Who Do You Live For?

Romans 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. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

Romans 12:1-2 “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy,

Grace | The Mercy of God:

3 distinct senses depending on the context.

The disposition to show favor

It can be used to denote the gift given or favor done.

It can denote the response of gratitude made by the recipient of favors.

“Grace must be met with grace, favor must always give birth to favor, gift must always be met with gratitude”.

Transformation: The Heart of Paul’s Gospel (A Great Gift Is a Great Responsibility)

This point is well illustrated by a common motif in ancient art and a Roman philosopher’s interpretation of that motif. I am referring here to the image of the three “Graces,” three goddesses dancing hand-in-hand in a circle. Seneca interprets this image thus: there are three graces, since “there is one for bestowing a benefit, one for receiving it, and a third for returning it.” They dance hand-in-hand because “a benefit passing in its course from hand to hand returns nevertheless to the giver; the beauty of the whole is destroyed if the course is anywhere broken, and it has most beauty if it is continuous and maintains an uninterrupted succession” (Ben., 1.3.2–5).

Only a gift well-responded to is a gift well and nobly received.

So instead of asking, what is necessary for me to be saved and stay saved?

Rather, We should be asking:

In view of all Jesus gave me, all He did, Himself and the gift of His Spirit, what is my proper response to Him!?

Romans 12:1-2 “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.

In light of that, what is our proper response that honors the greatness of God’s gift? To offer our bodies as a living sacrifice - our true worship.

Worship is the way we live, not what we do on Sunday morning. We worship God, says Paul, by giving ourselves in sacrificial service to our Lord. We are to serve him every day, every hour, every minute.

Paul deliberately uses the word “body” to describe what we offer to God.

This is going to imply physical, intentional, and practical actions and behaviors.

One of the temptations in the Christian life is to divide the spiritual world from the material and to think that only certain parts of our life have eternal significance - all of our life is to be continuous worship.

We offer our bodies, our lives to that which we worship. Everyone does this.

Comparison with Romans 1:18-25

Paul’s statement in Romans 12 is the antithesis of his statements in Romans 1 that we looked at last time, here it is:

Charts

So in other words, Paul is saying, instead of sacrificing and giving your bodies to worship of idols, sacrifice and give your bodies to the worship of God.

But Josh, I don’t worship idols. Yes you do, you may not worship idols made of silver and gold and wood but idol worship is primarily from our heart.

An idol is:

Is anything worshiped in place of the true God.

It is whatever the heart clings to for ultimate security.

It is whatever is substituted for God as the object of desire.

It is whatever is substituted for God as the object we trust in.

It is anything we revere other than God.

In the men’s group that I am part of here at this church - we have been talking about the idols in our culture and lives.

There is the idol of comfort, idol of significance, and the idol of control

So we worship these idols by asking ourselves, what will bring me the most comfort? What will bring me the most significance instead of what will bring God the most glory (we were created to reflect his glory, we have none of our own)? What will give me most control rather than walk by faith? You cannot walk by faith and control at the same time… That is another message.

The question: Who do you live for?

What can’t you live without?

Today: What or Who do you live for?

2 Corinthians 5:10-15 “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, (same “body” that Paul said to offer to the Lord in worship in 12:1) whether good or bad. Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others.

(So then, at the end of it all, it really doesn’t matter what someone thinks of what you did in the body, or even what you think, the only one that matters is Christ.)

For Christ’s love compels us (what motivates your life?), because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”

Self-Worship

If I asked everyone why did Jesus die… Here is an explicit and absolute answer as to why He died.

Therefore, living for yourself (your own comfort, control, and significance) must be one of if not the most destructive way to live. He is our rescuer and he has rescued us from live for self.

I find it fascinating that Paul is contrasting us living for the Lord with living for ourselves. In fact, self-worship goes all the way back to original sin in Adam.

There seems to be an element of self-worship in that Adam (when he ate of the forbidden tree) decided that he knew what was better for him than God did (my own struggle with pornography), that he wanted to advance himself at all costs, and that he trusted in himself, a created man, instead of in the Creator.

Genesis 3:22 “And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.””

Humans have breached the Creator-creature distinction. Idolatry (self-worship) blurs the line of creator and creation. Not that humans have now become gods but that they have chosen to act as though we were—defining and deciding for ourselves what we will regard as good and evil.

Sin is the rearranging of existence around the self, with the result that it (self) comes to be its own creator, healer and sustainer

Therein lies the root of all other forms of idolatry: we deify our own capacities, and thereby make gods of ourselves and our choices and all their implications.

In fact, idol worship is primarily self-worship.

We don’t worship idols because we think they are worthy but rather for what they give us.

People worshipped various gods in the ancient world in order to ensure their own physical, economic ans spiritual welfare.

The fundamental idolatry described by the Bible lies at the heart of modern idolatries: The self is set at the center of existence as a god: ultimate significance is found in god-like individual autonomy, self-set goals and boundaries.”

At the root, then, all idolatry is human rejection of the goodness of God and the finality of God’s moral authority. And God’s response to Adam’s self-worship was the way of Grace and Mercy to bring humanity - redeemed and cleansed to eternal life with Him.

Christ died so that we would live for Him.

Heaping glory on the true God and worshipfully acknowledging his greatness leads to sharing in God’s greatness and glory by reflecting his glory, which is reflected back on him. Thus god is seen as the unique and weighty great One of the cosmos. - GK Beale

The three graces cycle, live for God - worship, and reflect His glory back to Him.

The Power Source of Self

Thinking that this life is all we have is in many ways the power source for our self-centered impulses and desires. If we look at death as a dead end and at this life as the primary arena for our fulfillment, then self-gratification becomes more important and self-denial for the sake of seeking the good of others or the advancement of God’s agenda becomes less reasonable.

1 Corinthians 15:19 “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

1 Corinthians 15:31-32 “I face death every day—yes, just as surely as I boast about you in Christ Jesus our Lord. If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus with no more than human hopes, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.””

1 Corinthians 15:35-58 “35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” 36 How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38 But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 39 Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. 40 There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41 The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor. 42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. 48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.

50 I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

55 “Where, O death, is your victory?

Where, O death, is your sting?”

56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

58 Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

EXTRA-

We discover in Genesis 3 and Ezekiel 28 (the judgement of the king of Tyre who many believe is in reference to Adam or Satan)

Sin is the rearranging of existence around the self, with the result that it (self) comes to be its own creator, healer and sustainer

In fact, idol worship is primarily self-worship.

We don’t worship idols because we think they are worthy but rather for what they give us.

People worshipped various gods in the ancient world in order to ensure their own physical, economic ans spiritual welfare.

The indictment of the king of Tyre (Ezekiel 28) expresses the notion that whenever any “man” places himself at the center of reality, he reflects a larger image of himself by enlarging himself in an illegitamte way.

We heap up possessions to gratify and bring glory to ourselves - reflecting our own ego by expanding it in the form of such possessions and self-glory.

We multiply solutions to problems according to our own wisdom and not God’s - another way of expanding a reflection of our own image and vain imagination. Such wisdom may not be anitbiblical but is it secondary to the wisdom of God’s word?

When we try to enlarge ourselves and try to bring glory to ourselves, then we are actually reflecting our ego in a greater and greater way.

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