Episode Transcript
The Roman letter 12:1: I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritually intelligent worship. And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Shall we just bow in prayer?
Lord, we want to bow here in your presence this evening. We thank you, Lord, that you by your Holy Spirit can make this word live to us. And to that end, Lord, we stand by faith into that anointing which is ours for speaker and for hearer alike. Lord, will you in your own marvellous way use this time that there may be no futility in it, no vanity in it, nothing, Lord, but yourself and your working. Redeem it, Lord, we pray, in its entirety, and we shall give to you all the praise and all the worship of our hearts in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
I just have a very simple thought to share with you this evening from these verses that we have read in the Romans 12. “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritually intelligent worship. And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
I find this very, very interesting. This is how the apostle Paul sums up this magnificent revelation that we have in this letter. It is the most incredible exposition of our salvation in the whole Bible. And he begins with the whole question of sin and the failure of everybody, Jew and Gentile, to reach God's glory. And then he speaks to us of the mercy of the Lord and his saving grace, his justifying work and all the rest of that. Then, having explained to us that we are saved in this marvellous way by the work of the Lord Jesus, he then begins to deal with the whole problem of our self. We can have our sins dealt with, but we still have a problem with our self.
And self is often a bigger problem for Christians than sin because we all know sin is wrong, and we all know Jesus has died for our sins, and we all know that if we can confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. But self, that is a big problem. In Christian circles, there is an awful lot of talk about consecrating self to the Lord.
I think the church has suffered more from the consecrated self-life of its members than it has from their failings and weaknesses.
We are told to bring all our talents and all our energies and all our ambitions and everything else and use them for the Lord. We have to consecrate them for the Lord. And the apostle deals, by the spirit of God, with this whole problem of self. He says, there is no way self can serve God because the things we would not do, those we do and the things that we do, we know that we should not do them. But it is something that we can hardly help. It is the spontaneous expression of our self life. And he tells us that the only way we can be delivered from the law of sin and death is by the work of the Holy Spirit. Not only are we crucified with Christ, but the Holy Spirit has to come with a superior power to lift us above another law, the law of sin and death within our members. So here we have the whole of our salvation, not half a salvation, but a full salvation, not just salvation from sin, but salvation from self. And we have it in the first eight chapters of this amazing Roman letter.
Then we have what some theologians call a parenthesis. Now, the apostle Paul had a mind, we are told, that was genius. And this kind of mind is always wandering. Now it is absolutely true that we have within Jewish circles quite a number of highly intelligent and what I call genius type minds. And there is no doubt that to trap them down is unbelievable. They wander all over the place. It is quite extraordinary. And they tell us that the apostle Paul was one of these geniuses who was always wandering, you see, always sort of suddenly going along, then suddenly he goes off course. And the result is by telling us that Romans 9,10 and 11 is a kind of parenthesis, everybody has relegated it to a shelf. They have put it away in a kind of cupboard and said, “Well, now, this is not really for contemporary believers, it is for theologians.
I mean, this is a parenthesis. And then we are told that here in chapter twelve suddenly the apostle wakes up with a start and says, “Oh, now what was I saying? Oh yes, yes, salvation. I beseech you, therefore, brethren by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice.”
Now, however, we look at it, in this chapter 9,10 and eleven, I do not personally believe it is a parenthesis, but even if we think of it as a parenthesis, the fact is it is revelation. Actually, in my estimation it is almost as if the apostle Paul says, “Now, just wait. Before we can come to a conclusion, before we can sum up this matter in practical terms, before I can present to you the practical requirements that God demands of those who are born of his Spirit, who are saved by his grace, I have to take you behind the scenes and I have to speak of a mystery that you will not understand fully except by the spirit of God. It is the mystery of election.”
Now it is very interesting that when the apostle Paul comes to tell us to present our bodies a living sacrifice, he tells us to do it by the mercies of God. Listen, not by the mercy of God, but by the mercies of God, as if he is referring not only to the justifying work of the Lord Jesus, but the sanctifying work of the Lord Jesus as well. Here is one great area of mercy, that God could take sinners like you and me and declare them to be absolutely righteous in his presence. No matter what you have committed, what sins you have committed, what transgressions you have made, however much iniquity you have been involved in. He says, the Lord Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is sufficient to cancel out every single blot and for you to be justified just as if you had never sinned. In fact, in another letter he puts it this way. He says, “He that knew no sin, God made to be our sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” Can you believe it? Jesus, who was without sin, is made our sin so that we become his righteousness in the sight of God. We become the righteousness of God in the Lord Jesus. Isn't that amazing? Now, isn't that mercy? And the apostle Paul says, “I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by that mercy of God that has justified you, that has declared you absolutely righteous in his sight forever, to present your body as a living sacrifice." But then for any of us who know something about our self life and are old enough to have tried to consecrate our self life and have tried to Christianise it and teach it Christian language and give it good theology and drive it to prayer and make it study the Bible and make it go out in the streets to witness, you know, the kind of thing we have done. Like all good works, instead of coming out of the spirit of God within us, it is something that is religion. Oh, we have suffered so terribly. The Christian life, I have to tell you, is the most miserable of all lives. There is no doubt about it. Christian people are, in fact, unless they really know the work of the Holy Spirit and the work of the cross are, of all people, the most miserable. You have only got to look at their faces. They are so miserable. You know, it is depressing to see them sometimes from the pulpit. It really is. They are all there with those deadpan faces, grey, sad, in some cases embittered, in many cases disillusioned.
