Greetings thank you to all who attended Church Service yesterday may God Bless you. Allow me to share in brief the teaching that we had from Pastor Q Mhlanga. So when Paul says that our worship is to present our bodies as a sacrifice he does not mean that we die and atone for our sins. Well what does he mean? Lets take the four words he gives and see what each contributes to understanding a lifestyle of daily worship: bodies, living, holy, acceptable to God. 1. Bodies. “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” The point here is not to present to God your bodies and not your mind or heart or spirit. He is going to say very clearly in verse two: “Be transformed in the renewal of your mind.” The point is to stress that your body counts. You belong to God soul and body, or you dont belong to him at all. Your body matters. Someone might think: Why would God be interested in my body? Its overweight, or underweight, wrinkled, blotchy, achy, diseased, impulsive, nervous, unattractive, lazy, awkward, disabled, near-sighted, hard-of-hearing, stiff, and brittle. What kind of sacrifice is that? The Old Testament demanded a flawless sheep. I dont measure up. That kind of thinking totally misses the point. The sacrifice of our bodies to God is not a sacrifice for sin. That is done already in the sacrifice of Christ. Which is why bodies like ours are acceptable. Peter makes this really clear in 1 Peter 2:5 where he says something similar to Romans 12:1: “Offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God”—then he adds these words: “through Jesus Christ.” Its because of Jesus that our sacrifices to God are acceptable. So put out of your mind any thought that your body will ever deserve acceptance with God. It wont. If you are acceptable, it is “through Jesus Christ.” Through his perfection, not your perfection. But that kind of thinking misses the point in another way: The offering of our bodies is not the offering of our bodily looks but our bodily behavior. In the Bible the body is not significant because of the way it looks, but because of the way it acts. The body is given to us to make visible the beauty of Christ. And Christ, at the hour of his greatest beauty, was repulsive to look at. Isaiah 53:2-3 describes him: “He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows,and acquainted with grief.” The beauty of Christ is the beauty of love, not the beauty of looks. His beauty was the beauty of sacrifice, not skin. God doesnt demand our bodies because he wants models for Mademoiselle or Planet Muscle. He demands our bodies because he wants models of mercy. I think we should pray that Gods perspective on our bodies become imbedded deep in our sons and daughters—and in ourselves—as one very powerful antidote to the kinds of eating disorders that plague so many young women, and even now some men today. What God wants from us is a body that does mercy, not the body of Britney Spears or Mr. World. God wants visible, lived-out, bodily evidence that our lives are built on his mercy. Just as worshippers in the Old Testament denied themselves some earthly treasure (a sheep, a goat, a bull), and carried their sacrifices to the altar of blood and fire, so we deny ourselves some earthly treasure or ease or comfort, and carry ourselves—our bodies—for Christs sake to the places and the relationships and the crises in this world where mercy is needed. It may be your own home, or it may be Senegal. 2. Living.“Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” A life of visible, lived-out, physical actions of mercy might result in the death of a believer. There have always been martyrs. But that is not mainly what Paul has in mind here. Here he has in mind a lifestyle. Present your bodies a living sacrifice. It is your living that is the act of worship. Let every act of your body in living be an act of worship. That is, let every act of your living body be a demonstration that God is your treasure. Let every act of your living body show that Christ is more precious to you than anything else. Let every act of your living body be a death to all that dishonors Christ. 3. Holy. “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Probably the best explanation of holy bodies comes from Romans 6:13 where Paul said almost the very same thing he says here, using the very language of “presenting” our bodies to God, only he refers to our bodily “members” and not just our bodies. “Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life [i.e., a living sacrifice], and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.” “Present a living holy body to God” means give your members—your eyes, your tongue, your hands and feet—give your body to do righteousness, not sin. Thats what would make a body holy. A body is holy not because of what it looks like, or what shape its in, but because of what it does. Is it physical “instrument” of a hunger for righteousness? Is it the physical instrument of meekness and mercy and peace? Here are three examples where the body being used as an instrument of righteousness and mercy is called a “sacrifice.” In Philippians 4:18 Paul says, I “have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God.” Your work and giving and Epaphroditus bringing this gift to me is a sacrifice of worship to God. It shows Gods worth in your heart. Hebrews 13:15, “Through [Christ] then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.” When the lips join the heart in praise to God, the body becomes a holy, living sacrifice. Hebrews 13:16, “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” When you do good, in Jesus name, with your mouth or your hands or your presence, your body becomes a holy, living sacrifice of worship. A body becomes a holy sacrifice of worship when it is devoted to Gods purposes of righteousness and mercy. 4.Acceptable to God. “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Does this add anything to the word “holy”? If the sacrifice of our bodily life is holy, then it is acceptable to God. So what do these words add? They add God. They make God explicit. They remind us that the reason holiness matters is because of God. They remind us that all of these words are describing an act of worship—“which is your spiritual worship”—and God is the center of worship. So its fitting that we end where we began and stress that before Romans 12 is a call to live a merciful life, it is a call to live a worshipful life. Or better: In calling us to live a merciful life (built on the mercy of God in Christ), the aim is that it be a worshipful life. The aim of showing mercy is showing God. The aim of having bodies is to make the glory of God more visible. And he does not shine through our muscles and curves, but through our merciful behavior. Closing I close with two statements from the apostle Paul. First, his own testimony of desire: “It is my eager expectation and hope that . . . Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death” (Philippians 1:20). Second, his exhortation to us from 1 Corinthians 6:19-20: “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” In other words, “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Show the worth of Christ by the way you use your body. Amen.
Posted on: Mon, 28 Jul 2014 06:22:59 +0000
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