Romans 12:1-2

Sacrifice of oneself does not have to be grim. It simply means that in order for us to take advantage of what God has revealed to us, we are going to have to give ourselves over to it because either doing nothing or remaining in the old rut, the world will make us a clone of itself. Sacrifice is the outward expression of our devotion to God's purpose, to His program. Do you realize, do you understand, that the central issue of sacrifice is not death but the offering of a life to God?

What a person gives his life to is what he worships. That is his god and God wants us to take the ordinary responsibilities of life and make them an offering to Him. That is the principle that will produce the fruit, and if we give ourselves over to that, not only will fruit be produced but we will grow, and the leaven will be gotten rid of.

Romans 12:1-2

The mercies of God are essentially necessary for us. We must give ourselves entirely to God because of His saving grace. Sacrificial language from the Old Testament is used to signify our new life as Christians, and this means that the word "bodies" here refers to Christians as whole persons because both body and soul belong to God.

So we are a living sacrifice, meaning that we are alive from the dead since we enjoy new life in Christ. Living also means that we will not be put to death as the Old Testament animal sacrifices were because Christ has fulfilled what was predicted by those sacrifices. Whereas the Old Testament worship focused on offering animal sacrifices in the Temple, Paul says that spiritual worship in a broad sense now includes offering one's whole life to God, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, and so on.

Romans 12:1-2

It is teaching us something here: that any offering that is presented with unclean hands automatically becomes unclean and unacceptable to God. His standards are high. We all know that. It is not a far leap in thought to see it includes a life we live before God. Romans 12:1-2 defines us as a living sacrifice to remain holy and acceptable to Him and to keep ourselves unspotted from the world. Certainly, we must always strive to present ourselves clean before God in our actions and in our words. A drifting vessel or a drifting person has none or very little protection over what they may drift into. With Satan running around and Babylon as filthy as it is, it is a target rich environment, one we must be vigilant about at all times.

Romans 12:1-2

We see here in a place like Micah "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself down?" "What should I bring to God?" Then he mentions sacrifice. It can lead the unwary to thinking that God does not want sacrifice. No, no, no. That is not true at all! The day of sacrifice is not over, as Romans 12:1-2 very clearly shows.

We are going to put this together now with the lesson of Colossians. Sacrifice, asceticism, giving things up, giving time up, or whatever it might happen to be—sacrifice without the right motivation, sacrifice without truth, is of no value. It may profit the body for a little while. But in terms of relationship with God, it does not help at all.

Romans 12:1-2

When we get to chapter twelve he says, "Well, what are we going to do with all of this? We have all of this material, what are we going to do with it?" And so he gets to the ethical instruction in the book. The doctrinal teaching is ended, at least in a major way, and he asks, in effect, "What are you going to do; how are you going to conduct your life as a result of this salvation that God is giving us?" So he says:

What he is saying here is, "This is where we need to submit. Don't conform. Don't comply with the world, but instead we need to submit to God." Then he begins to address more specific areas where we need to submit.

Romans 12:1-2

I beg you, Paul is saying here. That is the meaning behind that word beseech. I beg! He is yelling, I beg you, brethren!

Paul is telling us how we are transformed by the renewing of our mind, and it is through our daily sacrifices in the service to God and service to fellow man. And then for the remainder of this chapter, actually starting in verse 9 through 21, Paul expounds on the daily sacrifices that will help transform us to be like God. And I am going to pull out just a few of these. You can kind of follow along here as I go through these, starting in verse 10 all the way to the end of the chapter.

Romans 12:1-2

Here we see Paul giving the church their marching orders, so to speak. It is our sacred duty to offer ourselves as living sacrifices. That is, our bodies, our minds, our actions so they will align with God's purposes. This requires that we submit our desires, our plans, and even our fears. We are to live a life set apart from this world that we may be pleasing to God, to be transformed and shaped into His character. Like I said, there is no doubt, maybe whoever wrote this read Romans 12.