Worship God with your whole life.

Sermon for Epiphany 1, January 12, 2020

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Romans 12:1-5  Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice—holy and pleasing to God—which is your appropriate worship.  ²Also, do not continue to conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, so that you test and approve what is the will of God—what is good, pleasing, and perfect.  ³So by the grace given to me, I tell everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought, but think in a way that results in sound judgment, as God distributed a measure of faith to each of you.  ⁴For we have many members in one body, and not all the members have the same function.  ⁵In the same way, though we are many, we are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. (EHV)

Worship God with your whole life.

Dear fellow redeemed,

            At first glance, the word, Therefore, may seem insignificant and unnecessary.  When reading a section of God’s Word like we have before us, it can be easy to just skip over the therefore and pay little attention.  Yet, therefore is a pivot word, signaling to us that the meaning of what comes after it depends on what came before—something we need to know in order to understand what follows.

Each of us has had lots of therefores in our lives.  A man was speeding; therefore, the police officer stopped him and gave him a ticket, and therefore, he had to pay a fine.  You worked a full schedule this week; therefore, you expect a full paycheck from your employer.  The virgin Mary gave birth to her first-born Son; therefore, there was great rejoicing in heaven and on earth.

Now, throughout history, the opinion of the law written in our hearts had most people convinced that because we sin against God, therefore, we should do something to regain God’s favor, indeed that we must somehow mollify God’s wrath in order to survive.  This led to all the ancient pagan religions and influences many others still today.

Likewise, if you read these last chapters of Paul’s letter to the Roman congregation believing that you must earn your salvation, you will misread Paul’s instructions as a way to gain God’s favor.  For that reason, the therefore is so important here.  Paul wrote, “Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God.”  As Paul writes this sentence, he is referring back to what he wrote in 11:32, where he said that God’s desire is to have mercy on all people.  It is imperative that we understand that no one is saved by any action he himself undertakes.  Salvation is given, only and completely, by God’s grace and nothing else.  Only when we understand that, can we really comprehend what Paul is saying in this text.

“By the mercies of God,” your sins have been removed from you and put on Christ Jesus.  “By the mercies of God,” you were made a believer through Baptism and the hearing of God’s Word.  “By the mercies of God,” each one of us has been delivered from the clutches of the devil and rescued from eternal slavery to that evil tempter who seeks only our destruction.  “By the mercies of God,” we have a Friend who won’t abandon us and a home waiting for us in heaven because of Jesus’ life and death.  Paul is even saying that “by the mercies of God,” he was given the opportunity to write these words for you and me to instruct us to live our lives in thanksgiving and praise.  In other words, he tells us that it is reasonable and proper to Worship God with your whole life.

Paul wrote, “Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice—holy and pleasing to God—which is your appropriate worship.”  Throughout the history of Israel before Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead, God’s people were bringing sacrifices to lay before the Lord, but those sacrifices were not for God’s benefit; He had no use for the bulls and lambs that were burnt on the altars. (Psalm 50)  Instead, all the sacrifices in the Old Testament were commanded for one primary reason, to point the people to the final sacrifice for sin which is Christ Jesus on the cross.  Therefore, there is no need for us to bring dead sacrifices anymore.  We have been set free from all of that. 

Now, assuming we were set free from sin, death, and Satan, as the Lord proclaims, why would we ever want to go back to serving that lying, thieving, murdering, accuser known as Satan?  There really are only two ways we can go in this life.  We can choose to continue serving the evil liar that brought all the trouble this world experiences every day, or we can follow the God-Man who rescued us from the evil one’s control.  Those are the only two options available to anyone in this world.  Therefore, Paul pleads with you, Worship God with your whole life.

It is our “appropriate worship” to serve our Lord with every part of our being.  Anything else serves the devil.  Paul is reminding all who read this book that our reasonable service is not to bring a sacrifice to the temple on occasion, it’s not just showing up at church on an occasional Sunday—or every Sunday—or even every day of the week.  The reasonable service for each Christian is to Worship God with his whole life.  It’s the only thing that makes sense to the Lord, or to the true Christian.  To come into this building and offer up prayers and shouts of praise to God, but then walk out the door and forget who it is we serve defies any kind of logic, because it would mean we are following two leaders.  Yet, Christ and the devil always go in completely opposite directions.

