Romans 12:1-2 says, Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. 2And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
In our American culture of ease, the thought of sacrifice seems almost foreign. After all, if Christ has become our sacrifice, and the grace of God brought salvation to us freely, why should we be expected to sacrifice anything for him? After all, so much of the preaching today says that God wants us to have the very best of everything.
The truth is that this call to sacrifice is a call to respond to the grace of God and not an expectation to earn the favor of God.
Let me show you some things about this call to live a life of sacrifice.
It's Mercy Driven!
In the Romans 12 text the writer urges us to be a living sacrifice because of the mercies of God. This Greek word is different than your every day word for mercy—it meant great mercy! The great mercy of God demands the we present our lives to him as a sacrifice.
The song “When I survey the Wondrous Cross” has this as it’s last verse,
Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a present far too small; Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.
The mercy of God, the grace of God, the love of God demands that I live my life for Him and that will require that I live sacrificially.
There is such confusion at this point. Tim Keller in his book, Counterfeit Gods argues at length, “The default mode of the human heart is to seek to control God and others through our moral performance. Because we have lived virtuous lives we feel that God and the people we meet owe us respect and support. Though we may give lip service to Jesus as our example and inspiration, we are still looking to ourselves and our own moral striving for salvation.”
The default mode of the human heart is to try and earn our way with God—we commend ourselves to God by our moral rectitude. Or in our particular discussion-- by sacrifice. But the author is not calling us to sacrifice to gain the grace of God or His acceptance but rather because we love him we ought to be willing to lay down our lives.
Let me ask you, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” You don’t know? What came first, “grace or works?” The default mode of the heart says, "Works come first and grace follows. Do well and God’s acceptance will follow." Paul in his writings to the church at Ephesus makes it clear, grace came first, apart from our works, and such love demands that will give our lives in sacrifice. (By the way, the chicken came first! Just look in the creation story in Genesis 1-2)
It's Mercy Empowered!
But the phrase 'by the mercies of God' implies something else as well. It implies that living my life as a sacrifice can't even be done except by the mercies of God! Not only does God's mercy and love motivate us and call us to love Him back sacrificially, what little we can offer back to God will be empowered by his love and mercy! We can offer to God the sacrifice of our lives because He will enable that by his mercy.
Let's answer the call because of His mercy!
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