Living Sacrifices, Renewing Minds
For some time I have been fascinated by the way the Apostle Paul lays out most of his letters. In a letter like the one he wrote to the Roman believers he lays out the Gospel using the indicative mood. That means that everything he writes from 1:1 to 6:10 is descriptive. There are no imperatives or commands given until 6:11, where he urges his readers to consider themselves to be, by God’s grace in Christ, dead to the rule or dominion of sin. Yet, he really does not give more detailed directives until he comes to 12:1-2.
Therefore, I exhort you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, which is your reasonable act of worship; and do not be conformed to this age but be transformed by the renewing of your mind for the purpose of you being able to approve what the will of God is, the good, the pleasing and the perfect.
This text is like a hinge that links Romans 1:16-11:36 with Romans 12:3-16:27. In Romans 12:3 Paul begins to give directives for how the followers of Christ in the Roman house churches are to interact with one another and the world at large. These are not merely lists of duties but are the practical outworking of believing the Gospel. The ethic of the Gospel is not simply a matter of just “do it.” Whatever “it’ might be. Behavioral fruit rises from the Gospel in that behavior and conduct are motivated and guided by the Gospel and its implications.
From Roman 1:16 through 11:36, Paul has been laying out the truth of the Gospel, as he has also been presenting the need we have for the Gospel. In this section of Romans there is clear teaching on the reality of human sinfulness and rebellion against God, along with the amazing revelation of God’s saving grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. As stated above the first section in Romans contains very few commands. It is primarily descriptive and declarative. Its content is what Paul wants his readers to believe and in faith seriously take in and consider. So his theme primarily has been the Gospel – the good news about Jesus Christ in light of the tragedy of human sin and sinfulness and the certainty of God’s holy wrath. Against these severe but true realities the abundance of the glorious riches of God’s grace shines.
In Romans 12:1 Paul summarizes all that he taught regarding the Gospel with the phrase: “the mercies of God.” This brings out the motivation of God’s affections for His enemies, for those who have defied Him and continue to fall short of His Glory. The mercies of God are His compassion, sympathy and pity for sinners. The source of the Gospel arises from the heart of God the Father. He was moved by compassion and love to have His only begotten Son secure redemption and have the Holy Spirit apply that redemption. Those who respond in faith to the Gospel have come to experience and know God the Father’s compassionate mercies. Faith in the Gospel brings one into the realm of God’s tender and eternal mercies. Those mercies secure for the believer in Christ the riches of Gospel grace, which entail the forgiveness of sins, justification, reconciliation, adoption. These are the believer’s due to God’s mercies and are accessed by virtue of you now being united with Christ.
This is a staggering gift! As Paul put it in 11:33, “Oh the depths of the riches…of God!” Paul wants you and me to hold the reality of God’s compassionate mercies in our minds and hearts so that they begin to shape our world-view and our lifestyle. Paul makes his appeal to us in light of these mercies. What should our response be in light of the riches of Gospel mercies? Sacrifice! Even more to the point: to offer or to present our bodies as a living sacrifice. The response to which the mercies of God call us is that of consecration. Since we are not merely spirits or souls, this consecration must entail the body. Of course, this means more than merely a mechanical or mindless action. In offering your body, you offer all that you are to the God, who has poured out His compassionate mercies upon you.
In 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 Paul reminds you that as a Christian your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. This means that you are not your own for you were bought with a price (the precious blood of Christ) and this means you are to glorify God with your body. This is the nature of the consecration that Paul urges us to move toward. So it is practical. You and I only obey God as we use our bodies. This is a call to mindful bodily obedience. We are to be living sacrifices in that we now have a new life in Christ and this means we are to live out our lives by rendering conscious obedience to God.
Our overall life is to be one act of sacrifice in this regard. This is what our practical response is to be to God’s mercies. This will play out in thousands of small actions in the days, weeks, months and years of our lives. Such a response is like a whole burnt offering of gratitude, praise and thanksgiving wherein we serve God with our minds and whole bodies. Such a response is holy and acceptable to God. It is the reasonable service of worship that we are to render to Him in view of His mercies to us.
In verse 2 Paul gives more specific details. We are to see the whole of our lives as one act of bodily sacrifice, yet it is worked out consistently and progressively first by what we persist in not doing and then what we persist in doing. These, in a sense, comprise one ongoing response.
First, if you and I are to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice to God we are to be sure that we do not allow ourselves to be conformed to this present age or this present world system. Pressure comes from the world that has fallen and in rebellion against the Creator. The pressure is that we conform to its values or be marginalized. We are to resist that pressure and resist it daily. As J. B. Phillips so aptly translated this sentence “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold.”
Second, (and at the same time) we are to be transformed. It is interesting that this is a passive imperative. We are commanded and hence expected to act in such a way so that we can be transformed. This is something that is done to us or for us. We cannot transform ourselves, yet Paul commands us to be transformed. The means by which this is carried out is by the renewing of our minds. We are continually to be transformed by the renewal of our minds. So we are to engage our minds in such a way that we come to a new way of thinking, seeing and assessing what is truly valuable. It is obvious that this can only occur as we engage with the truth of God’s word. We need the Holy Spirit to renew our mind but He works through the Scriptures. He does not do our sermon hearing, Scripture reading and study for us. This is what we need to do. Yet as we do, the Holy Spirit will work His renewal of our minds. As our thinking and way of viewing reality is shaped more and more by the Spirit working through the Scriptures, the more we will be transformed, which lessens the prospect of being conformed to the world.
The result or fruit of such non-conforming transformation by the renewing of our minds will be that we will come to see more clearly the inestimable value of God’s will. To approve God’s will is not to give it a passing grade as though God and his will needs our approval. Rather, this is a mark of growth in grace in that you come to indeed value God’s will as it is revealed to you in the Scriptures. His will is primarily but not exclusively His law as it has been fulfilled by Christ and through Him becomes the rule or norm for the Christian life.
Yet, as Jesus himself taught us, God’s law is both deep and broad. We need wisdom to understand His will and obey it. For example in Colossians 1:9-10 Paul prays that his readers might be “filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, making it our aim to please Him.” Because in Christ we have been freed from the condemnation of the Law, obeying it no longer is a burden but a delight. The more our minds are transformed the more we will come to see how good, pleasing (to our hearts) and perfect (how richly wise) God’s will is. We will have become more skilled in knowing and applying God’s revealed will to our lives for His glory and praise.
It will be in the daily grind of living that we will be able to test this. What does God’s will mean for me today? How does God want me to speak the truth in this situation? How do I love this person in a way that will truly help her and truly honor God? The more your mind is renewed by the Word, the more you will be able to figure out and approve what God’s will is in the moments of your daily life. You will come to know that God’s will is good, acceptable and perfect by actually following through in doing His will. So how are you doing in this regard? How conscious are you of God’s mercies? How are you carrying out this appeal to offer your body as a living sacrifice? Do you feel the press of the world that you conform to its values and by grace are you waging a war of resistance? Are you experiencing transformation within your heart? How serious are you in taking steps to expose your mind to God’s word so that your thinking is renewed? Do you understand God’s will and are you taking real delight in His will?
Now, all of this is worked out in view of God’s mercies. Don’t forget this! The Gospel gives us both the strength and the motivation to offer our bodies as living sacrifices. This is not an act of atonement or merit but one of thanksgiving for the full atonement accomplished in Christ. The Gospel enables you to engage in this daily act of worship as you engage by faith in Christ with God’s word and experience the renewing of your mind so that you indeed delight in His Word and seek to follow His will revealed therein and overflowing with gratitude to Him for His infinites mercies to you!