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ROMANS 12:1-2 “I BESEECH YOU THEREFORE, BRETHREN, BY THE MERCIES OF GOD, THAT YOU PRESENT YOUR BODIES A LIVING SACRIFICE, HOLY, ACCEPTABLE UNTO GOD, WHICH IS YOUR REASONABLE SERVICE. AND BE NOT CONFORMED TO THIS WORLD; BUT BE TRANSFORMED BY THE RENEWING OF YOUR MIND, THAT YOU MAY PROVE WHAT IS THAT GOOD, AND ACCEPTABLE, AND PERFECT WILL OF GOD.” (KJV, NKJV)
“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. 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.” (NIV)
“I urge you therefore, 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, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” (NASB, ASV, ESV)
“And so dear brothers, I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living sacrifice, holy-the kind he can accept. When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask? Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but be a new and different person with a fresh newness in all you do and think. Then you will learn from your own experience how his ways will really satisfy you.” (TLB)
It worked so well in the last chapter. Let’s try it again now. For the next two weeks, let’s try to memorize Romans 12, 1 and 2. We will count this as two verses memorized over two weeks.
You may also recognize that we aren’t in the land of easy-to-memorize, short Bible verses for this session. This is one of the first Scriptures I memorized because it meant so much to me. But, it took me a lot of times repeating the words, building the phrases up in my memory and going over it time after time for me to be able to memorize it. But I found that when I had these two verses firmly hidden in my heart, I was glad I did. I have returned to this passage many times to remind me of how the Lord wants me to live. You will too!
I can’t consider the term “living sacrifice” without being reminded of the story of Abraham and Isaac. You know it well. God commanded that Abraham sacrifice his promised son to Him as a sacrifice. As they climbed the mountain, Abraham was taking his dearest, living offering to an altar to be sacrificed to God. Every lamb, goat and dove that was sacrificed before this and for centuries after this was living until its life was killed so it could be offered to God.
When Isaac asked his father where the sacrifice was that they were to offer God, Abraham responded that “God would provide Himself a sacrifice.” Through millions of sacrifice offerings the nation of Israel would offer in the centuries to follow, God did provide living sacrifices that would be acceptable to Him as the remission of the sins of His people. But, they were always living until they were killed and burned on the altar so they could be offered to God.
I am absolutely certain that the words Abraham used were prophetic referring to Jesus as our living sacrifice, offered thousands of years in the future for the sins of all mankind. But I also know that in the flesh, he was absolutely sure that God would present some alternative to him as an acceptable sacrifice, far better than his son ever would be. The test, of course, was one of absolute obedience by Abraham to the command of God. He passed the test. Only when God was assured that Abram would hold nothing back from Him…even his son…did God provide the ram, caught in the thicket, to take Isaac’s place.
God provided a living animal that day to take Isaac’s place. The ram was killed, put on an altar and then burned as the sacrifice to God. In the future, God would provide an acceptable sacrifice that substituted itself for Isaac and all mankind, so that we would not have to pay the price for our own sins. Jesus was that perfect sacrifice. There was no substitute for Him. In fact, God Himself, became flesh and blood for just that purpose. So that He could provide Himself as the only, perfect, pure sacrifice that would be acceptable to Him as a substitute for the sins of all men. Jesus, who was perfect in every way, accepted the shame and torment men gave Him, so He could be the perfect sacrifice for us!
Now, Paul is telling us, we need to do the same. We do not have to sacrifice ourselves on an altar for our salvation…Jesus did that for us. No, what Paul is referring to is our own identification with Jesus which follows every Christian for whom that blood was shed. Now, we are LIVING, hopefully unconditionally obeying the Lord as we walk with Him and for Him. But, just as we all discover, the old sinful nature that He rescued us from wants to hang on tenaciously and drag us away from our new-found desire to live without sin for Him.
Jesus wants us to be HOLY and ACCEPTABLE to Him. But every time we turn back to our old ways, they do their best to draw us away from our Savior. Paul talks about that a lot back in Romans 7. He calls himself a “wretched man.” He acknowledges that he…and every one of us…enter into a daily battle where we choose to follow the precepts of this new life or return to our wicked ways. He says those things he knows he should do, he cannot. He also acknowledges that those things he should not do, those are the things he does. He tells us in Romans 8:1 that we do not have that old condemnation on us if we are in Jesus Christ and we walk in the Spirit.