Of course, we all know that we are horrible failures when it comes to serving God in every way and at all times.  At the same time, we know God expects us to be holy.  Thus, our lives here on earth are a continual battle between our new life of faith and our old nature of sin and death.  Sometimes, we even struggle to know just what is the right thing to do in a certain situation.  The only solution is to put our complete trust in Christ Jesus as our Savior and our life.  Therefore, we make every effort to obey God and serve Him in all things, all the while knowing with confidence that though we fail, Christ Jesus has accomplished perfect obedience on our behalf. 

Our need to be constantly growing in faith and especially, being continually led by our Good Shepherd, is why Paul wrote, “Also, do not continue to conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, so that you test and approve what is the will of God—what is good, pleasing, and perfect.”  All we can do on our own is conform to this world.  It’s interesting that in the Greek, Paul uses an active verb for conforming to the world, but he uses a passive verb for being transformed.  Our human nature is always battling to be, or to stay in control, whether it be in evil action, or in striving to please God through our own efforts. 

Tragically, conforming to the world can only lead to eternal death.  At the same time, we lack any ability to transform ourselves into what is good and God-pleasing  Therefore, we need the Holy Spirit to transform us by making our minds new.  Our transformation is accomplished only by the Holy Spirit working in us, which is why King David prayed, “Create in me a pure heart, O God.  Renew an unwavering spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10)

The Holy Spirit works only one way, through the power of God’s holy Word.  Therefore, when we separate from God’s Word, we will always choose evil, even if we think we are doing something good.  Earlier, I said that it isn’t our coming to church that makes us acceptable to God, and that’s true, but here in His congregation, God works to give us faith, and to sustain it, in the first place through Baptism and the preaching of His Word, and then He uses the worship services and Bible studies to strengthen us and preserve us so that we never fall back into the hands of the evil foe.  St. John tells us in his first letter, “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7) 

If you are at all like me, your conscience often reminds you that our obedience of God’s law falls far short of the holiness we need to stand before Him in the Judgment, for we know our works are always imperfect.  Yet, the Good News is that in Christ everything we do, in obedience to God and faith in our Redeemer, is counted as holy for Jesus’ sake.  It is Christ’s righteousness that matters because His holiness is pure and without fault or error and is credited to us by faith. 

Therefore, Paul wrote, “So by the grace given to me, I tell everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought, but think in a way that results in sound judgment, as God distributed a measure of faith to each of you.”  We think too highly of ourselves if we consider our own works to be worthy of God’s acceptance.  Yet thinking with sound judgment, we hear and believe the Holy Spirit when He tells us that “the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7)

Dear friends, our Savior joined us to His own holy body as His Holy Spirit granted us the faith to believe in Jesus as our Savior.  Therefore, each time we hear the Good News and eat and drink Christ’s body and blood in the Sacrament, we are reminded of His sacrifice for our sins.  We are assured through His body and blood that we are forgiven for Jesus’ sake.  Consequently, as Christ’s body on earth, we don’t want to turn away from the life He gives.  Rather, connected to Christ, we want to live as whatever small part of His body He makes us, and we faithfully desire to live as obedient to God’s will as our Savior has already lived for us. 

God calls us to serve Him a multitude of ways.  The important thing is to Worship God with your whole life.  When every thought, word, and deed is concerned with pleasing our true Head, Christ Jesus, then we are truly growing in faith.  However, we must wait patiently for that perfection which will come only in the next life when our corrupt body “is raised in incorruption.” (1 Corinthians 15:42)  Therefore, until our day in heaven comes, our Lord and Savior calls us to walk with Him as He continues working our transformation, leading us to serve Him in thanksgiving for the salvation He brings, helping us to throw off the desires and corruptions of this world by daily wrapping His arms around us with His Word and His Spirit.  That is God’s mercy, and how He remains with us always.

Dear Christian friends, “By the mercies of God,” your Savior continually calls and encourages you to faithfulness.  Through His holy Word, He reaches down to take hold of horrible sinners like you and me and makes you each clean members of His own holy body, so that by the faith He implanted in you, you may truly Worship God with your whole life.  Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto everlasting life, for the LORD is good.  His mercy endures forever.  His faithfulness continues through all generations.  Amen.