Thank you, Steve. What a mellow cello. Played by such a nice fellow. I'd like to play one, but all I can do is bellow. And having taken that far enough, would you turn please to Romans 12? I hope that wasn't on the tape. All of us need to beware of the dangers of over familiarity, don't we? That can cause us to be less alert at times when we need to be alert.
An example of that would be an experience that I suppose many of us have had of driving from perhaps home to work and waking up arriving at work wondering how we got there. The over familiarity with the road caused our minds to be wandering somewhere else as we were driving along. That's the reason that people tell us that most accidents, automobile accidents, occur within 20 miles of home because there we feel comfortable and we're overly familiar with the road.
In relationships the same thing can happen. It is a sad thing that we tend to neglect and to take for granted the ones that we know the best and love the most. And that can happen as well with the Word of God especially when we come to a familiar verse like today, Romans 12.1. I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God which is your spiritual service of worship.
You may have heard scores of messages on this verse but I pray that the Spirit of God will make it afresh to us today and that we will be alert to what He wants to say. Would you bow together with me please and let's sing the chorus that we've learned in recent weeks. Open our eyes, Lord. We want to see Jesus. Open our ears, Lord. Help us to listen. Let's sing it together. Open our eyes, Lord. We want to see Jesus. To reach out and touch Him. And say that we love Him.
Open our ears, Lord. And help us to listen. Open our eyes, Lord. We want to see Jesus. And Father, I pray that you will deliver us today from the danger of over familiarity with your Word. May there be something new and fresh that the Spirit of God would say to us, strike us anew with this truth that we may respond anew. I pray in Jesus' name, amen. We have come to the end of the doctrinal section of the book of Romans but certainly not to the end of the book.
As is true with most of Paul's epistles, he makes a transition at this point into the practical application of the doctrine he has taught. Doctrine should make a difference in the life. If we know doctrine only for doctrine's sake, we have missed something. Doctrine is intended to have an impact on the way that we live.
The apostle takes the doctrine that he has taught us regarding salvation in the first eleven chapters of the book and now in chapters twelve through sixteen applies those doctrines in ways that are very personal. He speaks especially about our relationships to people and groups around us. He talks about our relationship to other believers, our relationship to persecutors, to authorities over us, to our neighbors, to weaker brethren within the fellowship of God's people.
Our outline of the book of Romans entitles this section, The Righteousness of God Revealed, or Man's Service. For he speaks here about our service to the Lord and to others and in that service the righteousness of God is revealed through our lives. Before he gets to the main application and the personal application of the doctrine, he gives us a prelude in the first two verses. In this prelude he urges upon us a fundamental action.
Before any of us can be prepared to obey the various commands regarding our relationships, we must take this action that is urged upon us here. He says, I urge you therefore, brethren. Notice that the apostle does not demand us to do something. What he is saying here is short of a demand, but it is more than just an encouragement. The word urge is the word parakeleo and it means an authoritative appeal.
I believe the apostle, by the inspiration of God's Spirit by the way, chooses not to use the word command here so that our response to the doctrines of grace might not be legalistic ones but rather might be glad response, willing response from the heart. But even though the apostle says, I urge you, please do not think that what he is saying now is only an option that we can exercise if we wish. For unless we take the action that he urges upon us here, we are disobedient to God.
It is that critical. Let's examine in detail what we are urged to do. He says that we are urged to offer our bodies, ourselves as a sacrifice to God. There are five points in verse one which will give us an understanding of what he means. Please follow along with me. Point number one, the action that is encouraged. What is it? Well, he says we are to present our bodies as a sacrifice. This verb present is a technical term from that day involving the presentation of a sacrifice.
It literally means to place beside. You can see the idea of placing something on the altar. It means to put at the disposal of another. It's not a word that's new to us by the way in Romans. If you go back to chapter six, we'll review where we have seen this verse before. In verse 13, where he says, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God.
So he says, don't go on presenting yourselves to sin, but present yourselves to God and your members, that is the members of your bodies, as instruments of righteousness to God. Then he says a similar thing in verse 16. Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin or of obedience?
And then in verse 19 he says, beginning with the second sentence in the verse, for just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification. That's the same word as we come to in chapter 12, present your bodies.
It is a word that was used of the Lord Jesus Christ back in Luke chapter two, and here you can see it in a little bit of a different context, as he is brought to the temple by his parents. In Luke chapter two, verse 22, when the days for their purification, according to the law of Moses, were completed, they brought him, Jesus, up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. As it is written in the law of the Lord, every firstborn male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord.
And they came, he says, to offer a sacrifice, according to what was said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons. By the way, that indicates to us the kind of sacrifice they brought and the poverty in which Joseph and Mary lived. They brought the very least expensive of sacrifices. But notice that they brought Jesus as an infant to present him in the temple, same word.