It is very, very sad because, you see, there is no halfway house in spiritual things. You are either enjoying your salvation or you are living a facade, though saved. There is no halfway house. This question of the self is an awful problem. Paul said, “Who will deliver me from this wretched man?” Now, you can be a woman to say that, too. I mean, all you have got to say is, “Who can deliver me from this wretched woman?” Paul was thinking of the gladiators bound together. When one of them died, someone had to cut the dead body so that the other was free. And there he is, he uses this graphic picture of someone walking around the arena with this dead body dragging behind him. He is dead, but he cannot get rid of the thing. It is linked to him. Oh, some of us spend our whole lives dragging our old man, or our old woman, I do not mean your husband or your wife. Our old man or our old nature, whatever you like to call it, dragging it around with us. We inspect it every now and again. We get a spiritual magnifying glass out, and we have a good look to see if there is anything acceptable at all in it. We do everything we can to resurrect this old corpse, to dress it up in Sunday best clothes, to make it a good Christian, to somehow make it acceptable to God and God has crucified it.
So when we read in those wonderful words in Romans 7, where he says about this, “Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?” he says, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” So it is only in Christ that we can be delivered from this body of death, can be delivered out of this body of death, from this body of death, only in Christ.
Because Christ not only died for us, but he died as us. You know, this can never stay in the realm of theology. Just like justification. I know people who have been brought up in Christian homes who know all about justification. It does not mean a thing to them. It has never sunk in. It has never come by revelation, so it does not excite them. But the moment it comes by revelation, you become a new person, just on the question of justification. To think that you can go into the presence of God without a conscience of evil, that you can go into the presence of God without a sense of guilt, that you haven't got to always apologise every time you come to the presence of God. I am sorry, Lord, that I am here, but I want to have a word with you, I am very, very sorry.
You know, this kind of thing. To be able to come to the presence of God, when you have seen it. But you know, it is not only this. You have got to see this other side of things. Oh, when the Holy Spirit gives us revelation and we see that we have been delivered from this body of sin, from this old man, that in Christ we are delivered so that we are set free to serve the Lord in the Spirit, then it is real.
The day I saw this, I really, honestly thought I had never been saved. I thought that was my salvation. Do you know that? Of course, later on when I looked back, I realised I was saved when I was saved. But I thought to myself, “I have never been saved. I have never been saved. Now I am saved.” I thought to myself. Because such glory touched my heart and such power seemed to come into my life. I thought, I have never been saved. It was a sham. Of course, now I look back, I know I was saved when I was saved.
This is another mercy of God, isn't it? Don't you think so? I do. Here is a mercy of God. He did not leave us. He does not require that we should drag around this old body of sin all the time. He wants us delivered from it. He wants us to be able to serve the Lord in the Spirit. He wants us to live by the Spirit. He wants us to walk by the Spirit. He wants us to be led of the Spirit. He wants us to grow up to be sons of God. Not just babies, but sons, able to take responsibility in the things to do with His kingdom. So the apostle Paul says, "I beseech you, therefore, by this mercy of God, to present your bodies, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your spiritually intelligent worship.”
But then we have yet another factor, and I know that it will not get an echo in all your hearts because immediately some of you will have a problem on it. But I have long ago learned to leave these problems with God. It is predestination.
Now I know the very word said shivers down some people's backs. Living in this democratic 20th century, “Predestination, oh, no, it is unjust." Well, I can only tell you this. I have become more and more convinced that the only reason I ever came to the Lord, is that in some strange way he chose me. Now, whether it is based on his foreknowledge, I do not know. Maybe it was, maybe it was not. Some people say, “Oh, you see, God foreknew. He knew those that would come to him and those who would not. And when he saw that so-and-so would come to him, then he chose.”
Well, I do not know. I do not know at all. All I know is this, behind my salvation is a mystery. Jesus said, “You did not choose me. I chose you.” It is a mystery.
I do not know how it works out with human responsibility and free will. And I know immediately lots of little minds here will be ticking furiously trying to relate the two things together. But all I know is this. This is another mercy of God. It is exactly what the apostle says in Romans 9. He chose some, through his mercy, to be vessels of mercy afore prepared for glory.
