Living Sacrifices to God (Romans 12:1–2) — A Sermon by R.C. Sproul

0:00 After this morning's sermon, somebody came up to me and said, are you going to give Vesta an opportunity for rebuttal? I said, she doesn't need any opportunity for rebuttal. She gave me her own rebuttal. She said, you know, honey, if a woman asks her husband, honey, will we be married forever? However, a wise man, instead of giving a lengthy, complicated theological answer, would simply say, gee, I hope so.

0:38 She said that to me, I thought about Martin Luther and his unmeasurable love that he had for his bride, Katie von Bora. And yet he said on one occasion about his beloved Katie that he said, if God wanted me to have a meek wife, he'd have to hew one out of stone. But Katie did refer to her husband Martin Luther as Dr. Luther. My wife doesn't call me Dr. Sproul. I'm not going to tell you all the things that she does call me, but she often does refer to me simply as docky. You could add an N to it, and it would maybe be more accurate.

1:33 Well, tonight we come to a watershed moment in our study of Romans. We're beginning a new chapter, chapter 12, and I'm going to read this evening. verses 1 through 2. two.

1:55 That's enough, don't you think? Now remember, that's twice as many verses as we read the last time, so we're hurrying up here and picking up the pace. So I'd ask you to stand for the reading of the Word of God. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

2:56 This is the beginning of Paul's summation for his magnum opus, his great treatise on the gospel that we have been studying throughout the book of Romans. And I pray that God would give us ears to hear this petition that the apostle sets before us this evening. Please be seated. let us pray Once again, O Lord, we come into Your presence in a spirit of sheer delight that we can gather and hear Your Word. I pray now that as we contemplate these practical applications set forth by the Apostle, that indeed we will take them to heart.

3:53 We ask it in the name of Christ. Amen. You know, in the English language, we have all different kinds of word forms. We have nouns and verbs and adverbs and adjectives and prepositions and that sort of thing. But also we have an abundant use of symbols. We'll have the plus sign or the minus sign. And there is one of those written symbols that you may not be familiar with. but if you ever see three dots on a page arranged in the form of a triangle, top dot at the top and then one on either side, you know that that symbol is a symbol for the word ergo, or the word therefore. It is a symbol used in classical logic to indicate after the opening premise and the second premise that then we see this triangular symbol that indicates the conclusion that is drawn from the premises. It indicates the therefore. And I've said so many times that you're tired of hearing it, that any time we see the word therefore in Scripture, our attention ought to perk up a bit because we're coming to the sum of the matter. We're coming to a very important conclusion. We're coming to the end of an argument, and usually that term, therefore, indicates the conclusion to an argument that has just previously been set forth.

5:44 But when we see the beginning of chapter 12 of Romans, indicated by Paul's petition to his readers, I beseech you, therefore, that we have to ask the question, to what does the therefore refer? Does it refer to that which has immediately preceded the beginning of chapter 12, to the conclusion of the doxology that he gave in chapter 11? Maybe. But I think the majority of Pauline scholars would argue that the therefore that Paul uses here in chapter 12 is a therefore that follows the entire unfolding of his argument of the gospel that began in chapter 1. As he has set forth the counsel of God throughout the epistle, now he makes that clear transition from the doctrinal portion, the portion of theological content, and now he's moving to the point of application. What he is saying to the reader and to the listener tonight is, in light of all that has been unfolded here about the things of God, therefore, Therefore, there is a practical conclusion that we ought to reach, and he's not simply arguing in a logical way here, though he certainly is doing that, but he attends to his argument, or appends to his argument, I should say, an apostolic plea, a plea born out of an earnest desire that the people who have been listening or reading this epistle would come to understand.

