Dear Church Family & Friends,

Please read todays scripture Exodus 1:8-2:10 and follow along with our reading of Romans 12:1-8

Living Sacrifices

1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God–this is your spiritual act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will.

3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. 4 Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we who are many forms one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. 7 If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; 8 if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.

In a church service one Sunday, the offering plate came to a little girl at the end of a row. She took the plate, put it down on the floor, and stood in it. When the usher asked her what she was doing, she responded, “In Sunday school I learned that I was supposed to give myself to God.”

Romans 12:1–2 confirms that she had the right idea.

Of all the passages of Scripture that I love and call one of my favorites, this passage is the one that heads the top of the list. Not only is it my favorite, but if I had to choose one that summed up the basics or essentials of everything I believe about living the Christian life, this would be it. I’ve personally tried to base my faith walk on this passage. Sometimes I’ve been more successful at it than at other times. But the point is, I think this passage gets at the heart of who we are and who we are called to be.

I. Transformed

Let’s look at verse 2 first. Because I believe if we understand verse 2, it allows us to take hold of,and live verse 1. Paul writes: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will.” That comes from Paul, who by his own definition, was a Pharisee of Pharisees. Pharisees were the conformers of conformers. And now Paul is talking about being a Non-conformist.

Having grown up as a teenager in sixties, you can probably see why this passage had some of its appeal. During the sixties, in this country it was almost normal to be a non-conformist teen, to resist doing what was expected. This passage calls us to be Non- Conformists. Not just for the sake of being different but as part of our walk of faith.

We’re called to be abnormal. We’re not the normal people. To the world around us, normal is what you see on TV, in the movies, in magazines and in the Reality TV shows. Normal is the big house, fancy car, greedy, self-important, in your face, self-centered life of the celebrity that everybody seems to want. Normal is the American Dream on steroids and out of control.

We’re called to be abnormal. We’re called to live by a different standard.

Writer Philip Yancey once made a fascinating observation about finding fulfillment. In his career as a writer and journalist he has interviewed a wide range of people. He divides these people into two groups: stars and servants. For the stars, super star athletes, famous authors, TV personalities, he has only sympathy. These “idols,” he says, “are as miserable a group of people as I have ever met.” According to the standards of this age these people have it made. They’re famous, they have their pictures in magazines, they live in

big, expensive homes. But what we don’t see are the troubled marriages, the tormented psyches, the incurable self-doubts.

Yancey contrasts the lifestyles of these stars with a group he calls servants. Servants include such people as relief workers in Bangladesh and language experts scattered through the jungles of South America translating the Bible into obscure languages. “I was prepared to honor and admire these servants,” Yancey writes, “to uphold them as inspiring examples. I wasn’t prepared to envy them.” But envy them he did. As he reflected on the two groups, stars and servants, he declares that “the servants clearly emerge as the favored ones, the graced ones. They work for low pay, long hours, and no applause, “wasting” their talents among the poor and uneducated. Yet somehow in the process of losing their lives, they have found them.”

That’s a message we all need to hear. It’s a non-conformist message that runs counter to the prevailing message of our culture. The words of Paul challenge us to live our lives not conforming to the standards of this age, but to allow ourselves to be transformed and live by the standards of Christ.

II. Living Sacrifice

And that brings us to verse 1. Paul writes: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God–this is your spiritual act of worship. “

Having read that, let me ask you: What’s your living sacrifice, your spiritual act of worship? That may be an odd question, but I’m not sure we even really understand what a “living sacrifice” is. I don’t think many of us make many sacrifices now days, or maybe I’m just out of touch.

If we don’t know what it means to sacrifice, how then can we know how to live as a Living Sacrifice?

According to the dictionary the noun living means:

1.The act or condition of a person or thing that lives:

2.The means of maintaining life.

The meaning of sacrifice is:

1.The surrender or destruction of something prized or desirable for the sake of something considered as having a higher or more pressing claim.

2. A loss incurred in selling something below its value.

In our reading in Exodus we find some good examples of living sacrifices of non-conformist.

The mother of Moses who kept her son in hiding for three months and gave him a chance for life in hiding him in a basket.

His sister, who watched over him and dared to speak up when he was in danger.

Even in Pharaohs daughter who defied her father and took Moses as her son.

Probably the best examples of living sacrifice where the midwives Shiphrah and Puah. Who disobeyed the king of Egypt by not killing the baby boys because as verse 17 tells us they feared God. They were nonconformist and became transformed by being a living sacrifice. They used the gifts given them in serving the Hebrew women. Overcoming the fear of the king and contributing to the needs of God’s people. According to verse 21 because they feared God, God gave them families of their own.

As an example of a living sacrifice in the world today, one pastor wrote. He remembers one Building Campaign he and his family were involved in. One family in particular was already doing everything they thought they could do. They had 2 high school kids and money was tight. They did the same sort of thing we did on Friday or Saturday nights, rent a movie and order pizza. This family decided they would give up renting a movie and calling out for pizza and use that money for the Building Campaign. They did. That was their sacrifice. I shared that story one Sunday and there were several families who decided to do the same thing.

The thing is many of them still did the movie and pizza night. The pizza was homemade, and they watched movies they already owned. One family told me that about six or eight weeks into it, one of their younger boys came to Mom and Dad, and asked, “Do you think we could afford to rent a new movie and buy pizza tonight if I gave up my allowance?”

Those families learned what sacrifice is. That young man understood the idea of sacrifice and was willing to make one because the whole family was making one for the church. Guess what, Mom and Dad found the money for pizzas and a movie that night. That boy didn’t have to give up his allowance and they were still able to give what they had committed to give for the building program.

They were being Living Sacrifices.

III. One Body

A. Finally, Paul says we’re called to be Living Sacrifices so we can be One Body. (4-5) “Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”

Leadership Magazine had a great story about a pastor visiting a church service. He wrote: “It was one of those mornings when the tenor didn’t get out of bed on the right side. As I listened to his faltering voice, I looked around. People were pulling out hymnals to locate the hymn being sung by the soloist.

“By the second verse, the congregation had joined the soloist in the hymn. And by the third verse, the tenor was beginning to find the range. And by the fourth verse, it was beautiful. And on the fifth verse the congregation was absolutely silent, and the tenor sang the most beautiful solo of his life. That is life in the body of Christ, enabling one another to sing the tune Christ has given us.”

That’s what Paul means when he says be Transformed. That’s what Paul means when he says be a living sacrifice and to be One Body.

Conclusion

Don’t get me wrong by thinking we need to become non-conformist when it comes to dealing with this current pandemic. But we are to become “Living Sacrifices” with the gifts that we have been given by grace from God. We need to be transformed, to be one body in Christ in our actions. As Paul puts it. ”We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.

In His Service,

Pastor Joe