As A Living Sacrifice

God’s Transformative Mercy

11.19.23 [Romans 12:1-8] River of Life (25th Sunday after Pentecost)

O give thanks to the Lord for he is good. His mercy transforms us and endures forever. Amen.

Thanksgiving, more than any of the holidays we celebrate, has a set menu. I’m not saying it’s not Thanksgiving if you go off-menu. I’m just saying you better knock it out of the park if you mess with tradition. For the Thanksgiving meal most people expect turkey, stuffing or dressing, rolls, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, corn, cranberry, and pie. That’s the tradition. You might be able to skip out on one, maybe two of those things and nobody will say anything. But mess with it too much and you’re going to ruffle feathers.

It’s a lot of food. Regular dinner plates can’t really handle it all at once. Neither can your regular belt notch. But every year we trot out basically the same spread and end up with the same wonderful situation come Thursday evening. Leftovers. Lots and lots of leftovers. Because there’s no good way to scale down these menu items. It’s hard to find a turkey under 20 lbs. Most recipes call for a 9x13 pan full of dressing and green bean casserole. If you want to buy potatoes they come in 5 or 10 lb. bags. Rolls are sold by the dozen—sometimes two dozen! And of course, there’s still the pie. Each pie serves at least eight. And you’ve got to have a variety. It’s a lot of food.

We know we're never going to finish it all at the first meal. We're going to have leftovers. So we make plans for that. We make sure you’ve got lots of empty Tupperware to put it all in. We make sure we've got a few of those Cool Whip containers lying around to send home with our guests. As far as leftovers go, Thanksgiving leftovers might be the finest. But they’re still leftovers. Not the best we can do.

This is why—even though cooking on the day of Thanksgiving can be stressful and even though we know we are going to have leftovers—nobody dreams of making the whole meal on Wednesday and just popping it in the microwave on Thursday. It would be more convenient. It would be easier. But it wouldn’t be our best, so we don’t do it.

So if leftovers aren’t satisfactory for Thanksgiving with friends & family, why do we think our leftovers ought to be good enough for our God? Right off the bat, we don’t think we are doing that. We don’t think of our worship of God being anything like reheated leftovers. But remember how Jesus summarizes what it means to worship God.

Mark 12:30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’

Is your heart devoted to God’s will and way? Is your soul engrossed in glorifying God in everything you feel and do? Is your mind riveted with God’s perfect design and his unsearchable wisdom? Do you expend your strength in advancing his kingdom or doing his will?

Far too often we live with divided hearts. We serve multiple masters. There is a part of us that wants to do things God’s way. The counsel our consciences give us is appealing. But it’s also hard. And sometimes, it calls us to lose out on some things we wanted to have or experience in order to do things God’s way.

Far too often our souls are pulled in many different directions. We want to glorify God. But we also want to be respected or liked. We want to be successful and comfortable. It’s wonderful when we can do both at the same time. But far too often we have to make choices: will we do what gains us favor in the eyes of men or God?

Our minds run into conflicts too. Sometimes, they’re just distracted. How many times do we come to church or open the Bible and we just can’t really seem to focus the way we know we should? But it’s more than that. There are many things that God calls us to be and do that just do not make sense to us. Why should we turn the other cheek, consider others better than ourselves, submit to sinful authorities, or forgive unconditionally? Won’t this create situations where others take advantage of us?

When you live with a divided heart, a soul pulled in many directions, and a conflicted mind, it’s no wonder that you struggle to love God with all your strength. Your strength is spent on what you think, feel, and trust to be most important. When was the last time you felt worn out from doing something for the Lord?

It’s not that we don’t give God any of our hearts or souls. It’s not that we never use our intellectual gifts or physical strength to serve him. It’s just that, far too often, we only give God what we’ve got left over. What we think we can spare. What we think we don’t need.

That's the example we see all around us. Eternal things take a backseat to temporal things. Spiritual matters are put off because we’ve got things we have to do right now. God’s way gathers dust because we don’t think it’s reasonable in our modern world. Without even realizing it, we are conforming to the pattern of this world. That’s why we need to hear God tell us bluntly, what we are here to be and do.

