Living well: sacrificially
Romans 12:1-2
On Remembrance Sunday we rightly remember all those that sacrificed their lives for others. Not just in the Great War - the war to end all wars - which saw 10 million military and almost same again civilian deaths. Not just the 80 million killed in World War Two (3% of the then total global population) when, for every one military death, there were two civilian deaths. Not just in Malaysia, Korea, what we disguised as the Irish “troubles”, Falklands, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Ukraine… Not just the British ‘Tommies’  - women, as well as men; children as well as adults; Commonwealth Nations as well as ‘Blighty’. We remember all those killed in war. So much death, sacrifice. Dead sacrifices. No wonder it makes us as nations pause, pray.
In Romans Chapter Twelve, Paul urges, “brethren”. Given how many women he name-checks in Chapter 16, he’s referring to brothers and sisters” - this is not just for ‘Tommies’.
“Offer your bodies” Enlist/ sign-up. No conscription in God’s army, just a call for volunteers to step-up. By ‘bodies’, he meant your whole self: body, mind and spirit. When soldiers march in step, they move further, faster, and as one. But when arms and legs are out of step, it’s chaos. Our whole self - body, mind and spirit - becomes out of step when we say one thing, but do another, believe one thing, but act as if we believe something else. That’s the realm of hypocrisy. Paul says, bring your whole self into line. And put your whole self on the line. Be ready to put aside, to sacrifice your own wants, ambitions, comfort… And yet, it does still include our physical bodies. Maybe for some it’s about offering your body and hearing, it is “holy and pleasing to God.” “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.”
“In view of God’s mercy”. It’s easier to be bold and courageous when you know you can’t lose. Under the Old Testament temple system, animals were sacrificed to appease God. There was mass slaughter, blood… all in the hope it would be enough to make amends for our wrong-doing and satisfy God. Though they didn’t know the detail, they sensed their sacrifice of doves and lambs was symbolic of a much bigger sacrifice. This was fulfilled in Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And how has God shown His mercy? By stepping into our chaos, becoming one of us, even to the point of death in a Cross, sacrificing His life so that you and I can live. Paul has spent eleven chapters connecting God’s story to ours. Because all that God is, all that God has done in Jesus, in view of God’s mercy, offer your bodies as living sacrifices… If there is ‘God’, then life can never be the same again.
Paul wants us to be LIVING sacrifices. “I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, offer your bodies as living sacrifices.” A few exceptions put their lives on the line for their faith. Shockingly, in some regimes today, some Christ-followers are still killed for their faith. Their sacrifice must also be remembered. For the rest of us, our faith doesn’t result in our physical death. The opposite. We come alive, we feel more human, more in step with how we are meant to be. Have you noticed? When you do something genuinely altruistic, it leaves you feeling good. Yes, our inflated egos, selfishness, prejudices are put to death, but our true selves, as God intended, come alive.
Holy and pleasing to God. “I urge you, brothers & sisters, in view of God’s mercy, offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God.” Holiness is not about how right, righteous, we are. That would make us self-righteous. It’s not about being perfect or sinless. Who is? It’s about how right, righteous, Christ is. When we become a follower of Christ, we are clothed with Christ. His death, becomes our death, so that His resurrection can become our resurrection. We are clothed with Christ: His righteousness becomes our righteousness. The Hebrew understanding of holiness is about being ‘set apart’ for a specific purpose.
I have a holy bog brush. It’s set apart for a specific purpose. I only use it to clean the bog! I don’t then use it to also clean my teeth. That would be unholy, it would no longer be set apart for a specific purpose. Even though it’s holy, it still gets covered in &?@$. Isn’t that true of our lives too? God made you and I to be holy, set apart for a specific purpose, God’s purpose. Paul says, bring your whole self into line with God’s way. Be set apart for God.
This is your spiritual act of worship. Worship is not just singing songs. It’ can be easy to sing words we neither believe nor live. When what we believe and live are in step, when we reflect back to God the life He wants for us, then we are glorifying God, not ourselves. That’s true worship. And we can do that anywhere. Paul says there’s logic in that kind of worship. The Greek word he uses is ‘logikos’. It turns out, living sacrificially is logical, it makes sense.
If you do what Paul urges, your life will never be the same again. “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Where culture is out of step with God’s Way, don’t adjust to culture’s way. Choose instead to keep in step with the God’s Spirit. Don’t be driven by “this present age”, the “pattern of this world.” In Galatians 1:4, Paul calls it this ‘present evil age.’ Don’t surrender to the spirit of the age that, for example, says just ‘look after number one.’ Neither be so ‘other worldly’. Because of Christ’s Ultimate Sacrifice and victorious Resurrection, the ‘age to come’ has already begun. 
Instead, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
The Greek word used here for transformed is ‘metamorphoo’. It’s the metamorphosis that transforms a wiggly hairy, clumsy caterpillar into a beautiful and graceful butterfly. The caterpillar and butterfly are the same being but different, transformed. The same word is used to describe the transfiguration of Christ. Paul also uses the same word to say believers are changed into the likeness of Christ from one degree of glory to another (2 Corinthians 3:18). When you become a follower of Christ, you will be transformed from one likeness to another. You will be the same person but different. Expect some life change when you go all-in, when you choose to offer your whole self to God.
You’ll develop spiritual muscle memory You’ll start to think act differently, think differently. “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Don’t stick stubbornly to what you’ve always thought or inherited. The Word of God is living and active - the words remain the same, but our understanding of them grows, and sometimes even changes. Let the revelation of Christ be what shapes your thinking. And direct your living. God wants the WHOLE of you, radically living for God. “Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

Take a few moments now to read, reflect, and pray through these two short but hugely significant verses:

New International Version:
1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

The Message: 
1 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. 2 Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

07840 046020   DannyBrierley@ChesterRoadBaptist.org.uk