In accordance with the law of Moses, they were to literally physically bring him and offer him to God because he opened her womb as a male. That is the word that the apostle Paul, by the Spirit, chooses to use for you and me in the presentation of our bodies to God. Now this idea of a sacrifice, of an offering, is underscored by the word sacrifice in Romans 12.1. Present your bodies a sacrifice. That is a word that comes from a verb meaning to go up in smoke. Very picturesque, isn't it?
It is a word that was used of the burnt offerings in those days when they brought their offerings to the temple of Israel. It involved the death of the animal and literally the body of the animal went up in smoke. It was a burnt offering. An interesting idea and insight into what our offering ought to be. He says, present your bodies as something that goes up in smoke. The idea is that our sacrifice of our bodies is to be as complete a commitment, as total and as irrevocable as a burnt offering.
This is something that we are to do, by the way. God doesn't do it for us. He says, I urge you, brethren, to present your bodies. He says, it is your spiritual service of worship. And so it's an action we are responsible for. We are to offer our bodies to God. Have you done that? Let's think about the offering itself for a moment. Have you ever wondered why the apostle didn't say, present your souls to God or present your spirits to God? Why does he say, present your bodies to God?
I think there are three reasons for this. Reason number one, Paul was a Hebrew and the Hebrew idea of saying this would have meant one's total self. The Greeks separated the body from the immaterial parts, but the Hebrews did not. When they spoke of the body, they thought of the total self. And so probably this apostle has that idea in mind. He is saying, actually, present all of your powers, all of your capacities to God as a sacrifice.
Secondly, it is the body which is the instrument that you have to serve God. And that's what this whole section now is going to talk about, our serving God. We make our decisions in the immaterial part of us, but that decision then is related to our bodies. And then our bodies relate us to people around us. It's our contact point with society. And so he emphasizes that the instrument that we have to serve God with, our bodies, we represent that to God as a sacrifice.
There's a third reason I think he emphasizes the body at this point. And that goes back to something that we've learned already in the book of Romans. And that is that our bodies are the seat of indwelling sin. We have seen before that when we trusted the Lord Jesus Christ, we died to sin because of our identification with Christ. A dramatic thing took place. We died, really died. The old man died and we were resurrected a new man, a new person with a new life principle within us.
And yet within our bodies, there still dwells that principle or that power of sin. It still is there and we struggle with that. We saw that in Romans 6 and 7. Now because our bodies serve as the seat for that indwelling sin, that's where it is. And because that's where the battle is, he says present your bodies as a sacrifice to God. He uses two words to modify this a little bit. He says present your bodies a living sacrifice.
That's in contrast to the Old Testament system of sacrifice in which of course the animals were killed and the blood was sprinkled in a certain way according to the law for atonement. I'm kind of glad he says offer our bodies alive, aren't you? We're to offer our bodies living, vital to the Lord. And he says furthermore that it's a holy sacrifice. The flesh and blood that we live in is not sinful in itself. Sin lives in our bodies. It uses the members of our bodies.
It uses our drives and our capacities to express its evil. But our bodies are not sinful in themselves. He says when we offer our bodies to the Lord, it is a holy sacrifice. Our bodies are consecrated. They are set apart to God. Our bodies are devoted to special use by God. They are not for just a common ordinary purpose. 1 Corinthians 6, 19 and 20 reminds us that the Holy Spirit of God is in us. Your body functions as God's holy of holies during this age.
God does not live somewhere in a tent that is carried around on poles and then set up. But God lives in your body. Your body is his holy of holies. When you and I begin to understand that, it will make a difference in the way we treat our bodies and use our bodies. Our bodies are the temple of God, says the apostle. It's a holy sacrifice and a living sacrifice. He gives us also an assurance. He says this is acceptable to God. It is well pleasing to God when we give the sacrifice.
Well you say isn't God well pleased with all sacrifices? The answer is absolutely not. God is not well pleased with all sacrifices. An example of that, go back into the Old Testament to Isaiah chapter 1. Now remember that Isaiah is not talking to some pagan tribe somewhere. Isaiah is talking to the people of Israel. In chapter 1 and verse 10, I want you to notice the words he speaks to the people of Israel. Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom.
Give ear to the instruction of our God, you people of Gomorrah. Do you want Sodom and Gomorrah to represent? That which is perverse, that which is reprehensible and rejected and judged by God and yet he calls his own people here by those names. He goes on, what are your multiplied sacrifices to me, says the Lord. I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle. I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs or goats.
