Present your bodies as a Living Sacrifice

Romans 12:1 states:  I appeal to you therefore, brethren,  by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

‘Present your bodies as a living sacrifice’… What does this mean?

What are we doing when we are presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice?

In seminary, my classmates and I discovered during a bible study that knowing the Greek adds greater meaning for this passage: all of you (plural), each and every one of you, offer/present your bodies as a (ONE) living sacrifice (singular). We see that this commendation is made to the community of faith, telling us to unite as one in our offerings and worship. The presentation of our bodies is about our devotional offerings to the Lord. We are not to make burnt offerings but to join together in our reverence for the Lord as an offering and expression of our lives. Our sacrifice is to be Living  in the sense that we can use all that we are and all that we have (our time, treasure and talent) in our offerings joined into one Living Sacrifice. Our worship and offering is a Sacrifice  which means it is a sacred offering that truly costs us something of our time, effort, and commitment in using our God-given gifts as a thankoffering returned to the Lord in our worship of Him. We are to remember that our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit and that we are to spiritually join together as one spiritual household in our offerings. You can see that this worship-filled activity of presenting our bodies needs to occur daily, throughout our lives and therefore not just on a Sunday morning… Finally, we need to remember that the only truly acceptable offering to God is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross. This means that we need to learn how to join our efforts with each other and with the Lord’s One Offering as we present our bodies as a living sacrifice.

~~~…~~~

1 Corinthians 6: 19-20  Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; ²⁰ you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

1 Peter 2:4-5  Come to him, to that living stone, rejected by men but in God's sight chosen and precious; ⁵ and like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 

Here are a few other relevant passages:

 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?  If any one destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and that temple you are.

Hebrews 13:15  Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.

Ps. 51 :17  The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

Here is the passage in its context:                     ROMANS 12:1-8

¹ I appeal to you therefore, brethren,  by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

² Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. ³ For by the grace given to me I bid every one among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith which God has assigned him.

 ⁴ For as in one body we have many members, and all the members do not have the same function, ⁵ so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

⁶ Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; ⁷ if service, in our serving; he who teaches, in his teaching; ⁸ he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who contributes, in liberality; he who gives aid, with zeal; he who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

Faithfulness and Salvation: Together in Christ

Faithfulness and Salvation: Together in Christ

The Rev. David J. Harnish

Rector of All Saints Anglican Church of Rochester

Easter Season 4/16/13

In the great litany of faithfulness and in witness to the faithful, Hebrews chapter 11 ends with this amazing summation ( Hebrews 11:32-40 (RSV) ):

32 And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets-- 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, received promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. 35 Women received their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, that they might rise again to a better life. 36 Others suffered mocking and scourging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, ill-treated-- 38 of whom the world was not worthy--wandering over deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. 39 And all these, though well attested by their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40 since God had foreseen something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.

Did you notice that last verse (verse 40) and what it is saying? (look again!)

We are inextricably united with the faithful of old…  and they are inextricably united with us.

Indeed, the saints of old are linked with us for their salvation!

They will not… nor should they be… made perfect apart from us!

All the wonderful ‘giants in faith’ who have gone before us into eternity have not received what was promised to the faithful and shall not be made perfect UNTIL we ALL are made perfect in Christ… since as God has designed it: ‘apart from us they should not be made perfect’.

This means that the salvation of others is directly related to each of us completing our faith journey as we live out our lives in faithfulness to our Lord Jesus Christ.

Ponder this great mystery and realize that no believer in Jesus Christ is alone: we are joined with each other eternally. Our current life of faith is interrelated with the lives of faith of fellow believers in all time. Believers: our loved ones in Christ who have gone before us, our loved ones in Christ who are living now, and our loved ones in Christ who are young and yet to be born… we are all through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ to be made perfect TOGETHER. Verse 40 is saying: apart from us they should not be made perfect. This unity of the faithful is what God has seen ahead of time for each and every one of us who believe in Him: we are joined as one in faith and will enter salvation in relation to and directly connected with one another. What we are doing here and now in our faith is important to the whole Body in all time.

