Therefore…

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.  And 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.  Rom.12:1-2

Whenever you see the word “therefore”, you have to find out what it’s there for.  In chapters 1-8 of his  letter to the Romans, Paul explained the gospel.  It begins with an awareness of our perverse, continual turning away from God.  We need help, not the affirmation and the “attaboy” the world tries to offer us. God’s help consists of two parts; first God forgives our sins by dying on the cross to absorb the punishment we deserve.  Second, Jesus was raised from the dead so that He could gradually transform our lives by living in us. 

• We need help
• Jesus died to pay our sin debt
• Jesus lives and now lives in us

That gospel now needs to be applied to our daily lives, and that’s what Paul does in Romans 12-15.  A change in belief brings a change in behavior, or as Alistair Begg says it, “The learning is for living”.  So how are we going to live out the gospel?  The answer is what the “therefore” is there for.

Paul has recognized that when Jesus comes into your life, He doesn’t come into a vacuum.  You are already travelling full speed ahead, in the wrong direction.  A fight for control of the steering wheel of your life unfolds, with the resurrected Jesus seeking control of the body-mobile you have been driving.  Up until you accepted the gospel, your body was in the driver’s seat.  “The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God;for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so.  And those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom.8:6-8).  The risen Christ is able and willing to enter a human heart and change it.  “By the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body” (Rom.8:13).

Paul calls your body a living sacrifice, because as soon as your feet hit the floor in the morning, you are asking Jesus to guide your thoughts, hands, eyes, mouth…into His good path for you today.  Your gratitude and love for Him will be expressed by what you do, say, and think.  Your path won’t be perfectly executed, because the body puts up a serious fight for the steering wheel, but on a daily basis, you will be coming closer and closer to God’s will.  Your body is a living sacrifice because your mind is gradually being transformed by the indwelling Christ. 

Details will follow as Paul tells us how this transformation and sacrifice will change how you worship God, how you think of yourself, how you work with your Christian family, and how we deal with a world that neither understands nor loves the gospel.

Questions as you prepare for Sunday: Exactly where in your life is your body seeking to run you off the road toward God? What habits or thoughts are the battleground between the risen Jesus and your old self?

God tells you to “present your body”; that means it’s up to you to make it happen (with His help, of course). What can you do to facilitate the change God is seeking?

What specifically needs to change in the way you worship, the way you think about yourself, the way you connect with other believers, and the way you relate to an unsympathetic world?