Now, in Chapter 12, Paul gives us the secret to overcoming that old sinful nature that “so easily besets us.” The answer is a sacrifice. Not another sacrifice for the remission of our sins. Jesus already paid that. We receive that if we come to Him for our salvation. It isn’t baptism. That is a mere identification that we express with Jesus, who also died and arose to “newness of life.”
No, Paul acknowledges here…as we all must eventually acknowledge…that if we are to please the Lord, we have to present a living sacrifice. Admit it. The truth is that almost every sin demonstrates itself in an act of the flesh. Yes, our minds should shame us when we even think about chasing after one of the lusts of the flesh. But when the ultimate result of those thoughts and desires turns itself into action, it is our flesh, our bodies that let us down. It says somewhere else in the Scriptures that in the flesh there is no good thing. Oh, how we prove that so many times after our new birth. That ought not to be. But there is a solution.
Paul says “present your bodies as a sacrifice”….a LIVING sacrifice! Literally, give up that sinful desire to look at another man’s wife! Give up that urge to make your body defiled by something unholy. Give up that temptation to lie to make yourself look better in the eyes of others. Give up those things by killing them….DAILY!
The sacrifice is symbolic in our actions…we are not required to burn ourselves on an altar to cover our sins. No, this sacrifice is not one that comes from the death of the offering. He beseeches us to bring our bodies to the altar and reckon them as LIVING SACRIFICES. We do not just agree with the Lord that what He calls wicked in us needs to be done away with. It isn’t even good enough to say, “I will never let that sin reign in my life again.” No, we have to take action. When confronted with our desires toward our sinful nature that try to drag us away from the cross, the only thing that works is presenting our own sinful bodies as a living sacrifice. In crude language, “You gotta kill that thing!”
Jesus knows our every weakness. He knows those things which we think or do that are unholy and unacceptable to Him. The right thing to do when we are tempted to lust is to “kill that thing!” Come to Him daily…maybe at the beginning of every day…and present the body that now belongs to Him as a living sacrifice that you will no longer allow to be ruled by the sinful nature He rescued you from in the first place.
Oh, and by the way, that is your “reasonable service”. It is what He expects us to do. Kill lustful thoughts by being a living sacrifice. In the Old Testament, living sacrifices were killed before they were presented on an altar to God. We need to kill those sinful acts BEFORE we commit them. And, the only way to do that is to present your body as a living sacrifice. The body doesn’t die but our vent toward defiling it by the acts of the flesh have to. And that is our reasonable thing to do. Other translations coin that phrase as our “spiritual act of worship.”
How many times do we come to church and enjoy what we think is worship through songs of praise and worship, or giving, or agreeing with the exposed Word of God presented by the pastor while still holding onto those things we know are unpleasing to the Lord? Here, Paul tells us that the reasonable, spiritual act of worship is to present our very bodies as living, holy sacrifices. Overcoming the evil which so easily besets us is what Paul says is pleasing and acceptable to God. We can only do that by agreeing with God about our sins, confessing them and agreeing to stop that kind of behavior and then actually doing what we agree to do and stopping them, by presenting them as a holy, acceptable sacrifice to God.
We need to stop those despicable acts of our flesh which, as they violate our bodies that are now devoted to the Lord, must be defeated by the only thing that works: presenting our bodies as if they were a living sacrifice. Stopping sins of our flesh requires more tools, however. That is what Paul addresses in the next verse.
Questions to ponder: As we read through this lesson and work harder than we have before to memorize the words of Romans 12:1, are you struck by some sin in your life that is still there that applies to this lesson? In what tangible ways can you make the symbolic nature of “presenting your body as a living sacrifice” the true example of killing that part of the flesh the Lord calls us to? Why does sin still tend to show itself in our lives after we receive salvation? Will we ever achieve complete freedom from our sinful natures this side of the grave? Is it possible to NOT sin, especially in the areas that seem to “so easily beset us?”
Other Scriptures to Consider: Hebrews 12:1, laying aside “the sin which so easily besets us.” What does laying aside mean? Phil 3:3, “no confidence in the flesh.” Romans 8:8-13, if we are in the flesh we “cannot please God.” Also, “if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ.” 1 Peter 4:2, “we should no longer live the rest our time in the flesh, but to the will of God.”
 
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