Paul begins Romans 12 with, [1] I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
"He's saying, 'I want you to do this because you love me,' " explains Preacher Richard Jordan. "The motivation of grace is that the love of Christ constrains you.
"When you have an appreciation of the first 11 chapters of Romans, Romans 12 will be what it's designed to be. You won't turn it into a set of rules and regulations. That's not the grace life.
"It's not formulas where, 'If I do this and this I'm successful.' It's really about living out of the identity you already have in Christ, and, 'Because of who I am in Christ this is the way I'm going to conduct my life.' This is the way grace is going to teach me to think.
"You ask yourself the question, 'How can I give God what He wants most? What does He want the most out of me? 'I beseech you that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice.'
"That's a personal choice; a personal course of action. I'm going to say, 'Lord, I want to honor you with my body. I'm yours; I know who I am in my liberty. Now I want to take my body, my life in all its details . . .'
" 'With my hands, my feet, my brains, I'm going to honor the Lord.' As Paul writes in Romans 6:13, 'But yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.'
"That's the idea of surrendering. There was a popular reality show involving some kind of card game where the guy, to win the pot at the end, would push in his pile of chips and say, 'I'm all in.' That means, 'I risk it all, commit it all.' That's what this is. In your Christian life, the Lord says it all starts when you go 'all in' and say, 'I'm going to honor the Lord with my body.'
"As Paul says in Philippians 1, [20] According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death.
[21] For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
'Present your body. That's a choice that you make and everything begins with an understanding of that. 'I'm going to make a choice to live my life day by day as who I am, in the circumstances of my life, as the saint of the true and living God.'
"He says that's our reasonable service. That's an intellectual thing: 'This is how I reason this out that makes sense.' When Paul talks about service there, he's talking about more than just like working in a service job. That's a term in the Scripture that really is reflecting the idea of worship.
"Hebrews 9:1 says, [1] Then verily the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary. You go down to verse 6: [6] Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God.
"The 'divine service' was when they would go into the tabernacle and worship. For Israel their worship was a reference to service. That's why in Romans 12:1, a lot of the new bibles actually translate that to 'your reasonable worship.'
"Worship in your Bible is not simply coming to a church meeting. It's you taking your body, your life, the details of who you are, and saying, 'Lord, I'm all in for you.'
"Nowadays worship is the singing part of the service. You know, words mean things. When you reduce worship to music . . . the song leader's now called the 'worship leader.' Well, what's the preacher then? 'Worship's over, now we're going to have to listen to the sermon.'
"Worship isn't what you do for two hours on Sunday morning. Worship's what you do 24/7 in your Christian life. I'm going to have my whole life committed to my relationship to God. I'm absolutely completely committed to honoring Him with my body, and the first way you solve problems is you come to the Word of God and say, 'Lord, here's the problem. You speak and I'll follow.' "
(new article tomorrow)
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