Riverside Community Church Blog

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform 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. - Romans 12:1

Through Paul, God gives us two things to do in this text: 1.) Offer our bodies as a living sacrifice**, 2.) Be transformed by the renewing our minds.

**When Paul says to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, it is understood that he is talking about our heart, mind, body and soul. In other words, everything about our being and existence. It means that God wants YOU, not just things you DO. We can do a lot of things but never give God our SELF.

You might be saying, “I get that, but how?” Here’s how...I purposely left out a key piece of scripture in the above verses because I want to emphasize how important it is in all of this. What I left out is how we do it. Here is the actual scripture, the “how”...

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform 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.” - Romans 12:1

Do you see what was missing? It’s in verse one.

When Paul says, “In view of God’s mercy”, he’s basically saying, “this is where I want you to start, this is your starting point, this is how you surrender your being to God, this is how your mind is renewed.” Paul is essentially saying, “it’s a lens” or “it’s a perspective”. Prior to this text, in Romans, Paul has been talking about the following mercies of God through the Cross:

Justification from the guilt and penalty of sin
Adoption in Jesus & identification with Christ
Placed under grace, not law
Giving the Holy Spirit to live within us
Promise of help in all affliction
Assurance of a standing in God’s election
Confidence of coming glory
Confidence of no separation from God's love
Confidence in God’s continued faithfulness

To be the living sacrifice we’re called to be and to be transformed by the renewing of our mind, we always have to check our lens. How clear is the Cross in your sights?

This seems so easy. If it is, then why are we so bad at living a sacrificial life to God? If it is so easy, then why is there such a fierce battle being waged in our minds? Two reasons: 1.) Because of sin. As a result of sin, our flesh hates sacrifice, pain, surrender, and discomfort. We don’t naturally like being justified by something other than our effort because it requires us to swallow our pride. We don’t naturally like being under grace, and not law because our performance of the law is something we have control over and can pat ourselves on the back for. 2.) Because the pattern of the world doesn’t encourage us in the way of living sacrificially to God. This is why Paul exhorts us not to be conformed to the pattern of the world but to be transformed by the renewal of our minds. We need continual transformation. It’s not a one-stop shop. We need to be constantly going back to the starting point - the Cross and the mercy found there. The opposite of self-sacrifice is self-centeredness. With that said, the “pattern of this world” is self-centeredness. The pattern of God’s Kingdom is self-sacrifice. We get stuck in self-centeredness when God’s mercy through the cross isn’t in our sights. When we take our sights off of God and His mercy, transformation takes a back to seat and we begin conforming to the world. We don’t sacrifice and give ourselves to God because we’re not seeing what God didn’t give to us - judgement. On the flipside, we don’t sacrifice and give ourselves because we’re not seeing what God did give to us - mercy.

Our problem is not so much what we’re looking at, but what we’re not looking at. We’re not looking at the Cross and the mercies found there. How large does the cross loom in your life? Our mind easily wanders. That saying, “out of sight, out of mind” really does apply here. If the cross and it’s mercies disappear from our focus, something else will come into focus, and it will keep you from being a living sacrifice and keep you from allowing your mind to be renewed. If your focus veers towards YOUR success, then your sights went away from God’s mercy and a sacrificial life holy and pleasing to Him. If your focus veers towards YOUR comfort, then your sights went away from God’s mercy and a sacrificial life holy and pleasing to Him. There is no greater goal than to know Christ and to live a sacrificial life that is holy and pleasing to God. If God’s mercy on the cross is out of our sight, then a sacrificial life holy and pleasing to Him will be out of our mind, and if a sacrificial life holy and pleasing to God is out of our mind, then we won’t know Christ!

Offering our bodies as a living sacrifice that is holy and pleasing to God is a "big ask", but we can't do it without looking at God's "big give". On the Cross and the mercies found there, God gave us something to look at!!! God’s will for us is to know Christ, to live our lives as a living sacrifice holy and pleasing to God, and to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. What this looks like is different for different people. My sacrifices aren’t going to be your sacrifices. My mind isn’t your mind. What we all do have in common though is the viewpoint we start with - the Cross and the mercies found there.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

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