a point in his or her life and Christian journey to willingly and consciously take this decision.
- We come to a place in our lives when we say with all sincerity of heart, "Lord, my life does not belong to me any more. I give it to you to use as you please. I want to do your will rather than my own."
- But that attitude is something that must be renewed daily, moment by moment, because we are a living sacrifice. We still have that will that can act contrary to God's will.
- When we do keep renewing that attitude of consecration to God and acting on the basis of it, we will not only be a living sacrifice, but we will be holy and acceptable unto God.
- In view of all that God has done for us, it is only reasonable and logical to give our lives to Him and live to do His will. This is the least we can do, and the Apostle is pleading with us by the mercies of God.
- Giving ourselves to God is one way He wants us to worship Him. Our worship as Christians is not primarily a ritual, but a fellowship and a lifetime relationship with the holy God.
- It is not just coming to a place, like a church building, reciting a prayer or a creed and singing songs of praise. The worship God wants from us is also living our daily lives in obedience to His Word. 2 Corinthians 5: 15
- We can come to church to worship. But we ought also to be worshipping God in our neighborhoods, homes, offices, businesses, factories, farms, and schools by being God's people in those places, shinning forth as light in the midst of the darkness of the world.
- living as He wants us to live, behaving as He wants us to behave, speaking as He wants us to speak, using our bodies to do His will and accomplish His purposes. That is a spiritual act of worship that is reasonable and acceptable unto God.
2. A Call to Absolute Separation
- The word conform means "to fashion or shape one thing like another," particularly in its outward appearance. And that is exactly what the world is trying to do to us.
- There is a very real pressure to conform to the pattern of the present world system on many different levels. This pressure must be firmly resisted by true believers.
- The conformity with the world is usually a gradual and continuing process. It doesn't usually happen overnight. The longer we live in the world and carelessly expose ourselves to the world's values, the more we adjust to them.
- What looked dark and sinful to us before begins to look normal and acceptable. The world is squeezing us into its mold without us even realizing it.
- It often happens so gradually. Our spiritual eyes are becoming so accustomed to spiritual darkness that we almost prefer it.
- Without realizing it, some Christians have grown to love the world so much, and have become so much like the world that nobody can really see any difference any more between them and the unbelievers around them. 1 John 2: 15 - 17.
- Paul says, "Resist that pressure." Stand firm on your Biblical convictions. Don't give in to the world. It's the least you can do in light of all God has done for you.
- The reason we must resist conforming to the present world system is that it is under under Satan's rule. 1 John5:19, 2 Corinthians 4:4.
- The system of this world is also built upon human wisdom and values and upon un-biblical worldview which is hostile to God and His people.
- The kingdom of this world is full of darkness, deception and seduction, and the believers are expected to to be light in the midst of darkness. Matthew 5: 14 - 16, Ephesians 5: 8-- 11.
- Believers are to resist the temptation to conform to the many forms of worldliness surrounding the Church, such as impurity and lusts, filthy language and ungodly entertainments, fashionable cloths that are immodest and sexually seductive, worldly companions and so on.
3. A Call to Absolute Sanctification
- The alternative to conforming to the world's values and lifestyles is transformation. The word transform means to change from one form into another. Not just to change the outward appearance, but to absolutely transform it.
- From it we get our English word metamorphosis. God wants us to undergo a complete transformation of inward character which is expressed in a totally different kind of outward conduct.
- Transformation results when Christ and His Word renew our minds so that our vision, values and plans are governed by God's revelation and eternal truth, rather than the deceptive patterns of the world.
- And God asks us to be experiencing continual changes, day by day, that bring us progressively more into the likeness of Christ. Corinthians 3:18
- Instead of being unconsciously squeezed into looking like the world, we are to consciously reshape our lives so that we look like Jesus. Matthew 11: 28 - 30
- We act on the basis of what we feed into our minds. When we allow the world to shape our thinking, we will live like the world. But when we allow the Lord to shape our thinking, we will live fruitful, abundant and triumphant Christian lives.
- If you want to change the way you live, you will have to change the way you think. And to change what you think, you must change what you feed into your mind.
- It is difficult because the world is constantly trying to feed in its views and its values, but we must experience daily renewal by feeding our minds with the word of God.
- So what are you feeding into your mind? That's the question before us as we read this. What kind of music do you listen to? What books and magazines do you read? What movies do you attend? What videos do you watch? What TV programs do you enjoy? Whose advice do you listen to?
- If you are feeding your mind with the views and the values of the world, you will think like the world and act like the world.
- But, if, on the other hand, you feed your mind with the Word of God and the things of Christ, you will become more like Him and act more like Him. And that's what God asks you to do.
- The results of absolute submission to Christ, absolute separation from the world, and absolute sanctification through the word of God is That you may "...prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."
- Transformed believers know and embrace the will of God as the highest and best way of life, which has rewards for both in this life and in the one to come.
- Almost every Christian wants to know God's will for his life. Here's the way to find it. As we let the Holy Spirit change our thinking, we will begin to discern what the will of God is in our experience, and we will follow it as the only tried and proven way to live.
Conclusion:
- If your goal in life as a Christian is to know and do the will of God, and enjoy the blessings of God on your life, then present your body, and resist the world, and renew your mind.
- It is the least you can do after what God has done for you. Have you presented God your body?
- If you did it, are you renewing that attitude and spirit day after day, or have you climbed down off the altar?
- Are you resisting the world and its attempts to squeeze you into its mold? Are you renewing your mind so that your life can be transformed?
- Would you be willing to make those commitments to the Lord today, right now? Tell Him so, and He will be willing to hear you, receive you and help you.
