Dearly
loved by God, members of the body of Christ,
This week and next, we review what God’s Word
says about Christian stewardship- our use of all we are and all God entrusts to
us to use to his glory. When it comes to who we are and what we do as
Christians, it’s all about Jesus. This is the Bible Study theme our larger
church family, the synod, offers for that review.
How often we tend to forget that simple but
powerful truth. As we keep this fact in the forefront of our thinking, we are
armed against temptations’ attacks. We are ready to witness when someone asks
us about our religion. With this truth in the forefront, we have comfort and
hope in all of our troubles, even death.
It’s all about Jesus is the foundation of our
lives as Christian stewards. This is what the Holy Spirit taught the Romans and
teaches us in this part of St. Paul’s letter. Everything the apostle had
written up to this point revealed Jesus Christ as the mercy of God to Jew and
Gentile. “Therefore,” Paul now
continued, this is how we live because it’s all about Jesus.
We will consider these first five verses of
Romans 12 under the theme,
“In View of God’s
Mercy We Live.”
1.
We
live our lives as sacrifices.
2.
We
live in our church as one.
Christians want to offer sacrifices to our
Lord. That is just as sure as an apple tree wants to produce apples. It is what
we do. The question is why? When we talk about offering sacrifices, and that is
the technical term Paul used here, we do not mean mere outward actions we do in
response to threat, or commendation. What makes a sacrifice we offer “holy” and “pleasing” to God is that we do it “in view of God’s mercy.”
That means I sacrifice because God has been
merciful to me. In eternity, the holy God looked ahead to my miserable state of
need in my sin and death. In his nature of love, God determined to have
compassion on me by sacrificing his eternal Son in my place. It is like when
God provided the ram caught in the thicket for Abraham to offer in place of his
son, Isaac.
There can be only one “spiritual act of worship” that follows God’s act of sacrificial
love for us in Jesus Christ. The word “spiritual” also has the meaning of
reasonable or logical. With the mind of Christ we have through faith, the only
logical, spiritual act of worship we can offer God in response to his
compassion is to “offer your bodies as
living sacrifices.” Jesus offered his body as a living sacrifice. He gave
his all for us. To offer our bodies as living sacrifices means to offer God our
all. Such sacrifice flows because of God’s mercy. It is holy and pleasing to
God because it comes from the heart of faith. Such living sacrifice- it’s all
about Jesus.
The Holy Spirit has made our minds new. No
longer do we want to be “conformed to
the pattern of this world” but we have been “transformed by the renewing of your minds.” We test and approve of
God’s good and perfect will in our lives.
Christians neither need nor want pastors to
try to scold you into better Christian stewardship. This is especially true
when it comes to money. At the same time, when finances are in good shape, and
the Lord has blessed us with “a good
measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over,” [Luke 6:38] we
pastors will not tell Christians, you can stop growing in your stewardship of
money now, you’ve done enough.
Neither not enough or enough are reasons we
offer sacrifices. We don’t offer more or offer less on
the basis of need. “In view of God’s
mercy, offer your bodies as living sacrifices-holy and pleasing to God-this is
your spiritual act of worship.” In view of God’s mercy we live. We live our
lives as sacrifices. We do that in connection with the church, but mainly we do
it in connection with our daily lives the other six and a half days a week.
As we live our lives in view of God’s mercy,
we do not live alone. However, we live in our church as one.
Among Christians there is economic
inequality. There is inequality in rank and position in our vocations. There is
inequality in spiritual gifts and abilities. There is equality in receiving the
sacrifice of Christ for sin. There is equality in God's forgiving us and loving
us in Christ. There is equality in our transformation from unbelief to faith by
the Spirit’s renewing of our minds.
Therefore, we can rightfully call our
congregation a commonwealth. William Perkins, a Puritan theologian in England
preached in a sermon in the early 1600’s, “A vocation or calling is a certain
kind of life, ordained and imposed on man by God for the common good.” Perkins
then went on with the example Paul gives us in Romans of the body having many
and varied parts that work together in their varied offices for the common
good.
The apostle exhorts us to use “sober judgment” in evaluating our God
given place for the common good as part
of the commonwealth that is Christ’s spiritual body. What we have and how we
use it- its all about Jesus. Sober judgment means to be honest and realistic;
no false pride, no false humility. It is knowing my limitations and knowing the
ways I might excel.
We live in the church as one; one in Christ,
one in the commonwealth of the church and our congregation. One who belongs to
all the others. Next Sunday, God willing, we will look at what Paul says about
how we might grow in our Christian stewardship as different members of Christ’s
body who do not have the same function but who all live in view of God’s mercy.
Amen. <SDG>