A Living Sacrifice

Published by Stanley Pouw in 2014 · 31 August 2014

Let us come together to worship God on this, the Lord's Day in the mountains with eager hearts. We are going to look at Romans 12:1-2, to study what spiritual worship really means. The text says, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

After having studied some years ago the eleven chapters of profound and thrilling doctrine in Romans that defines what God has done for every believer, Paul does not say, "Now here's what you need to get." No, he says, "Now here's what you need to give." The key to powerful living is not getting something more, but giving all we have. And it is sad that many Christians think that what you need to be successful in living the Christian life is to get something, when the real issue is to give which then will result in blessings by itself.

1 Peter 2:5 says, "You are living stones, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." We are all priests under God whose goal is to offer up spiritual sacrifices, like priests of the Old Testament who offered up physical sacrifices of animals before God. Now as spiritual priests there are many kinds of sacrifices. Scripture talks about what we can offer in Hebrews 13, praise and thanks to God, and our prayers for all what we possess. We offer Him worship when we serve others which is truly an act of worship. But above all a believer must offer himself as a living sacrifice.

Presenting yourself as a living sacrifice is the sum of the previous eleven chapters of Romans 1-11. The conclusion in Romans 12 that Paul gives us is that we need to give back to Him all that we are. That's the supreme act of spiritual worship. And that is very difficult, but absolutely necessary if we are ever to know the fullness of the blessing of God and bring Him glory by giving yourself totally to the Lord.

Most Christians never really achieve that. They flirt with the world, they flirt with the flesh. They flirt with their own personal desires. They become victims of the philosophy and psychology of the world around them. They entertain themselves with the world's mode of entertainment. They think along the lines the world thinks and therefore forfeit the fullness of the blessing that God would have for them.

Now the central concept in these verses is the phrase "a living sacrifice." This language here is definitely the Old Testament language of ritual offerings. In the Old Testament a person would come to God bringing whatever it was that he was going to sacrifice to the priest who took it, who killed it and put it on the altar as an offering to God. That system has come to an end. There is no more animal sacrifice pleasing to God.

Now what God wants is living sacrifices. No more dead animals, but living men and women. So the essential act of the Old Testament Jew's life, his religious life, was the offering of a sacrifice as an indication of the genuineness of his faith. The central act of a believer now in the New Testament is the presentation of his heart, his soul, his mind, and all that he is as a living sacrifice to show his faith.

But do not misunderstand the intention of the Old Testament. When describing the central act of the Old Testament Jew in the ceremony and the ritual which God had instituted to offer an animal for the temporary forgiveness of his sins, it was also offered as a symbol of the offering of his own life. In other words, the intent of the Old Testament, in the sacrifice of a dead animal was as a symbol of the offering of the heart and the soul.

But now God calls for the living sacrifice. This is a call to dedication, this is a call to commitment. And this is the only logical conclusion to redemption. Romans 12:1-2 is the only proper response to God's redeeming work. Out of this text we learn that there are four elements in a living sacrifice. The four elements, that appear in this passage of Romans, in presenting your bodies as a living sacrifice are your soul, body, mind and will.

First, offering myself as a living sacrifice implies that my soul has been given to God. It is a call to a regenerated soul to make a proper offering. And only a regenerated soul, a redeemed soul, a saved soul and transformed soul can understand that. 1 Corinthians 2:14 says, “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him.” So the soul must come first. Scripture refers to the soul as that inner part of man which God seeks to redeem.

Romans 8:8 says, "So then, they that are in the flesh cannot please God." An unredeemed person cannot please God, cannot make an offering to God and cannot worship God. There can be no sacrifice made of body, mind or will unless there is first the giving of the soul in redemption. 1 Corinthians 13:3 says, "Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, though I give my body to be burned, if I have not love it profits me nothing." In other words, if I do not possess the love of God, all my acts of self-sacrifice are worthless.

Now believers are further connected by this statement, "I beseech you therefore by the mercies of God." What does he mean by that? All believers have experienced the mercies of God. And since we have experienced the mercies of God, therefore, we ought to do this. The mercies of God includes everything that God has done for the believer listed in Romans 1 through 11, all of it. And what have we learned in these first eleven chapters? What are the mercies of God?

Think of them. Love, God's love is shed abroad in the heart, it says in Romans 5:5. Nothing can separate us from the love of God it says in Romans 8:35. Grace in Romans 1, 3, 5, 6, all the way through, grace, grace and more grace of God. Romans 8 tells us we have received the Holy Spirit that dwells within us. It says that in Romans 8: 2, 4, 9, 11, 14, 16 and verse 26. The Holy Spirit is a mercy given to us by God, an undeserved blessing. How about peace? Romans 1:7, Romans 2:10, Romans 5:1, Romans 8:6 and elsewhere says that we have received peace in our hearts.

And faith, over 20 times, and comfort, Romans 1:12, and power, Romans 1:16, and hope, Romans 5:2 and Romans 8:20 and 24. And we've received patience, Romans 9 and 11. And doing good, Romans 2:7. And we have received glory and honor and righteousness and forgiveness and reconciliation and justification, all of those are the mercies of God. And in Romans 5:10, we have received eternal life and freedom in Romans 6 and 7 and resurrection in Romans 8 and sonship in Romans 8. These are all mercies of God.

Paul is saying is, "Look, you who have received all of these mercies of God, which we do not deserve, because that is what mercy means. So what should be our response having received so much? Does it seem too much to ask that we give back to God ourselves? Is that something for which we ought to be patted on the back for such an act? No! It is all because of the work of Jesus Christ in the mercy of God to us who believe.

