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April 28, 2002
Confirmation Sunday
Romans 12:1-2
Pastor Robert Raasch

Christian, Offer Your Body as a Living Sacrifice

1. What?
2. Why?
3. How?

Today is Confirmation Day at Mount Olive. (Just for a moment, I'd like you to imagine that you are an eighth grader sitting up here in a white robe.) You've already survived the hard part of confirmation, namely, examination. You were able to answer all the questions Pastor Zank asked you last Thursday. Now, all you have left to do is stand up, take your confirmation vows and then come forward to receive your confirmation verse.

But now, let's imagine that when you come up here and kneel down at the communion rail, I would also ask you to do one more thing. Image that I would ask you to lay your body out onto a huge burning altar. Imagine that I would ask you to offer yourself as a human sacrifice to God. How 'bout that? How would you feel about that final step? How would you feel about sacrificing yourself to God?

You realize that down through the centuries there have been any number of religions that have offered up human sacrifices to God. Historians tell us that the ancient Celtic tribes of Europe sometimes offered people as sacrifices to their gods. Among the Aztecs of Peru human sacrifices were rather common as people sought to win the favor of their gods and bring fertility to their fields.

Can you imagine being sacrificed to God, all in the name of religion? Makes you glad you're not a member of one of those religions, right? You can breathe easier knowing that we don't have a burning altar up here today, right? At least in the Christian religion, people don't have to sacrifice themselves to God, right? Or do they? Did you hear the words I read just a minute ago? In Romans, chapter 12, St. Paul writes to the Christians in Rome and the Christians in Appleton, "I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God."

Now, I don't know about you, but when I hear those words, it raises a number of questions in my mind. Questions like, "What? Offer my body as a living sacrifice? What does that mean? Why? Why would I do something like that? And even if I would decide to do that, how would I go about it? My friends, those are the three questions that God's Word will help us answer today:

1. What?
2. Why?
3. How?

as we consider Paul's exhortation,

Christian, Offer Your Body as a Living Sacrifice

The first question we need to answer is, "What, as in, what in the world is God asking us to do here? Offer your body as a living sacrifice? What does he mean by that?!? Well, let's first be clear on what God doesn't mean. God doesn't mean that we should go out and kill ourselves. He's not asking us to strap a bomb to our chest and walk into some Middle Eastern nightclub and blow up all the people who believe differently than we do. God is not saying that it would be the greatest act of religious heroics to hijack a plane and fly it into the side of a building, all in the name of "god". No, God's Word clearly states that human life is something to be protected, not destroyed. What does the fifth commandment say? Do not murder. Don't take human life, including your own. Suicide is not a part of God's will for mankind.

So then, what is Paul talking about here in our text? Well, notice that Paul says, "Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God." Ah, you see, God is not looking for dead sacrifices; he's looking for living sacrifices. Or to put it another way, God's will for our lives is not that we die for him, but rather that we live for him, that is, that we use our bodies in such a way as to bring glory to his name and joy to God's heart. Or as Paul puts it, "live a life, holy and pleasing to God."

In fact, when we do that, when we live a life holy and pleasing to God, then Paul says that it is "our spiritual worship." Actually, the original language there says even a little more than that. You might say that when we offer our bodies as living sacrifices, it is our intentional worship, or our well-thought-out worship. Do you see what Paul is doing here? He's contrasting two different mindsets commonly found among people today. One is that worship is what you do for an hour on Sunday every week or so. You know, you put in your time, punch the ecclesiastical time clock, do your duty to God, that is, if you nothing better to do during that time.

Contrast that kind of haphazard worship with what Paul calls, "well-thought-out and intentional worship." Offering your body as a living sacrifice to God means asking yourself, "how can I show how much God means to me every hour of the day, every day of the week, every minute of my life? How can I use my body, my tongue, my mind as an instrument to honor God at all times and occasions? The point is this: God is not asking you to devote a part of your heart, a part of your time, a part of your life to him. God demands all of it. Offer your body as a living sacrifice to God!

But now, maybe that raises a second question, namely, "Why?" Why in the world would I want to offer my body as a living sacrifice? That sounds a little extreme, doesn't it? Well, here in our text Paul answers that question when he says, "I urge you brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices." In view of God's mercy? What does God's mercy have to do with offering our bodies as sacrifices to God? Well, think back to what God demanded of you moments ago. God wants all of your heart, your body, your life. Tell me, how well are you doing that right now? Can you say that you've given yourself 100% to God's service. Do you always have a chipper attitude when you're asked to do something here at church? Always more than ready to obey your parents? Jump right up to help with the dishes every night. Never complain about your homework or the chores around the house. Always content with your allowance, content with your paycheck. More than happy to return more that 10% of your income to the Lord. Yes sir, completely devoted to God and his will for your life, 24/7?