And now the apostle says, are you a child of God? Have you been born of the Spirit? Have been saved by his grace? God has chosen you from before the foundation of the world. Chosen. I beseech you, therefore, by this mercy of God, that you present your body a living sacrifice.
Now, there are one or two things about this, having said something about the context, that I find very interesting. It seems that many Christians who read their Bible are so used to it that they do not stop at certain words. For instance, did you notice it is a living sacrifice?
Now I find that rather interesting. I mean, isn't a sacrifice a dead one? In one sense, it is rather interesting to speak of a living sacrifice. What does he mean, a living sacrifice? Then I want you to please notice that it is holy. And I also want you to notice that it is acceptable to God.
Now, this does not seem like the normal idea, that you and I bring all that is bad in us and we put it on the altar to be burnt up so that what is good and noble about us can be filled with the Holy Spirit.
It looks to me as if this is in another dimension, as if the apostle is not talking about something to do with your old life, but he is talking about what there is in you born of God. And he is saying, “Now, what is born of God in you, that has to be a living sacrifice. What is justified, that has to be wholly acceptable to God. After all, it is only what he has declared righteous that can be holy in his sight, and only that which he has declared righteous that could be acceptable to him. The rest he rejects. So here we have the most amazing thing.
God is asking us not just to lay down our lives with all their faults and failings and sins and transgressions and put it all down so the fire of God can come and consume the whole thing. Now he is talking about taking what there is that is born of God in us, that is of God, the new creation, the new man, and to bring that as a living sacrifice to God, holy and acceptable to God.
I always illustrate this, if you are still with me. If you want to sleep, you can. But if you are still with me and can still follow, I always illustrate this by the story of Abraham. What an amazing story it is, the whole story. But of course, the part of the story I am thinking about is when the Lord said to him, “Take thy son, thine only son,” now that is interesting because he had two.
He said, “Take thy son, thine only son, and go to Mount Moriah and sacrifice him.”
Now, I think this is the most extraordinary thing. No wonder some liberals have such a problem with the Old Testament. Do you mean to tell me that God asked Abraham to take this son that was the son of promise that came, who was born by a miracle, that was born by the power of God, when it was impossible physically to conceive or to bear a child, that God said to Abraham, “Take this son of yours and sacrifice him”?
I can imagine, with my imagination, I can imagine somehow the conversation going like this. When the Lord said, “Take thy son, thine only son, go to Mount Moriah and sacrifice him,” I can imagine Abraham saying, “Oh, yes, you mean Ishmael, of course.” Ishmael was the product of Abraham's flesh and Sarah's.
Ishmael was the product of the old man. He was not the son of promise. And Abraham could say, “Lord, I understand entirely what you are saying. I am to finish this curse that has come to me. I am with my own hands to put an end to this terrible mistake I have made, this failing, this weakness, this work of my flesh. You are asking me to sacrifice it. I understand entirely, Lord, terrible as it is. I understand.” But it was not Ishmael, but Isaac. Now, God had said to Abraham, “In Isaac shall your seed be called."
He had also said that in this seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Now, Abraham could have said, “It is impossible for me to take this son of mine, that is the result of a miracle, that is the result of your word, that is the fulfilment of your promise, and to sacrifice him. Lord, this must be Satan.
But somewhere Abraham had an understanding of spiritual things that very few Christian believers under the new covenant seem to have, because he said to the young men in the most memorable phrase, “Stay here while I and the lad go yonder to worship.” He described this sacrifice of Isaac as worship.
Now listen, “I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritually intelligent worship.” Somewhere Abraham understood. “I know what the Lord is doing. I have got to get my hands off my Isaac.”
It is very interesting how when we become believers, first we have such a problem, and then when finally we do become believers, and when finally we accept the discipline of the Lord, before very long we have our hands on the new man, if you know what I mean. We are sort of really manipulating and forming and working out things and all the rest of it, whether it is our service for God or our work for God or our fellowship or whatever it is, very quickly our clammy hands come upon it, and the only way that God can deal with it is to say, “Now, a living sacrifice.”
So, you know, it is absolutely true of you and me that what is born of God in us is a promise. That is the foundation for glory, that is the material for glory. That is all to do with eternal inheritance. That is all to do with coming to the throne of God. What is born of God in us, what is really the new man, the new creation. That is really what our life as Christians is all about. The development of that, the education of that, the training of that, the expanding of that, the maturing of that. It is all to do with future service and glory. And then the Lord comes and says, “Now get your hands off it. By the mercies of God, present that body of yours and everything within it a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable God.”
