Sermon

Sermon # 1041
May 15, 2011
Romans 12:1-21
Dr. Ed Pettus

“An Appeal”

I appeal to you brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God…I beseech you…I entreat you…I urge you…
Paul begins this twelve chapter of Romans with an appeal. It is not just a casual “this would be a nice suggestion”, but a much more urgent plea, from the depths of the heart for God’s people to do some things and in this case to not do some other things. These things are interconnected in such a way that if you do the good things you won’t do the bad or at least will not want to. If you do the bad things you will not do the good. It seems to me that, at least in this writing, Paul addresses two aspects of our being: our body and our mind. For Paul, the word “body” means dealing with our whole being, because in Jewish thinking there was no separating body, soul, and spirit. The body was viewed as one united entity. No “parts is parts.” No categories called religious life and secular life. Everything is interconnected, body, life, faith.

So, when Paul says,
I. Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, he is saying:
“Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering” (The Message). All of our life comes under the umbrella God. There is no pulling apart our live so that one part comes under the religious me and another part falls under the secular me.
Too often we talk about our lives in parts. We say, “God is an important part of my life.” When we say that I always want to ask, “So, what part is God not involved in?” The Bible never talks this way. For instance we read in Deuteronomy 32, “Take to heart all the words that I am giving in witness against you today; give them as a command to your children, so that they may diligently observe all the words of this law. This is no trifling matter for you, but rather your very life.” (46-47) In this case the commandments give life to Israel. Apart from the word of God the people perish. The word is not just a part of their life; it is their life!

Later, the Apostle Paul writes to the church in Colossians, “for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory” (3-4). Christ is your life. Christ is not just a part that we deal with on Sundays. Christ is my life, your life, our life. You have probably seen those t-shirts that have some sport that says, “Basketball is not a matter of life and death, it’s more important than that.” Another says that about fishing or soccer. (The golf one is the only one that is really true!) Well, our life in Christ is the only matter of ultimate importance, for our life is hidden in Christ.

Paul is asking us to take our life in Christ that seriously, to present the whole of who we are before God, our every moment, our all in all. Jesus said it this way, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). I believe Jesus broadens the field to include more than laying down own one’s life in death as he did on the cross for us. I believe Jesus also intends the life giving that Paul speaks about in Romans 12, to lay down our lives as a living sacrifice to God. Jesus did that long before he hung on the cross. He gave his life when he gave time to teach the crowds. He gave his life when he healed a blind man. He gave himself as a living sacrifice to serve, to love, to call, to preach, to show compassion, to feed, to forgive, to reveal truth.

We give our lives over to God when we serve one another, when we give financially to the work of God, when we commit ourselves to work in the church and in the community, when we go to work, attend a ball game, eat out or vacation. Presenting ourselves as a living sacrifice is giving our lives to God for worship and service. It is giving our lives to teach. A daughter giving of her life to care for her aging mother. A parent giving time to his child. A soldier giving himself for freedom. It is also giving over our lives to live by God’s commands, to live as Mary did when she said, “Let it be with me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). We submit our lives to scripture in order to live in obedience to the will of God, to find our life in Christ and the freedom and grace and love and mercy that leads us to wholeness.

A negative command follows:
II. Do not be conformed to this world.
“Don’t become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking” (The Message). One of the ways we present our bodies before God is to think about how we live in our culture. Think about what effect the culture has on our life of faith. Our lives can become so busied by the pace of our culture – the speed of technology, the flood of information, the fads that change with the tides, or the ideas that challenge our faith. Because it all comes at us so fast in the modern life, we fail to stop and think. Maybe that’s the first sign that we have become well adjusted to the world – we live within its frantic pace, torn away from godly things which are, more often than not, only known in slowing down, in solitude, or in quiet, in prayer and study.

Perhaps you have had time to stop long enough to reflect, to find the joy of refreshment in Christ, comfort in time spent in prayer. Too often it takes a tragedy in our lives to slow us down. God once said through Isaiah, “For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel: In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength” (30:15).