Paul says that gratitude ought to be our strongest motivation. It is almost an act of instant response, to give himself as a living sacrifice to the God who gave him so much. To hold back at all is an incredible act of ingratitude, demonstrating a lack of thanksgiving to a gracious and merciful God. Psalm 116:12 says, "What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me?" Well, fortunately God doesn't expect us to return in equal. And because you have experienced the mercies of God, you ought to give yourself as a living sacrifice.

What is important in life are the principles that you hold fast to that you have been taught and are able by sound doctrine to live by. You live day to day based on that foundation of truth. To put it another way, ethics rise out of dogma. In Galatians, Paul has four chapters rolling with doctrine and when he hits chapter 5:1 he says, "For freedom Christ has set us free, therefore stand fast," In Ephesians, he has three chapters of doctrine, and then in chapter 4 he begins, "I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you that you walk worthy." Paul comes to exhortation after the foundation of doctrine has been laid.

We have to know what we believe before we can apply it, right? In John 13:17, it says this, "If you know these things, happy are you if you do them." And Peter says, "Sin is the result of forgetting what happened when you were saved." And James says the same thing, "Don't be a forgetful hearer." Salvation is where it all begins and the doctrine has been established. The saving of the soul is the first thing, next is the regeneration of the inner man.

Secondly, the body must be presented to God. Now "present" here is a temple term meaning surrendering and yielding. It also is a technical term for the Levitical offerings, to bring it as an actual sacrifice. And what God wants here is our body. He already has the soul, right? He already has that inner man. And now what He wants us to give Him the body, that new me, that new creation is now called upon to present the body in which it exists.

Now that is quite difficult because the body is the place where our humanness resides, isn't it? If you don't think so, then you do not understand the point of death. Because when a person dies, their spirit goes to heaven, and their body goes to the grave. And once that separation is made, there is no problem. The body contains our humanness and our humanness contains our flesh and is that contains our sin as we learn in Romans 6 and 7.

In Romans 6:12 it says, "Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.” Sin will no longer reign in your soul, which is transformed. But it will still be there in your body. Verse 13 says, so don't yield your bodily members as instruments of righteousness to sin, but yield yourselves unto God. In 1 Corinthians 6:19, Paul says, "What? Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?" So dwelling within this flesh is the Holy Spirit dwelling in our redeemed soul.

Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 4:4-5, "that each of you should know how to possess his own body in sanctification and honor, 5 not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God.” And again he is saying the same thing. You who are redeemed must know how to take hold of your body. He says in Philippians 3:21, “the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.”

And it is a fearful thing the way the body can dominate the redeemed soul, isn't it? Here we are redeemed creatures with redeemed souls which have transformed the inner man, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, living in us and yet isn't it remarkable how much power is still there in the body to retard the work of the Spirit, to dominate the redeemed soul? The body is the center of desire and the center of disease and the center of depression. The body is the center of doubts. And it must be offered to God as a living sacrifice.

Well, biblically we can bring an unredeemed body under the subjection of the power of the Spirit of God. According to Romans 6 the body can become an instrument of righteousness. Whenever your body is used for the purposes that are divine it becomes an instrument of righteousness. But whenever it used in something that displeases God, it is an instrument of unrighteousness. And note too, that vice was rampant in those days, much like it is in our day, that people tended to be tolerant of those sins.

And that's why we need to listen to what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6:12-13, "All things are lawful to me but all things are not expedient, all things are lawful for me but I will not be brought under the power of any.” I will not allow myself to become a victim of anything. And then he goes on at the end of verse 13 to say, "The body is not for fornication but it's for the Lord and the Lord is for the body."

David Livingston, a missionary to Africa, said, "People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of the great debt owing to our God which we could never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own reward of healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? It is no sacrifice, it is a privilege.

The third one, the mind must be given to God. And verse 2 says, "And do not be conformed to this world." O could we say so much about that. "But be transformed by the renewing of your mind." And here he tells us that one of the basic keys to being able with your soul to offer your body is to be sure that your mind has been renewed.

Believe me, the world is an instrument of Satan to promote his goals and his ends and his ambitions, and we can see it everywhere. We can see how the spirit of this age is a spirit of pride, a spirit of boastfulness and ego. Don't masquerade wearing the spirit of the age which is inconsistent with what's really in you," Don't wear the mask of the world. Stop what is not representative of what you are in your inner being as a regenerated child of God."

On the other hand, he says, "But be transformed," totally changed. We need to change our outward appearance to match what we are within. In Matthew 17 it says Jesus was transfigured, His outward appearance was made to be exactly like His inward. He was God in human flesh and for a moment His human flesh manifested the God that was inside Him. And you too are to be transformed like that.

How do you do it? “By the renewing of your mind.” The word "renewing" here is renovation. The renovation of the mind. How do we renovate our mind? By the Word. That's the key to the renewed mind. The key is if we are going to walk worthy, we have to know the Word of God. In Colossians 3:10, it says put on the new man that is renewed in knowledge. Colossians 3:16, “let the word of Christ dwell in your richly.”

And finally, we must present our will to God. We have to give our will up and we have to say: “You are good and You are the perfect will. I don't want what I want, I want only what You want.” See, I don't care where I live, I don't care what I possess, I don't care what I have and don't have, I just want whatever You want, that's all.

A renewed mind will be expressed in a submissive will and in a body presented as a living sacrifice. You can't present your body unless you have a renewed mind because you won't have the will to do that. But when you have a renewed mind, your will is submissive to God and you will offer your body as a living sacrifice. Do you do this only once in your life? No, you do it all the time, every waking moment, it's a conscious renewing act. Let us pray.