7:43 He begins by saying, I beseech you, therefore, brethren. He's reduced to begging. It's a plaintiff plea to the reader. In light of our understanding of the gospel, in light of our understanding of justification by faith alone, in light of our understanding of the things of sanctification, in light of the understanding of the doctrines of grace in election and in perseverance, and the sweetness of God's providential care whereby He can say to us that God works all things together for good to those who love Him and who are the called according to His will. in light of these things, if we understand them at all, what are the implications? What are the applications? Therefore, He says, I beg you,

8:40 therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God. What does that mean, by the mercies of God? I think what the apostle is saying here is that my plea to you is in light of the tender mercies of God that I have just expounded to you. The fact that we are justified by faith is because of the mercy of God. The fact that our sins are forgiven through the atonement of Christ is through the mercy of God. The fact that God does work all things together for our good is because of the mercy of God. The fact that God from the foundation of the world has called people to Himself is the ultimate expression of the mercy of God. And so everything that Paul has been expounding throughout the doctrinal section of this epistle points back to God's mercy.

9:45 From the beginning to this point, it's all about grace. It's all about the tender mercies of God and that which drives the apostle to this necessary conclusion. It is the mercies of God that lead us to the therefore.

10:06 He said, Therefore, I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that You present Your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is Your reasonable service. Now, the first thing that He asks that we do by practical application is to bring an offering to God, to bring a thank offering to God. And this beginning of chapter 12 hearkens back to the entire Old Testament system of worship, which was established least on the basis of sacrifice, that the first sacrifices that were propagated by God in the Old Testament were the worship that He enjoined upon Adam and Eve and on their sons. And we know that the sons would come with their produce or their livestock and offer a sacrifice on the altar.

11:22 This was the definition of worship in the beginning, that worship meant the offering of the sacrifice of praise to God. And the whole liturgical structure of the tabernacle and of the temple in the Old Testament expanded on that theme where bulls and goats and lambs and turtle doves and cereal offerings and the like were brought into the sanctuary as an integral part of the worship of the people of God. Why their sacrifices? They were offering praise and worship to God. Now, sometimes we think of the term sacrifice as costing us something that is extremely valuable. It means to give up something that is of worth to us, and we let it go for the sake of God. Well, there is an element of that in this concept of sacrifice, but the primary point here is not that we should lose something, but rather that we should express something. The whole principle of giving to God is an expression of worship. I've mentioned this before, that when we come to the place in the service in our Sunday morning experience that Burke, when he leads us, will say, let us now worship God with the giving of our tithes and offerings. It's not that we're simply asked to bite the bullet and make a sacrifice and grit our teeth and give something back to God out of duty. No. The offering is an act of worship. This is one way in which we show our submission to the transcendent majesty

13:37 of God, that He is worthy of our praise, worthy of our devotion, of our substance, of our time, of ourselves. Well, in the Old Testament, before the animal sacrifices could be offered on the altar, first they had to be killed. The lamb was slain, and there's blood poured on the altar, or the goat, or the bull, or whatever it was. And in stark contrast to that, what Paul is saying, in light of the gospel, in light of what we've just heard of the mercies of God,

14:22 present yourselves, not your animals, not your vegetables, not your cereal, but present yourselves as living sacrifices. He's not asking us for martyrdom here. He said, the response that we should give to the gospel is such an act of worship and praise that the sacrifice of the new covenant is not a sacrifice of bulls and ghosts. It's a sacrifice of the people of God. where we are called to give ourselves to the service of God as an act of worship. Now again, let's look at this where he says that you present your bodies.

15:23 Now we might wonder, why doesn't he say present your souls? Because when we think about worship, we think of it as some kind of spiritual thing that takes place, that it's not something that we identify with our physical bodies. Well, in the first instance, when the apostle is saying, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, he's saying, present your person, present yourself. He doesn't mean just your physical body, but, you know, we use this synonymously for persons. I'll say, is anybody here tonight? Is anybody here? Now, am I asking, thank you very much. Now, there's a buddy. It's my buddy. I say, is anybody here? There's a buddy. She's here. So, I'm not asking, are there any corpses lying out here in the congregation? I'm not saying, are there bodies lying about? I'm saying, anybody or somebody, we mean by that some person, some living being. And so when Paul says, I beseech you by the mercies of God, brethren, to present your bodies, what he's saying here is God wants you to give yourself. Christ, in the ultimate sense, has given our self for His self for us, Himself, not His self. I spoke too many times this week. He has given Himself for us, and we are to respond to that by giving ourselves to Him. Now, of course, we cannot give ourselves to Christ in a like manner by which He has given Himself to us.

