Act of Worship

“Act of Worship” Romans 12 St. John’s, Bradford March 17, 2002

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.” In order to maintain sacrificial imagery throughout this sentence, Paul uses five more or less technical terms. He represents us as a priestly people, who in responsive gratitude for God’s mercy, offer or present our bodies as living sacrifices. These are described as holy and pleasing to God, which seems to be the moral equivalents to being physically unblemished or without defect, and a fragrant aroma. Such an offering is our spiritual act of worship. What, however, is this living sacrifice, this spiritual worship? It is not to be offered in the temple courts or in the church building, but rather in home life and in the marketplace. It is the presentation of our bodies to God. This blunt reference to our bodies was calculated to shock some of Paul’s Greek readers. Brought up on the thought of the great Plato, they will have regarded the body as an embarrassing encumbrance. Their slogan was soma sema estin (‘the body is a tomb’), in which the human spirit was imprisoned and from which they longed for escape. Still today some Christians feel self-conscious about their bodies. The traditional evangelical invitation is that we give our ‘hearts’ to God, not our ‘bodies.’ Even some commentators, apparently disconcerted by Paul’s earthy language, suggest an alternative ‘offer your very selves to him.’ But Paul is clear that the presentation of our bodies is our spiritual act of worship. No worship is pleasing to God which is purely inward, abstract and mystical; it must express itself in concrete acts of service performed by our bodies. Similarly, authentic Christian discipleship will include both the negative ‘mortification or putting to death’ of our body’s misdeeds and the positive ‘presentation’ of its members to God. Paul makes it plain, in his exposure of human depravity earlier in this book, that it reveals itself through our bodies, in tongues which practice deceit and lips which spread poison, in mouths which are full of cursing and bitterness, in feet which are swift to shed blood, and in eyes which look away from God. Conversely, Christian sanctity shows itself in the deeds of the body. So we are to offer the different parts of our bodies not to sin as ‘instruments of wickedness’ but to God as ‘instruments of righteousness.’ Then our feet will walk in his paths, our lips will speak the truth and spread the gospel, our tongues will bring healing, our hands will lift up those who have fallen, and perform mundane tasks as well like cooking and cleaning, typing and mending; our arms will embrace the lonely and the unloved, our ears will listen to the cries of the distressed and our eyes will look humbly and patiently towards God. Because Jesus Christ has already made the only dead sacrifice the New Covenant requires—the only sacrifice that has power to save us from eternal death—all that remains for worshippers today is the presentation of their bodies as living sacrifices. The story is told of a Chinese Christian who was moved with compassion when many of his countrymen were taken to work as coolies in South African mines. In order to be able to witness to his fellow Chinese, this prominent man sold himself to the mining company to work as a coolie for five years. He died there, still a slave, but not until he had won more than 500 men to Christ. He was a living sacrifice in the fullest sense. In view of God’s mercy to you, are you? In the mid-seventeenth century, a somewhat well-known Englishman was captured by Algerian pirates and made a slave. While a slave, he founded a church. When his brother arranged his release, he refused freedom, having vowed to remain a slave until he died in order to continue serving the church he had founded. Today a plaque in Algerian church bears his name. He was a living sacrifice in the fullest sense. In view of God’s mercy to you, are you? David Livingstone, the renowned and noble missionary to Africa, wrote in his journal, People talk of the sacrifice I made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of the great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own reward of healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? …away with such a word, such a view, and such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause and cause the spirit to wave and sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these things are nothing compared with the glory which shall hereafter be revealed in us and for us. I never made a sacrifice. Of this we ought not talk when we remember the great sacrifice which He made who left His Father’s throne on high to give Himself for us. Like Livingstone, Christians who offer a living sacrifice of their bodies usually do not consider it to be a sacrifice. And it is not a sacrifice in the common sense of losing something valuable. The only things we entirely give up for God—to be removed and destroyed—are sin and sinful things, which only bring us injury and death. But when we offer God the living sacrifice of ourselves, He does not destroy what we give Him but refines it and purifies it, not only for His glory but for our present and eternal good. Livingstone was a living sacrifice in the fullest sense. In view of God’s mercy to you, are you? Patrick was born, somewhere in Britian, about A.D. 389. When he was sixteen years old a band of Irish marauders descended upon England and carried off a crowd of captives, Patrick among them. Six years were spent as a shepherd among the barbarians on the wild mountains of Ireland. At the end of that time Patrick escaped and crossed to France. But he never forgot the land of his captivity, as he himself said: I heard calling me the voices of those who dwelt beside the wood of Foclut which is nigh to the western sea, and thus they cried, “We beseech thee, holy youth, to come and walk again amongst us as before.” Patrick decided to return to Ireland. Much in his life is obscure, and later legend has confused the scant data which we have from Patrick’s own pen. It is likely that he returned to Ireland about A.D. 432 and continued to labour there until his death in 461. It is certain that he was a bishop, but it is not known exactly when and where and by whom he was consecrated. It is possible that he came to Armagh about 442, and made that the centre of his work. Ireland at that time was almost wholly, if not entirely, a heathen country; Patrick writes of his journeys to regions ‘where never any one had come to baptize, or to ordain clergy, or to confirm people.’ He encountered much opposition— from the representatives of the old religion, from the kings whom he tried to convert, from British raiders who disrupted his work and massacred his converts. But he outlived his enemies and wore down the opposition and the time of his death Ireland was largely a Christian country. St. Patrick was a living sacrifice in the fullest sense. In view of God’s mercy to you, are you? “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.”