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"I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service." ~ Romans 12:1
Today, we return to our study of Romans 12:1, the jumping off point into a live of servanthood. The Bible has a lot to say about servanthood because the central theme of the Bible is the Servant of all, the Lord Jesus Christ. Once we have come to know the Lord and His priorities in this world, we will give Him His rightful place as Lord of our lives. And, His lordship will be expressed in the way that we serve others.
As we mentioned in our last study, the main idea in today's verse is that servanthood begins with experiencing God's mercies or compassions for ourselves which will translate into a transformed heart that will live to bring glory to the Lord Jesus. As we get to know the Lord and what He has done for us, especially the fact that He rescued us from the clutches of hell itself, we will have a growing desire to love Him because He loved us first.
As we mentioned before, choosing to be God's servant or sacrifice will render four characteristics according to today's verse. The first we considered in our last study: it is a living sacrifice. Our choice to set aside the self life that this world encourages us to embrace renders life, not only in our lives but also in the lives of those around us.
Today's study is about the other three characteristics of being a servant. These characteristics are byproducts of the the fact that we have experienced God's grace and mercy. This is what I like to call the grace saturated life. You see, the closer we get to God, the more of His presence others will see in and through us. These are characteristics that only God can produce through our broken and yielded lives. The key for us is that we daily make the choice to submit our wills to Him and then watch Him work in and to and through our yielded lives. We are to live as though we have been justified. We are to live as though we are forgiven.
The second characteristic of this yielded life to God is that it is "holy." The Greek word the Apostle employed here translated "holy" is multifaceted. It means to be set apart for its intended purpose, but it also means complete or full. The idea is that our daily choice to crawl up on the altar of God for His purposes for that day is steeped in the fact that we have been fulfilled by the mercies of God.
In Leviticus 20:26 we read, "You shall be holy to me; for I the LORD am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine."
The promises which appear in the Old Testament belong also to us who live this side of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ because it is through the cross that we have been made whole before God. The word "holy" comes from the same root word from which we get our word wholeness. So, holiness means "wholeness" or "completeness." And if we read wholeness in place of holiness everywhere we find it in the Bible we will be much closer to what the writers of that book meant. To be whole is to have together all the parts which were intended to be there, and to have them functioning as they were intended to function.
The third characteristic of this yielded life to God is that it is "acceptable to God."
Once we have through Christ been declared "holy," it makes sense that our sacrifice to God for the benefit of others will be acceptable to God. God called us to Himself through His grace and His mercy which has rendered for us a whole new outlook on life. We now see what is really important in this world and it is not what we thought it was before we came into a personal relationship with God through His Son. God's call to us to live a merciful life is a call to live a worshipful life. And, our aim of showing mercy is essentially showing to others the God of the Bible. More accurately He reveals Himself through our broken and yielded lives. The aim of having bodies is to make the glory of God more visible. He shines best through our merciful behavior. This is what is acceptable to God. And, it must be steeped in faith because the only thing that pleases God, humanly speaking, is faith.
The fourth characteristic of this yielded life to God is that it is "reasonable." Literally, our lives of servanthood is a "logical service." You see, it is only reasonable for us to be available to God. It is our logical reason for existing. When we became believers in the Lord Jesus, our spirits were awakened to God. Now that we have been born again, we are learning to be surrendered to God. There are times when we live schizophrenic lives, and our bodies do not follow what our spirit has already experienced with God.
Furthermore, Paul tells us, this is the only thing that makes sense. "This is our reasonable or logical worship." This is the way we worship God. And, worship is allowing God to use all of us, even our bodies for His glory. This is the only thing that makes sense for the born again believer in Christ. This is the smartest thing we could ever do. The Apostle Paul used the Greek word "logikos" to describe this worship. True worship isn't singing songs are going through rituals, it is living a yielded and obedient life to God because we have been arrested by His grace and His mercy.