17:13 He gives Himself to us to redeem us. We give ourselves to Him to thank Him and to serve Him, to be His faithful servants, not that we may redeem Him or save Him. So there's obviously a radical difference between His giving to us and our giving to Him. But again, Paul says that God wants our bodies as living sacrifices. Now, when do you do that? When do you give yourself to God as a living sacrifice? the minute you come to Christ. That sacrifice is not something that is offered on the Day of Atonement or on Sunday morning.

18:08 It is an offering of your whole self for your whole life. Now, it's so easy for us to see that, isn't it? And so hard for us to do it. because every day of our Christian lives, dear friend, our spiritual growth is so, so meek and weak that we want to hold it back. We want to keep for ourselves a part of ourselves. I've said to my students in the seminary in the past, I said, you may think that studying for the ministry, you're studying for a glamorous enterprise where you're going to make a difference in people's lives, and it sounds so spiritual and wonderful. But I want you to know, before you go into that church and get ordained and take up the office,

19:09 that you understand that it's a throwaway life. You enter into the service of Jesus Christ in terms of the standards of this world you were throwing your life away. You are wasting your life. I will never forget when I made the decision to go to seminary to become a minister. My father had died shortly before that. He was the president of the largest corporate bankruptcy firm in the city of Pittsburgh, and he had on his staff a multitude of attorneys. And the name of that company was R.C. Sproul and Sons. It was begun done by my grandfather, whose name was R.C. Sproul, and then my father, who was R.C. Sproul Jr., became the president, and he hired this battery of attorneys for all of these cases of bankruptcy and all of that business.

20:07 Well, I was the heir to this company, this prosperous company, and all I had to do was to get my CPA license, and I could step right into the presidency of this company that had been around for quite some time. And when I told my mother that no, I wasn't going that route, that God had called me into the ministry, for which my mother was very pleased, I was descended upon by a battery of attorneys, and their message was the same. Are you out of your mind? Are you crazy? You have this whole organization set up here for you that guarantees prosperity, and you want to go in the ministry?

21:01 And they were all over me, and they were speaking to me as strenuously and as passionately as they could, and I have to tell you, they didn't represent the slightest bit of a temptation. I just realized in those conversations, they had no idea what it was about. They didn't get it. They didn't understand that I was a sinner who had experienced the mercies of God. And that same God had called me to serve Him, no matter what. It's a throwaway life. And that's true not only for pastors. That's true for any Christian in this world whose life is given over body and soul to the service of God.

22:04 That's what it means to be a Christian, that you present yourself as a living sacrifice. your life is a living sacrifice we're not talking here about tithes and offerings we're talking about your whole person is devoted now to the service of god a living sacrifice then he qualifies that besides being alive he says it's a holy sacrifice that the offering that we are to bring of ourselves to God is not to be an offering of sin. The animals that were to be offered to God in the Old Testament economy were to be the first fruits of the flock, the animals that were without blemish. Christ has already taken your sin.

23:18 Now when you give yourself as a living sacrifice to God, He wants that sacrifice sanctified. He wants that sacrifice to be consecrated. You know, we used to sing the old hymn. It was a very simple hymn, but it carried this message, give of your best. to the master. Give that portion of your life that is the most sanctified. as an act of praise to God. And remember, Paul is giving us a tough, tough job to do here. Remember, he starts it by begging. I beg you, in light of the mercies of God, present yourselves as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God.