Can you fathom the immense importance of this Biblical and Sacred Truth?

(Let me know your thoughts! May our Lord bless you!)

For further study:

If you would like a little further treatment of this passage please consider the following comments from the commentary prepared by Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown which was  published in 1871. The Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible is in the public domain and may be freely used and distributed. This excerpt is on Hebrews 11:39-40):
39. having obtained a good report--Greek, "being borne witness of." Though they were so, yet "they received not the promise," that is, the final completion of "salvation" promised at Christ's coming again ( Hebrews 9:28 ); "the eternal inheritance" ( Hebrews 9:15 ). Abraham did obtain the very thing promised ( Hebrews 6:15 ) in part, namely, blessedness in soul after death, by virtue of faith in Christ about to come. The full blessedness of body and soul shall not be till the full number of the elect shall be accomplished, and all together, no one preceding the other, shall enter on the full glory and bliss. Moreover, in another point of view, "It is probable that some accumulation of blessedness was added to holy souls, when Christ came and fulfilled all things even as at His burial many rose from the dead, who doubtless ascended to heaven with Him" [FLACIUS in BENGEL]. (Compare Note, perfecting of believers in title, and in respect to conscience, took place once for all, at the death of Christ, by virtue of His being made by death perfect as Saviour. Their perfecting in soul at, and ever after Christ's death, took place, and takes place at their death. But the universal and final perfecting will not take place till Christ's coming.
40. provided--with divine forethought from eternity (compare Genesis 22:8 Genesis 22:14 ).
some better thing for us--( Hebrews 7:19 ); than they had here. They had not in this world, "apart from us" (so the Greek is for "without us," that is, they had to wait for us for), the clear revelation of the promised salvation actually accomplished, as we now have it in Christ; in their state, beyond the grave their souls also seem to have attained an increase of heavenly bliss on the death and ascension of Christ; and they shall not attain the full and final glory in body and soul (the regeneration of the creature), until the full number of the elect (including us with them) is completed. The Fathers, CHRYSOSTOM, &c., restricted the meaning of Hebrews 11:39 Hebrews 11:40 to this last truth, and I incline to this view. "The connection is, You, Hebrews, may far more easily exercise patience than Old Testament believers; for they had much longer to wait, and are still waiting until the elect are all gathered in; you, on the contrary, have not to wait for them" [ESTIUS]. I think his object in these verses ( Hebrews 11:39 Hebrews 11:40 ) is to warn Hebrew Christians against their tendency to relapse into Judaism. "Though the Old Testament worthies attained such eminence by faith, they are not above us in privileges, but the reverse." It is not we who are perfected with them, but rather they with us. They waited for His coming; we enjoy Him as having come ( Hebrews 1:1 , 2:3 ). Christ's death, the means of perfecting what the Jewish law could not perfect, was reserved for our time. Compare Hebrews 12:2 , "perfecter (Greek) of our faith." Now that Christ is come, they in soul share our blessedness, being "the spirits of the just made perfect" ( Hebrews 12:23 ); so ALFORD; however, Hebrews 9:12 shows that the blood of Christ, brought into the heavenly holy place by Him, first opened an entrance into heaven (compare John 3:13 ). Still, the fathers were in blessedness by faith in the Saviour to come, at death ( Hebrews 6:15 , Luke 16:22 ).

Stand Firm | Thomas Cranmer 2 July 1489 – 21 March 1556

Stand Firm | Thomas Cranmer 2 July 1489 – 21 March 1556

Sermon preached Sunday, 3/18/12

Reclaimed from Death

We may be experiencing the realm of death more than we realize. Death is part of what encounters us in the spiritual battle we all know as Christian believers. The nagging feelings, the sense that something is wrong, or that something is dying inside of us… are all part of this experience of death in our daily lives. When we become apathetic: not caring what happens, or when we become numb: unmoved or non-responsive to that which used to be important to us… we may very well be experiencing the realm of death as we try to live! It is also said that we live in what has been called a ‘culture of death’. That which brings the realm of death into our sub-consciousness and consciousness comes daily through the exposure we get from television, the internet, the attitudes of many people, etc. Death in its many forms is taking its toll on us. Truly, when we realize it, we certainly know that we need to be reclaimed from death. This is exactly the battle won by Jesus our Savior. It is also exactly the overcoming He is accomplishing in our lives daily through the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus has taken away the sting of death and the victory of death by His sacrificial death upon the Cross. Through prayer and as we grow closer to Him in faith, we will experience ever increasing blessings of being reclaimed from death both today and forevermore! Through remaining close to Jesus, we Christians will actually be living in a culture of life through God’s grace and power to save. Let’s wake up and realize the battle we are in and open afresh to God’s Holy love flooding in and bringing new life into us.

 

Ephesians 2:1-7 (ESB)

¹ And you were dead in the trespasses and sins ² in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— ³ among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. ⁴ But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, ⁵ even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— ⁶ and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷ so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.