Now, if that's what you are like, then you're right, you don't need God's mercy. But if you're more like me, and you have fallen far short of those standards…if Jesus could say of you what he said of the people in his day, namely, "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me"…if you can confess with Martin Luther of old, "I have indeed sinned against God and deserve nothing but punishment"…if that's who you know you really are, then I've got some really good news for you. And the good news is, in Christ, God has had mercy on you!"

Isn't that the truth? Even though you and I deserve nothing but God's wrath and punishment, he's given us just the opposite. He has given us a perfect substitute who absorbed all of God's wrath in our place. Through Christ's death and merits, God now sees you and me dressed in all of Jesus' holiness. Wow! Think about the effect that that fact has on our lives. You and I were once pieces of trash. We were once in the garbage pile of sinful mankind. And through the sacrifice of his Son, God has dug us out, cleaned us up and now holds each of us as his precious treasure.

Do you know what that reminds me of? It reminds me of my days working in a junk yard. Each summer I worked in a place that had hundreds of beat up, rusted out junk cars. And my job each year was to take all the worst of those junkers, stack them into piles with a front-end loader, and then run them through the big, orange car crusher. It flattened those cars like pancakes. Well, one year I had my little brother working with me. He'd be on the ground, getting the cars ready for the crusher. And before we'd stick the car in the crusher, he'd run up and pry the little aluminum insignia off the car. Maybe some of you remember those little nameplates that were riveted right onto the side of the car: Galaxies 500, Thunderbird, Chevrolet. Any way, by the end of the day, he'd have a whole hand full of these different monikers. Then he'd take them home, shine them up and then attach them to the wall of his bedroom. He treasured those things. One day they're junk. The next day, they're precious treasures.

Well, you might say, that's exactly what God has done for you and me. We were once junk. But then God rescued us from the junk pile of life, shined us up with Christ's righteousness and now holds us as his prized possessions. And in so doing, God has given us the perfect reason to show our thanks to him by wanting to offer our bodies as living sacrifices to God.

And yet, maybe that raises one last question in our minds, namely, how? How shall I offer my body as a living sacrifice to God? What am I supposed to do to show I'm offering by body as a living sacrifice to God? Once more, St. Paul doesn't let us down. He answers that question with both a negative and a positive statement. He says, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." First, do not conform to the pattern of this world. In other words, don't let the world around you set the pattern or the mold for your behavior. Or, as the Phillips translation of the Bible puts it, "Do not let the world around you squeeze you into its mold."

Boy, that's good advice isn't it? How easy it is for us, as we try to determine how we should act, to look at the world around us and ask, "Well, what is everybody else doing? If everybody else is going to that party, then I want to go, too." If everyone else is cheating on the exam, why shouldn't I? If everyone else is trying to score on Friday night, why shouldn't I? If everyone else is talking a certain way, or dressing a certain way, or living a certain lifestyle, why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't I follow the pattern of this world?

Why not? I'll tell you why not. Because God did not create you, or should I say, recreate you, to do that. When the Holy Spirit called you to faith in Jesus Christ, he reformed you into the image of God's Son. To God, you look beautiful. But now the Devil wants to change the way you look. He wants you to look more like him, rather than like God.

Reminds me of those computer programs-maybe you've seen them before-where you put a picture on the screen, maybe even picture of yourself, and then you distort the picture electronically. You maybe make the eyes bulge or you stretch the ears out, until you look hideous. Well that's what the Devil want to do with you and me. He wants to reshape us into his image. He wants to turn us from something beautiful into something ugly. Or you might say that he wants to reverse what God has done for us. If God has turned junk into treasure, then Satan wants to turn treasure back into junk.

Christian, don't let him do that to you. Do not conform yourself to the pattern of this world, but rather, as Paul says, "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind." What does that mean? It means that you and I need to start thinking differently about who we are? Why we're here? What is the purpose of our lives? We need to let God's Word change our thinking about how we will respond to everyday situations in our lives, be it a particular temptation, or some sort of stress, or a major disappointment of one kind or another. We need to let God the Holy Spirit renew us from the inside out.

You know, God promises that when we let his word guide our thinking, there will be positive changes in our lives. How does the Psalm writer put it? "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers." That is, who does not conform to the pattern of this world. But rather, "his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. {3} He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers." (Psa 1:1-3 NIV)

My friends, on this confirmation day service, not all of you will have the opportunity to step up here as young Christians dressed in white. And none of you will be asked to throw your body on a burning altar. But you will all the opportunity to do something else. In view of God's mercy, you will all have the opportunity and the reason to offer your body as a living sacrifice to your Savior God-not just today, but every day of your life. May God bless your sincere, lifelong devotion to him. Amen.