(Rom. 12:1-2) 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. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So how do we offer our all as a holy and pleasing sacrifice to God? How do we give God the true and proper worship he deserves? How can we be transformed to think more like our Lord?

Look at where Paul begins. In view of God’s mercy. When God’s mercy moves from being a distant blip in the rearview mirrors of our hearts, souls, minds, and lives, to being the thing that drives and guides us, everything changes. Our hearts. Our souls. Our minds. How we expend our strength and how we worship God, not just for an hour a week, but seven days a week in all we do.

Because that is precisely what God’s mercy did for us. God’s mercy, his faithful love, his incomprehensible pity for people that ignored him, hated him, and rebelled against him, moved him to offer himself as a sacrifice. This is God’s good, pleasing, and perfect will. God didn’t give you his leftovers, though that is more than any of us deserve. God gave us his very best. Himself. His mercy was made manifest. His Son is our Substitute and Savior.

It is Christ’s death that grabs all the spiritual headlines. As it well should. On the cross, the perfect Son of God suffered and died as a condemned criminal. On the cross, Jesus—who always said and did what was good, always pleased his Heavenly Father, offered his whole self, all his heart, all his mind, all his soul, and all his strength so that we might be transformed by God’s undeserved love.

But we also must keep in mind that Jesus didn’t just show up on earth for Good Friday. He didn’t just live here for a few days and then die in our place. He lived for decades in humility not decadence. For decades he delighted in the Word of God even when almost no one in his hometown thought he was anything special. For years, he meekly served the people around him. Teaching them with stories that they could grasp so that they could begin to appreciate the things they could never imagine. He healed the sick. He gave sight to the blind. He showed compassion to the sad, the suffering, and the lost. Though his world followed the pattern of pride and glory, he walked the humble way of the cross. He knew this was his Father’s good, pleasing, and perfect will.

He knew this was the only way that sinners like us—people with corrupt hearts, selfish souls, depraved minds, and overconfidence in our own strength—could be made holy and pleasing to God. Only God’s mercy could make us so different. Only God’s mercy can make such a difference.

And it has in you and in your life. You know that your wisdom, your devotion, and your self-discipline are not the reason you are holy and pleasing to God. Your eyes have been opened. The Spirit has filled you and sobered you up so that you know what you are by nature and you know what God has made you through his grace & mercy.

In Christ, we are unique and united. Because of God’s great mercy, we have been made into members of the body of Christ. We belong to Christ because of his mercy. We belong to his body, to one another, because of God's transformative mercy which we all share. In Christ, we are unique and united. We are gathered together & depend on one another. We serve each other to the glory of God and we don’t give each other our life’s leftovers.

But what each of us brings to the table is not exactly the same. We are united by God’s mercy, but we are uniquely gifted by God to meet each other’s needs. Some excel in speaking the words of God. Others are incredibly servant-hearted. There are those who can explain, model, and coach others what it means to offer themselves as a living sacrifice. There are those who cheer their fellow Christians on day after day. They are like modern-day Barnabases—sons of encouragement. There are those who cannot help but be generous. Not all of them are wealthy in this world, but they have an eye for those in need and a heart to help. There are those who know how to lead. They inspire people around them. They rally the troops. They set everyone’s sights on God’s goals. There are those who excel in compassion, mercy, and faithful love.

And we need them all. Just like the Thanksgiving table would be incomplete without sides and pies, the Church of God would be lacking something if it didn’t have you and your gifts, you offering yourself as a living serving encouraging, diligent sacrifice. Because in each of these grace gifts, we see God’s living sacrifice. We see Jesus. he spoke God’s Word boldly. He served humbly. He taught faithfully. He encouraged ceaselessly. He gave his all. He led the lost to heaven. He showed mercy. and in this world, we are called to be like Jesus. Our sacrifices do not save souls, but they point people to the one who did, who has, and who has united and blessed us. So whatever you’re bringing to the table. Give it your all. And God in his mercy, will make it enough. Amen.