24:24 Oh, again, you can sense the way in which the Old Testament economy is informing Paul's understanding of this metaphor of sacrifice. You know, not all of the offerings that God received from His people in the Old Testament delighted Him. the prophets would come when the people of God were being hypocritical, offering false worship to Him. And so through the voice of the prophets, God would say to His people, I despise your feasts. I hate your solemn assemblies. your sacrifices have become a stench in my nostrils. Now, we often overlook that, don't we? That we think that any act of religion, any act of spiritual sacrifice would necessarily be delightful to God. It isn't.

25:35 God requires that when we give this offering of ourselves, that we give it in a way that is acceptable to Him, that we offer it in humility, that we offer ourselves in repentance to Him, that we offer ourselves to Him so that the sacrifice of our praise will be a sweet aroma in his nostrils and not a stench. So the apostle says, present yourselves, living sacrifices, holy living sacrifices, acceptable holy living sacrifices. which is your reasonable service? That's what my translation reads. Some of you, I'm sure, have different translations. Other ones read, which is your spiritual worship?

26:49 And if I can look fast and furiously, I see it here in the text. The apostle says, which is your logic, Cain Latrium, your logical worship. Isn't that interesting? And there are two ways that we can look at this. He can say, what is more logical, what is more reasonable than that we have this response to God of offering our whole selves to Him in thanksgiving, in praise, in worship, in adoration, with the saints behind the altar we sing, worthy is the Lamb who was slain. That's the logical response. If we understand the gospel for a moment, indifference, apathy, those are irrational responses, and that the worship that we are to offer to God here is not to be a mindless worship.

28:01 The church today is pervaded by mindless worship. We have a whole generation of Christians who whatever else they do, they don't ever want to have to think. They don't ever have to grapple with the contents of the Word of God. They want their religion to be simply a religion of feeling, never mind the understanding. And if you ask them questions about it, they'll say, wait a minute, God calls us to have a childlike faith. And I say, that's right, but not a childish faith. That we are to be childlike in our morality, in our trust. were not to be hardened professionals in sin, so that we are to be children in one way, but in our understanding, we are called to be men. Again and again and again, the Word of God rebukes those who in their Christian life are satisfied with a diet of milk and Pavel.

29:15 we are called to go for the meat of the gospel, to dig as deeply as we possibly can in our lifetimes. We are called to grow up to the fullness of maturity in Jesus Christ. That's a reasonable worship, a worship that, as we will see very soon in the text, involves the mind in an engaging way. Some of you are acquainted with Ligonier Ministries and the radio program that I host daily, and the title of that program is what? Thank you very much. Renewing Your Mind. wonder where that came from came from Romans chapter 12 from what I've just read to you just a few moments ago because immediately saying after this business about your reasonable service or worship Paul says and do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, comma. There's a contrast here between what we are not to do and what we are exhorted to do, and both have to do with morphology.

31:01 Morphology is the study of forms, and the root word in English of form can describe shape, or it can indicate a style. And Paul now contrasts conformity with transformation, nation, where we are to flee from one and to the other. And so the first thing He says here negatively is what it means to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, which is your reasonable worship. It means this. Here's what it doesn't mean. It does not mean to be conformed to this world. Now, dear friends, the biggest problem we have that saps the strength of the Christian witnesses in our day is the common conformity of the Christian community to the world.

32:07 To the world. Many of you have kids who are teenagers, and many of you were at one time teenagers. And if you can remember that far back, you remember that the single greatest pressure that you had upon you socially was the pressure of conformity. The worst thing that could befall you in your adolescent years would be to be considered out of it, to be marching to a different drummer. If so, you were a dork or a nerd. or a fool. And yet as Christians, that's exactly what we're called to be, fools for Christ. The things that we cherish, the things that we follow, are those things considered foolishness and rubbish by the standards of this world.

