Living Sacrifices: God’s Pattern for Christian Living

How does God want me to live? This is the question that Paul answers in Romans 12:1-2. It’s a watershed moment in the book of Romans. For eleven chapters, Paul has detailed the grandeur of God, the perversity of sin, the splendor of grace, and the blessings of salvation. Now he beings to explain, in detail, how those truths should affect our lives. He sums it up in these two verses:

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 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.”

Present Your Bodies

Paul uses the language of ‘appeal,’ a rather strong word. We often encourage each other, sometimes challenge each other, and rarely rebuke each other – but Paul goes a step further. He is appealing to believers. It’s the sort of thing that you do in life-and-death circumstances: imagine a criminal appealing for mercy, when his life is on the line, or a parent ‘appealing’ to a doctor to help his diseased child. It makes me imagine Paul getting down on his knees, clasping his hands, and begging us to do what he is going to recommend.

Take a moment to imagine where you would be, apart from God’s mercy. Would you be satisfied, happy, content? Or would you find yourself deeply dissatisfied, discontent with what the world has to offer, and craving true meaning? What sins would you addicted to? How would those sins have messed with your life, and what devastating consequences of sin would you be dealing with? Now, Paul says, God didn’t let that happen to you. He is merciful. And I want to appeal to you by those mercies – the mercies of God. So please do what I’m going to ask.

We are familiar with the idea of sacrifice. The worshipper brings the lamb, which is bound, slaughtered with a knife, and then burnt on the altar. The sacrifice is devoted to God – it no longer has its own will or purpose. The sacrifice dies for only one reason: to please God through its death.

That is the sort of sacrifice that you are to be, Paul says – single-minded in your desire to please God. Except that you aren’t called to die, but to be a living sacrifice. I probably don’t need to remind you of the common saying, but I will: it’s harder to be a dead sacrifice than a living one. A dead sacrifice dies once – but a living sacrifice must die to self every single day.

In order to be ‘acceptable to God,’ a sacrifice must be ‘holy.’ Just as the Jewish worshippers were forbidden to bring any sacrifice with physical defects, so the Christian is to offer his body as a living sacrifice, holy. To bring a sacrifice with defects was an act of religious impiety, a sort of blasphemy against God. That is why it is so important to pursue holiness – to offer ourselves without holiness is also impiety, a form of blasphemy.

Such a sacrifice, Paul says, is your spiritual worship. It is the way in which you offer worship to God. It is the reverential ministry that you can present to him.

Be Transformed

Have you ever noticed that most people think the same way? Sure, there are different ideas, and different groups of thought – but everyone within those thoughts has the same ideas? Conservatives generally have the same talking points, and so do liberals. Most people wear the same styles, use the same smartphone apps, and approach life with the same ideals and values. While this isn’t always bad (part of it is just the culture we live in), Paul urges us not to be ‘conformed to this world.’

You can think of this like cookies cut with the same cookie-cutter. Everyone is essentially the same, because they have essentially been cut with the same mold, from the same cloth. The world is conforming, but Christians have a duty to break out of that mold. God intends for us to be ‘transformed.’

This transformation, Paul says, is ‘by the renewal of your mind.’ In other words, as your mind is renewed with the truth, you will break out of the mold of the world. I think back to George Mueller, a man who read the Bible four times a year. He is certainly a man who took seriously the idea of ‘renewing the mind.’ He is a good example for us of how to intentially pursue such spiritual renewal – through saturation with God’s Word.

But there is more to it than this. As we walk in obedience, avoiding sin (which grieves God’s Spirit), we have the promise that God is working in us, so that ‘our inner self is being renewed day by day’ (2 Corinthians 4:16).

The practical method that Paul recommends for transformation and renewal is ‘testing…[to] discern what is the will of God.’ This requires practice and hard work: examining everything in life – what we think, what we do, and what we say – in order to see what passes the rigorous standard of being ‘good and acceptable and perfect.’

If this seems challenging, don’t be overwhelmed. Instead, pursue renewal in God’s Word, try to deepen your relationship with God, and begin examining different aspects of your life. As you have choices and decisions in front of you, discuss them with Christians brothers and sisters. Develop a sense of what is pleasing to God, then orient your life to reflect that.

Conclusion

Paul moves on, in the remaining five chapters of Romans, to show how Christians in that day and time could live out this high calling. Even if we don’t directly struggle with questions of acceptable foods or interaction with paganism, God’s calling on our lives remains the same – we are sacrifices devoted to him, transformed to perfection through his truth.