When you come to appear before me, who requires of you this trampling of my courts? Bring your worthless offerings no longer. Incense is an abomination to me. The new moon and Sabbath, the calling of assemblies, I cannot endure iniquity and the solemn assembly. I hate your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts. They've become a burden to me. I am weary of bearing them. So when you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you.
Yes, even though you multiply prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood. What is God saying to his people here? He is saying, I am not well pleased with the sacrifices that you bring because they are empty rituals. You bring the sacrifice to the temple and then you go out and live like the devil. You go out and live in sin. Away with your sacrifices. I will listen to your prayers. They are worthless. Who requires you to come and trample my courts? Those are strong words.
That's how the book of Isaiah begins. Look how it ends, chapter 66. Just to encourage you, things do get better in the middle. But as he closes the book, he rebukes them for their hypocrisy and he says in verse 3, but he who kills an ox is like one who slays a man. He's no better than a murderer, says God. Killing of the ox was a sacrifice commanded by God. He who sacrifices a lamb is like one who breaks a dog's neck. He who offers a grain offering is like one who offers swine's blood.
Think how that must have struck the Jewish ear. He who burns incense is like the one who blesses an idol. As they have chosen their own ways and their soul delights and their abomination, so I will choose their punishments and I will bring on them what they dread because I called and no one answered, I spoke, but they did not listen and they did evil in my sight and chose that in which I did not delight.
And yet you and I are told that when we come to God and we offer to him this sacrifice of our bodies, it is well pleasing to him that we do that. No friend, God is not well pleased with every sacrifice. I'll tell you the sacrifice God is well pleased with every time. That is a contrite and broken spirit. That pleases God. Remember old Saul? God told him to go and to wipe out the enemy. He was to leave nothing alive. So Samuel came to check up on him. He had some accountability, you see.
Saul obeyed the word of the Lord, yes we have finished him off. Then in the back, ah, ah. Samuel said, what's that I hear? What's the bleeding of the sheep? Oh well, you know, Samuel, we did keep a few of the sheep, but they were to be sacrificed to the Lord. Samuel said, Saul, God wants something more than sacrifice. What is it? Obedience. Obedience. When you and I come and bring our bodies to the Lord and we, as it were, put them on the altar as a living holy sacrifice, that is obedience.
And God is well pleased with that sacrifice. The verse closes with an explanation. He says regarding this sacrifice that we are to present to the Lord, that it is your spiritual service of worship. The word service of worship, and I say word because that translates to one Greek word, is a word that talks about the service that priests did in the temple. It was a priestly duty. He says regarding this sacrifice that we bring that it's a spiritual service of worship.
And that word spiritual in the original language is a hard one to translate. It doesn't come into the English real well. But if you listen to the Greek word, you will pick up an English word from it. The Greek word is logikos. And you may be able to hear there the word logic. That's why the King James Version says, which is your reasonable service. The Phillips translation says it is an act of intelligent worship. What is the point of this?
The emphasis that Paul is making here is that in contrast to the often formal and thoughtless, even hypocritical sacrifices at the temple, the sacrifice we are to bring is to be a deliberate spiritual decision. It is an act of worship before God resulting in our service to Him in all of our relationships. And that's what he's going to talk about in the following verses and chapters.
But the point is that we are not to be like those Jews in that day who brought their sacrifices without really thinking about it. They just did it because that's what they were supposed to do. You and I are to bring our bodies. We are to know what we are doing. It is to be a definite, intelligent decision on our part. I present my body as a sacrifice to God. And in doing that, you are doing a priestly service to God. There are certain sacrifices we are to offer as priests, aren't there?
Our praise to God, Hebrews chapter 13. We're to offer our sacrifice to God by sharing what we have with those who have need. There he says we are to bring our bodies as a living sacrifice, a holy sacrifice to God. Why should we do that? What's the cause for it? Well, he says, by the mercies of God, I urge you to do this. Notice that mercy is in the plural. That's a Hebrew way of saying it's a manifold expression of God's tender mercies I have in mind as I write to you.
It's not that God has been merciful in one way or in another way, but that in many ways, God has been merciful to you. Calvin said, until men really apprehend how much they owe to the mercy of God, they will never with a right feeling worship him, nor be effectually stimulated to fear and obey him. In other words, Paul is saying, look at all you owe God. Look at what God has done for you in mercy. What has God done? Think back with me through the book of Romans.
Maybe we'll understand what is in Paul's heart as he says this. By the mercies of God, you were a condemned sinner. And yet God made provision for your forgiveness through the propitiation, the sacrifice of his son, Jesus Christ. By faith alone, you have entered into a new relationship with God. You possess a new standing before God, that of justification. By the mercies of God, you were also at that time united with Christ, identified with him in death, burial, and resurrection.