Paul helps us learn how to begin to change our lives and turn ourselves toward God, to present our bodies as living sacrifices. I cannot tell you how to do that or what to do. That takes discernment on your part and my part. Each of us has to decide what activities will help our life in Christ and which will hinder our life in Christ.

Paul helps us with that question as well when he says,
III. Be transformed by the renewing of your minds.
“Fix your attention on God” (The Message). Renew our minds, renew our thinking, renew our attitudes, renew our paradigms, renew our direction, renew our goals. How and what we think sets the direction we will go. In the work I have done in Christian spirituality I assume three things about our situation:
1) the ways in which we have learned to think affect how we read the Bible,
2) how we read the Bible affects how we imagine God,
3) how we imagine God affects how we live out the faith.
4)
If our thinking is aimed at a God who is distant, the “big guy in the sky” image, then our faith will be distant, but if our images center around a God who is personal, intimate, and relevant to our life, then our faith will be relevant to our living.
Paul understood that if we transform our thinking we would not become overly concerned with self. We will not be conformed to the culture – but we will live a radically different life than those who live by the ways of the world.

How can we transform our minds? Paul says this,
IV. Do not think too highly of yourself.
“Do not misrepresent yourselves” (The Message).
Psalm 131 says it this way, “O LORD, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.”

Transforming the mind means humbling one’s self before God. We submit ourselves to God presence.

Humility is a lost trait in the world. So many voices tell us to lift ourselves up, to look out for self before considering anyone else. Perhaps the most asked question when we deal with situations is, “What’s in it for me?” It is a question that dominates our culture. Everything is about me, about the individual. My life is to be looked after first, and then I will concern myself with God. This is the way of the world and so often the way of our culture. I take care of myself – I make myself who I am – I am responsible for who I am and who I will be, then I will check with God to see what God can do for me.

Humility sees it quite differently; humility means placing our lives at God’s feet; “a living sacrifice” is Paul’s term. Nothing comes ahead of God, nothing comes before God in priority, but our whole being is given over to God – for God’s care and love. I lay down my life, my priorities, my hopes, dreams, cares, concerns before God in prayer. I present my body a living sacrifice, which is my spiritual worship.

Last Tuesday night, the Twin Cities Presbytery became the 87th vote to pass the controversial Amendment 10-A removing the nation standard for ordination which included fidelity in marriage between a man and a woman and chastity in singleness. It has been a 30 year discussion in the church that has, for the first time, moved in a new direction. Some rejoice in this change, others weep. Our denomination is divided. Four churches from one Presbytery were dismissed from the denomination a few days after this vote. More will seek to move out. Some will stay to fight another day, but as I think about the Presbyterian Church USA in light of Romans 12, it amazes me that we can be so divided on scripture interpretation and standards for ordination in the church.
One side might call this decision a renewal of the mind according to Romans 12. The other side claims we are conforming to our culture, conforming to the ways of the world.

If you keep up with the church newsletter, you know that I was opposed to this ordination standard change. I am one who weeps for the PCUSA.
My appeal today is that we can work together responding to Paul’s appeal to offer ourselves to God, to be transformed by God’s Spirit, to resist the temptations presented us by the world, and to discern God’s will. If you have been reading the church news, then you know that I seek to express God’s grace and love to all people, while holding fast to the truth of God’s word. As William Campbell says in his book Turning Controversy into Church Ministry: “Grace without truth pampers, confuses, and even deceives. Truth without grace cuts, wounds, and destroys.” I believe God calls us to holiness and to offer only grace without truth has lead us to the current decision we have in our denomination. To offer truth without grace only turns people away from God’s church.

Ours is a time to offer our lives to God in humility and repentance. To do all we can to discern God’s will for us and for the church. To pray and search the scriptures. Paul’s appeal is still as poignant as it was the day he wrote to the church in Rome. Let us seek God in all things and follow the command of Jesus to love one another in the process.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Amen.