Now do you begin to understand why the apostle Paul goes on to say, “…and be not fashioned according to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind”? There is no way that you are going to be a living sacrifice if you are fashioned according to this world. This world would say, that is ridiculous. That is stupid. You have to be transformed by the renewing of your mind to understand. Like Abraham, “Let us go and worship, because as I let go of my Isaac, God can give him back in resurrection.” You remember, in Hebrews. It says, he believed that he would receive him back in resurrection. And this is true of you and me. Every time we present our bodies a living sacrifice, it is given back to us in resurrection.
He that loveth his life, Jesus said, loseth it, and he that hateth it, that is loses it in this life, shall find it in this life, unto life eternal. So when you let go, you receive back, only you receive it back in fullness. And each time you let go of it more deeply, you receive it back more fully.
It is a marvellous thing, this paradox. But you understand that if you are fashioned according to this world, this is nonsense to you. You say, “I do not know why we have to sit here listening to all of this, because I do not understand a word of it. It does not make sense to me. It is absolutely ridiculous. Why doesn't he tell us to use our talents and our energies in the work of God? Haven't we all got it? Of course we have. Can't we give our time? Can't we give our money?” Well, it is nice for you to give your time. I am quite sure they would appreciate it here, and I am sure that we would appreciate you giving your money, and if they do not want it, I will take it. These are all things we are only too happy to receive.
But, my dear friends, you can give time and you can give talent and you can give money, and it does not mean a thing unless you are presenting your body a living sacrifice to God, holy and acceptable to him.
Will you notice, lastly, that he says, “That you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” Now, I think if we were to be honest, truly honest, really bedrock honest, very few of us would say, I think the will of God is good, acceptable and perfect. Some of us will say, it is good, it is good. I know it is good, but it is not acceptable. It is good, but I cannot accept it. Others of us might say it is good, and by the grace of God, and by the grace of God alone, I can accept it, but it is not perfect.
It is impossible for us to talk about the will of God. We have all got this idea that somehow or other, what God wants for us is not really good, acceptable and perfect. We feel that if God really gets in on the act in our life, we are going to have a lot that is going to be very difficult, very unacceptable, and quite honestly, and most of us are not, but quite honestly imperfect.
It is interesting that the only way you can discover that the will of God is good, acceptable and perfect is when your body is a living sacrifice.
It seems that in the very act of laying down what is of God in yourself and giving it over again to him, you discover the good, acceptable and perfect will of God. Well, that is really all I had to say this evening.
It is a marvellous thing to really know the Lord. And the most wonderful thing of all is that when you have an experience like this, something happens in you which is forever. It can never be taken away, when once you are prepared to be a living sacrifice. I pray that God will help every one of us here to be such living sacrifices. I do praise the Lord for the way in these past decades the whole matter of worship has come back to us as central. The understanding that real worship is essential. It is not a luxury, but it is essential. It is part of our service.
Even the understanding that in worshipping the Lord, people get saved so very often without any evangelism, without any preaching. I am not saying you should not preach and I am not saying you should not have evangelism. I am just saying that people get saved at a worship time because it is as if they see people in action and they suddenly realise that this is real. They are worshiping someone. They cannot see them. But they all worship and they are apparently really in love with this unseen person. It touches people.
But there is a danger because worship has now become very much an in-word amongst us that we should devalue it. Praise is not the same as worship. Even thanksgiving is not the same as worship. Worship is the deepest level of adoration and that kind of worship is not just a matter of words. Thank God if with your lips in the assembly of the saints you praise the Lord. Thank God if you contribute in some way to the worship of the Lord together. But you and I have to always remember that our spiritually intelligent worship is when we in a cold blooded manner present our bodies a living sacrifice.
There may be very little emotion connected with it and certainly no glamour. But as you and I give our bodies, present, a living sacrifice, we are worshipping the Lord in a spiritually intelligent manner. Now the Lord says, “I have got them. Now I can fulfil all my purposes in and through them. This is spiritually intelligent worship. May the Lord touch your heart and mine. May he enable us to offer just such spiritually intelligent worship.
Shall we pray?
Lord, we just want to bow here in your presence this evening. We are very, very conscious, Lord, of our need of you. Oh, how we thank you, Lord, you never ask of us anything that will not bring us into greater fullness and greater life and greater experience of your grace and mercy. And, Lord, when you say to us to present our bodies a living sacrifice, some of us almost shrink back immediately from the thought of it. We do not want, perhaps, to go that way. But, Lord, by your Spirit, inspire us. Kindle within us something of yourself, Lord, that we might bring to you what you have done in our lives and give it back to you as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to you. We want to prove, Lord, your good and acceptable and perfect will in our own lives, in the lives of our families, in our business life, in our church life, in our service for you. We want to prove that good and acceptable and perfect will of yours. Oh, Lord, we give ourselves now to you this evening. Work in all our hearts and lives. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