33:23 Paul says in the first instance, a Christian is a non-conformist. A Christian is a non-conformist. The thing that scares me, I keep reading these Gallup polls and these other polls that are presented on the behavior of so-called born-again Christians. There's no discernible difference with respect to divorce, with respect to abortion, with respect to to sexual morality and so on between the professing born-again Christian in the world and the secularists. How is that possible?

34:02 How can that be? Well, we're still adolescents. We're still watching what the world is doing, and we want to make sure that we win the approval of this world. We don't want to be rejected. We don't want to be outcasts. We don't want to be social pariahs. And so we allow the standards, the customs, the mores of our culture to dictate our behavior instead of the Word of God. You see why the apostles reduced to begging? He understands our frames. He knows what a tremendous pull it is upon our psyches to conform ourselves to this world. The other side of that coin is in the history of the Christian church. We have seen forms and types and movements of Christian nonconformity.

35:08 I think for a moment of the Amish in America. I went to college in a town where the largest indigenous population of that town was a population of Amish people. You had to be very careful if you drove your car at night because the Amish don't drive cars. They have horses and buggies, and they have little lanterns with burning candles on the side of them. They're very difficult to see at night, and it seems like every month there'd be a terrible accident where there was a collision between Amish buggy and automobile. These people used white sheets for their curtains. They had hooks and eyes on their denim clothing. They did not believe in the use of buttons.

36:02 They did not believe in the use of electricity. They had none of the modern amenities. They plowed their fields with a mule or a horse pulling a handheld plow. Why? They were trying to obey this text. Their idea was this, if the world does it, we won't. If the world uses electricity, we're not going to use electricity. If they use buttons, we won't use buttons. If they use zippers, we're not going to use zippers. I don't know why they didn't take it further. If they wear hats, we won't wear hats. They wore hats, a different kind of hats, but they wore hats. But you look at this and you see what happens when nonconformity degenerates to nonconformity for nonconformity's sake.

36:56 There are all kinds of Christian groups in our culture today that say the essence of Christian piety is that you don't go to movies, you don't wear lipstick, you don't dance, where we reduce the spiritual battle of eternity to trivial things. The kingdom of God is not about lipstick, it's not about playing cards, it's not about going to movies, it's not about dancing. It's about obeying the law of God and of living lives of godless spiritual obedience to Him. And so we can cheapen this and say, well, we're nonconformist because we don't play cards. So what? That's not what this is about.

37:49 It's about the spirit of this age. It's about the godlessness of the culture. The apostle writes, let fornication not even once be named among you as befitting saints.

38:13 So far from Christian behavior is sexual activity outside of marriage that it ought not even once ever occur in the Christian community. Now, if our Christians were measured by that standard in the 21st century, how much more they'd want to give up cards or dancing? See, the point is though not just negative. He urges us not to be conformed to this world. Again, before I go to the next part, I may not even finish this verse tonight, and that's It's okay, too.

38:58 The word in the Latin there, when he says, don't be conformed to this world, ironically, is the word saculum. it's the word saeculum, not the word mundus. The Latin had two terms for what we call in English the world, mundus or mundum and saeculum. And the difference was this, the mundus referred to this world spatially, this geographical location, this planet as distinguished from the other planets and from the heavenlies of which the Bible speaks. The other word for world was the word saculin, which meant this age, this present time, which time is not informed by the eternal. The primary assertion of contemporary secularism is this principle that our time on this planet, this time, this saculum, is the only time there is. There is the heket nunc, the here and now, and nothing more.

40:32 There is no eternity. There is no life beyond the grave. That's why our young people are bombarded with advertisements telling them you only go through once, grab all you can get, go for the gusto now, because this saculum, this time, is all that there is. To that the Scriptures say emphatically, no, we are not secularists. We live in the sphere of this world. But we don't live according to the precepts and the principles of this passing age. But we are to live our lives in the light of eternity, in the light of that truth which comes to us from above.