As we have already stated, your old man died. A radical change took place. You were raised a new man. Whereas before you were enslaved to sin, by the mercies of God, now you are freed from it so that you don't have to obey its impulses in the physical members of your body.
By the mercies of God, you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which enables you to put to death the deeds of the body, the Spirit who enables you to pray, who personally guides you through life, who witnesses assurance to you that you are the child of God and if a child than an heir, and a joint heir with Jesus Christ of all of his future glory. The Spirit intercedes with unutterable groanings for you according to the will of God.
Furthermore, by the mercies of God, you are kept secure for your eternal destiny as one who loves God. You have been foreknown to salvation. You've been predestined to be like Jesus. You have been effectually called by the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit into faith. You have been declared righteous in the sight of God. You have been guaranteed your future glorification with Christ. By the mercies of God, nothing can separate you from that loving purpose of God.
By the mercies of God, you are the recipient of his mercy. For the gospel was proclaimed to you as a Gentile due to the failure of God's Old Testament people Israel. Because someone was sent to you by the mercies of God and declared the word to you, and you heard it and believed in Christ and called upon him, you've been saved.
By the mercies of God, you were cut off from the wild olive tree of your Gentile ancestry and you have been grafted into the olive tree of God's purpose and blessing and privilege promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Not because you were worthy, but because you were chosen of God to be an object of mercy. Therefore, by the mercies of God, present your bodies to God. It means to consciously take the reins of control and to put them into the hands of God.
Have you offered your body to God as a living sacrifice? Are you abusing your body with alcohol? Are you destroying it with drugs? Then you cannot say that you have given your body to God as a living sacrifice. Are you destroying it with overeating? I could have gone a long time without mentioning that, I know. Let's be frank about it. Are you abusing your body by lack of proper exercise? Are you abusing your body because of being sexually unconstrained?
Are you involved in a relationship which compromises your body, the temple of the Holy Spirit? If so, then you need today to present your body to God as a living sacrifice. Are you willing to allow God to do with your body what He wants? If God wants to take your body and use it as an instrument over on some mission field in Indonesia, are you willing to say, I'm willing? Use me there?
If God wants to cause your body to be afflicted with an illness that will limit you for the rest of your life on this planet, are you willing to say, God, if that's what you want, I'm willing? My body is yours? Are you willing to even take the step of obedience and allow your body to be immersed in water as Jesus commanded us as an illustration of His death, burial, and resurrection? Have you made this definite commitment of consecration where you've presented your body to God?
The tense of that verb means to do it once and for all. The idea isn't that you won't have to come back and reinforce it later, but that it is to be so definite, it is to be so sure that you know you've done it. If you're not sure whether you've done it, then you need to do it today. And be sure from this point on, make a definite decision on your part. Is your body in check? Or is your body dominating your spirit so that you cannot do the things that you would like?
Someone has said the problem with the living sacrifice is that it tends to keep wiggling off the altar. I think all of us can identify with that. And it may be that you have made that commitment at some point in your life you're sure of that, but that today your body is causing you to be less consecrated than you ought to be and you need to reinforce that decision. Will you? Let's pray. Perhaps you need to pray something like this. Dear Father, I present my body as a sacrifice to you.
I place my total self, all of my capacities, my energies, my potential on the altar. And I say to you that the reins of control are in your hands. I offer myself to you and take my hands off of my life. Use me for your glory. With our heads bowed, our eyes shut, I wonder if you have made that commitment for the very first time this morning. And by the uplifted hand you would say, Pastor, today I prayed those words or something like them.
And in my heart I have this morning made this commitment of presenting my body with all of its potential to God as a sacrifice. Today I have made that commitment for the first time. Would you lift your hand as a testimony of that? Yes, God bless you. Others? I am aware that many of us have done this in the past. We may not be able to name the hour, the date, but we know we have made that commitment.
But there are many of us who today need to reinforce that commitment and to say afresh to the Lord, my body is yours. Do with it what you will. And today as a reinforcement of a previous decision, you're saying by the uplifted hand that's my commitment. I am saying to God afresh today, my body is yours. Would you lift your hand? You've done it before, but today you're reinforcing it. Yes, God bless you. Others? Father, we understand that this is to be an intelligent act of worship.
Not to be done carelessly or thoughtlessly, but reverently, soberly. Are some of your children still struggling because sin has so dominated their bodies and thus their spirit that they're not sure at this point they want to make the decision that's urged upon them by your spirit? I pray that before they leave here today, they will make that definite commitment. Show them the danger of neglecting overly familiar truth.
And then if there be someone here without the Savior altogether, I pray that that one would trust him today and come to know eternal life. In Jesus' name, Amen.