Living Sacrifices
Romans 11:33-12:8
Proper 16 A
24 August 2014 – Redeemer
Whenever you listen to God’s Word (and you should listen) your ears will hear odd words, weird ideas, paradoxes, and oxymorons. The Triune God is a paradox – He is Three persons and One God – three and one are not the same except in what He has revealed about Himself. The Lord’s ways are not are ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor? No one. He does His own thing, His own way. So as you were listening to the Epistle reading for today was there a word or phrase that struck you as odd? How about “living sacrifice”? A sacrifice is dead. That’s what the word means. No Passover Lamb escaped its death. No doves or bulls or goats brought to the Old Testament temple for sacrifice walked away. The Word sacrifice means you lose your life. If you lose your life you don’t live. Right? Well actually wrong. There was that one sacrifice that lived. Do you remember the One Sacrifice who died and lived? That would be the final Passover Lamb, the fulfillment and completion of every Old Testament sacrifice, that last blood shed, the last body killed, the last life offered for us? God’s flesh and blood – Jesus.
Jesus is the living sacrifice and believing in Him, trusting that He sacrificed Himself for you means your life is a living sacrifice. And that makes you weird and that’s good, but to all of that in a moment. First we need to recall what lies behind Saint Paul’s appeal “to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”
What lies behind (or before) this appeal is 11 chapters of Romans. And in those 11 chapters of Romans St. Paul teaches us that we are mute, that is, we have nothing to say or plead before God about ourselves. We cannot boast before Him of our lives, our works, our accomplishments. His Holy Law declares us sinners who sin and that law silences our boast. There’s no sense and it will do no good to talk about yourself before God. Be still. Be silent. Be quiet and listen for God speaks. He speaks us righteous in His Word made flesh Jesus Christ. He spoke Jesus into the womb of Mary and at the cross Jesus spoke the completion of our salvation – it is finished. With those Words God has given you something to say that you could never say apart from Jesus, “I am righteous, I am holy. My sins are forgiven. I am favored of God in Jesus Christ.” Now you have something to say, “I am baptized into Christ. I am baptized into His death and resurrection. As He lives I now live.”
In 11 chapters of Romans Paul has also told us we’re beggars. Beggars are people without anything. Beggars rely on someone else. St. Paul quotes from the Psalms about our beggarliness. “None is righteous, no not one; no one understands, no one seeks God, All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. … There is no fear of God before their eyes.” You’ve got nothing and the worst part of being a beggar before God is that we did this ourselves. It’s no one elses’ fault. We aren’t victims. We are beggars by choice – leaving the gifts of God’s garden, forsaking His treasures to find our own fortune and in so doing, by our sin, our own sin, we have dug our own graves. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Paul tells us in Romans 3), and are justified by grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ.
In the person of Jesus Christ God has filled our beggarly hands full. His gifts are heaped upon us. The righteous life of Christ. Here it is yours. His sin-atoning death – yours. His resurrection from the dead. Yep – that’s also for you. God’s favor won by Christ – yes, let me put that in your hand. Gift, grace, mercy, compassion, God putting in your empty hand all that Christ has done. Who has given a gift to God that he might be repaid? NO ONE. For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.
That “Amen” at the end of chapter 11 is a “yes” to 11 chapters of Saint Paul proclaiming that you are justified (declared right) before God by grace (it’s completely a gift) for Christ’s sake (because He died and rose) through faith – faith being that open and empty hand of a beggar which says, “I’ve got nothing to say, nothing to give, have mercy on me!”
You’ve got to have those 11 chapters of Jesus, of God’s favor freely given in Christ, to start reading chapter 12 where Saint Paul says, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers.” (That word “therefore” points to those 11 chapters), by the mercies of God (that’s those 11 chapters) to present your bodies as a living sacrifice.
When you were baptized in the strong name of Jesus, you were baptized into His death and resurrection. His death for sin becomes your death for sin. His resurrection becomes your resurrection. Do you hear the language of baptism? It’s death and resurrection and since His death and resurrection is your life your life is lived death and resurrection style – or should I say “living sacrifice” style.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. What does the world think? The same thing your sinful nature thinks. Sacrifice others so you can really live – smear that woman’s name, rip someone off when you make a business deal, sow seeds of wickedness in your neighbor’s home, business, field. Make sure you point out the littlest flaw in others and ignore that faultlines and fractures of your own making.
Do not be conformed to that, to the world – for that is the way of the living dead, who have no hope, who know they are dying, who must kill their neighbor with word or deed in their quest for the good life, the happy life, the life thats lived on top of everyone else. Do not be conformed, be transformed by the renewal of your mind. It is a hard thing to believe you are forgiven, that you are alive forever, that you are God’s favored son or daughter. That is why you need to hear and know continually that Christ died and rose for you, that your mind might be renewed in these truths – the forgiveness of your sins, life everlasting is yours and your body will rise. Your mind is renewed as you hear the Word (hint – that means going to church, hint – continually.)
Since you have life in Christ you don’t need to sacrifice others to gain life for yourself. You can sacrifice yourself for others. When your hands seek another’s possessions, put that hand to death by contrition and repentance, and then in the life of forgiveness use your hands to serve and love and give. When your eyes lust and covet your neighbor’s wife and property – kill your eyes, sacrifice your flesh by confession and absolution, then live by seeing your neighbor’s needs and using your gifts for your neighbor.
Restrain your flesh. Do not do what your flesh wants to do. There’s the sacrifice part. (And if you don’t think that’s odd try finding that advice in any newspaper, newscast or magazine.) Where else are you encouraged not to see what you want and take it, but to see what your neighbor needs and give it. Use your body for your neighbor – use your mouth to encourage and pray, use your hands to give and support, use your eyes to see your neighbor – the struggling single mom, the lonely widow, the kid with his pants down around his knees, the neighbor who seems cold and aloof. That’s the sacrifice that lives – that lives in the realization that you stand before God as a beggar into whom God has given Jesus and everything that belongs to Jesus – the cleansing of His blood is yours, the robe of His righteousness is yours, His place at the table and in the Father’s house is your place. You are alive, rich in grace, written into the will, you’ve got it made. Don’t forget who you are and where you’ve come from.
For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. It is so easy to think of myself more highly than anyone else I know, but I forget – I was worthless, a beggar by my own wasteful life. I didn’t even know I was dead. Then in my baptism God’s Holy Spirit opened my clenched fist and poured into the hand of faith all of Christ Jesus. I’m the most forgiven man I know. I’m the richest man I know. I’ve been written into the heavenly will. So I strive not to think more highly of myself than I ought – for all that I have is from my Father through His Son by His Spirit. So I live by dying to sin, striving to crucify my flesh and sinful desires, even as Christ died for me and I died in Him, then I live by living, be striving to use my body, my hands and eyes and mind to give and see and think for the good of my neighbor – whoever that might be. I die to myself and live for my neighbor because Christ died to Himself and lived for me. That’s what makes the Christian life an odd life, a weird life. We are living sacrifices. In the name of Jesus. Amen.
Pr. Bruce Timm
23 August 2014 anno Domini