41:32 not to be conformed to this world, to this saeculum, but be transformed. The word there in the Greek is the form of the word metamorphosis that we use in English to describe the transition that the caterpillar goes through when it becomes the butterfly, a radical change of form. And so the goal of the Christian life here is not mere non-conformity. That's the easy part. The goal is transformation. And in this case, the prefix to the word form, trans means above and beyond the forms of this world. If you want to reduce what it means to be a Christian, it's this. You don't live by the drumbeat of this world.

42:29 you live by a higher calling, the calling of God. And when you do that, the form of your life changes. And instead of being a conformist to this dying age, your life will be transformed. by the power of God. Now, again, quickly, what is the power of that transformation according to the apostle here? How is this transformation wrought in us? Be transformed how? by the renewing of your mind. If you want a new life, if you want a transformed life, the single most important thing you have to do first is you've got to have a new mind. Again, the beginning of the Christian life is rooted in repentance, and the word for repentance in the Greek is metanoio, which means a changing of the mind. Prior to repentance, you thought one way. You thought according to the precepts of this world. You thought just like your secular neighbors who did everything in their power as you did everything in your power to bury into your subconscious your sin. But when the Holy Spirit brought you into conviction, awakened you to your absolute need for a Savior, and you rushed to the cross, when that happened, your mind was changed, and the direction of your life was changed.

44:27 And now, again, the mind is in the center here. The transformation comes by having a new mind. That's why I chose it for the title of our program, because if you want to have people changed, you've got to change their thinking. Changed minds, if I can use the distinction once more, the changed mind is a necessary condition for a transformation, but it's not a sufficient condition. You can study the things of God, you can study the Word of God, you can make a hundred on every theological examination that you ever take, and you can have it in your head and never get it to your heart. And as long as it doesn't get to your heart, you'll never be transformed.

45:22 However, the way God has made you is that the avenue to your heart is through the mind. This book was written and given for our understanding that we begin to think like Jesus thinks, that we begin to approve what He approves and despise what He despises. And that's the way our lives are changed. we begin to think like Christians. We get a new mind, and out of that new mind we pray that the heart will be changed. And when the heart is changed, the life is changed, and we are a transformed people. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove, that is, that you may know, that you may understand, that you may certify and authenticate what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Again, I've mentioned this, I've told you this before. Many years ago, before Renewing Your Mind was on the radio, we had a five-minute program called Ask RC, where people would call in and write in questions, and they wanted theological comments and biblical references on their questions.

47:01 You know what the number one question we receive by way of frequency? how can I know the will of God for my life that was the question got more than any other question and I have to tell you it's not by using a Ouija board it's not by looking for signs it's not by putting out fleeces it's by the renewing of your mind through feeding on the word of God so as you begin to think God's thoughts after Him. Because when your mind is informed by the Word of God, then you are able to certify, to prove, and to recognize what is that good? What is that acceptable?

47:58 What is that complete will of God? People come to me and say, what's the will of God for my life? I said, are you asking me should you be a lawyer or a butcher, baker, candlestick maker? I don't know. We'll talk more about that next week, God willing. Should I marry Jane or Virginia? Let me tell you what the will of God is for your life, according to the Bible. This is the will of God for you, even your sanctification.

48:36 Doesn't matter what your job is. Doesn't matter who your wife is. Doesn't matter what city you live in. If you're not growing in sanctification, those things are worthless. If you really want to know what the will of God is for your life, let me tell you. What God wants from me and what He wants from you is that we grow in the spiritual maturity, that our lives become more and more set apart and consecrated by the Holy Spirit, that our minds are changed, that our minds are transformed, and then we'll be able to tell what is pleasing to God. Then we'll be able to know what He wants us to do, what is good, what is acceptable, what is the total and complete will of God. Let's pray. Father, we need Your Word, and we need Your Spirit, and we need Your grace to be transformed.

49:43 We pray, O Father, that You will never allow us in this secular, secular time to be satisfied with our own growth. we want transformation. Give us the capacity to give our whole selves to You as a sacrifice of praise, as our reasonable worship.

50:15 In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.