HOLY AND ACCEPTABLE TO GOD

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your the sin, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God" (Rom. 12:1, 2).

The exposition of Christian doctrine in this Epistle closes with the eleventh chapter in a doxology of praise. The apostle has built with massive logic a temple of faith which has stood the assaults of Christ's foes through all the centuries, and has ever been the peaceful home of devout souls. "In chapters 1-4 he has shown that, in spite of the awful wickedness of men, they could be justified by faith; and they can also be sanctified in Christ by the communication of the Spirit (5-8); and it is precisely the refusal to follow this way which has drawn down on Israel their rejection (9-11)" (Godet).

Now he passes to the practical application of the doctrines. "I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God." "Therefore" refers to the entire argument of the preceding eleven chapters -- God's plan of full salvation. It leads to the practical appeal. Thus Christian living is inseparably connected with Christian believing. And, notice further, it is an appeal to Christians to rise in their experience to the second blessing. He wrote the Epistle to people "beloved of God, called to be saints." He calls them "brethren," and appeals to them "by the mercies of God," which they had experienced in their hearts, to give themselves anew to God for the blessing of sanctification.

I. Let us consider the required duty.

"To present your bodies a living sacrifice." It is a duty urged upon Christians in sacrificial language with which the Jews were perfectly familiar. The verb "to present" is in the aorist tense meaning "to present yourself once for all," to be the Lord's for time and eternity. There is a tacit contrast drawn between the old sacrificial ritual and the true Christian sacrifice and service. The analogy suggests the meaning of the text, and makes the teaching clear.

1. The old Israelites were required to bring sacrifices, but always something within the means of the worshipper. The rich man might bring a wedge of gold as an offering. He might bring bullocks to the altar, or a heifer. A poorer man might bring a lamb. A family very poor would be accepted if they brought a dove, or, by fasting for one meal, a handful of fine flour. It was to be something of their own for God. God asks believers who would be sanctified "to present their bodies" -- a gift certainly within the power of each to give.

"Now Paul," says Dr. Maclaren, "was not such a superficial moralist as to begin at the wrong end, and talk about the surrender of the outward life unless as the result of the prior surrender of the inward. For a priest needs to be consecrated before he can offer, and we in our innermost wills, in the depths of our nature, must be surrendered and set apart to God ere our outward self can be laid on the altar. So there must first be internal surrender. 'Yield yourselves unto God, and your bodies as instruments of righteousness unto him.'

Our bodies and souls are now joined. He cannot get them unless our souls who inhabit them give consent. So, as the ultimate fact, it means that God wants our whole selves. Nothing else will answer but a complete, all-including sacrifice.

What a field for consecration! The eye so absolutely given to God that it shall not be allowed to look upon the evil that is calculated to awake wrong desires in the heart; "that looks with complacency on things pure, and turns from the impure as if a hot iron had been thrust into its pupil"; the ear so devoted that it consents to hear only what its Lord would have it hear; the lips so consecrated that they shall speak for God; the appetites to be gratified only as the good of being demands; the hands to be engaged only in the ministry of love, and the feet to walk only in the paths of righteousness, and be swift and beautiful for God; the whole to be a temple of the Holy Ghost, in which the Lord of life is ever on the throne!

1. When we have thus given ourselves to God we are our own no longer. When the Israelite brought an offering he surrendered all claim to it. So with the Christian consecrating for this blessing. He surrenders all claim to himself. Intellect, will, affections, desires, possessions, influence -- all are God's, and are never again to be taken from the altar.

2. This is a "living sacrifice." The ancient lamb gave up its life to be a sacrifice; but we keep ours. The the sin goes out as ever before on excursions of thought. The will still sits upon the throne as the arbiter of destiny. But it is all for God. He now inhabits the sensibilities to thrill the soul with such emotions as please Him. We are still our own conscious selves, minus indwelling sin which the Spirit removes, plus the Divine Being ruling within.

Solemn fact! While our bodies are primarily subject to ourselves, yet we are so made that another spirit may dwell within us -- the spirit of the world, the spirit of the age, the spirit of Satan, or the Spirit of God. Oh, that it may not be the spirit of darkness transformed into an angel of light, but the sanctifying Spirit of God transfiguring me into His likeness!

II. The sacrifice is to be holy.

You may say, "Ah, how can I, so imperfect and unworthy and unlike God, ever give such an offering to Him?" Return to the figure of the text. The old Israelite might have said, "My cattle are all alike in disposition. None of them is particularly holy." But one is caught and brought to the altar, and lo! as it touches the altar "it is made holy." "The altar sanctifieth the gift." So it is with us. If we wait until we are holy before we present ourselves to God we will never make the gift. But it is not that better somebody of the future whom God wants; it is you, as you are, with all your unworthiness, but hating sin and longing to be sanctified. Christ is your High Priest. He, too, is your altar. Bring yourself to Him and He will make you holy.

III. "Acceptable to God."

Strange that it should be! But God is not a hard Master. He looks down in pity upon His weary, sin-sick child, seeking a perfect recovery, and says, "Poor thing! he has done his best; she hath done what she could, an angel could do no more." And it is accepted according to that a man hath. Somehow, in some way, God will let you know that you are accepted. The old priest entered the holy of holies with the blood, and came out alive -- the proof that his sacrifice had been accepted. The smoking furnace and burning lamp satisfied Abraham's heart. In Elijah's case the fire fell. Jesus said, "I will manifest myself unto him," and that is enough for you. How, does not matter. Leave your offering with Jesus, content until He lets you know it is accepted. "Cast not away, therefore, your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward; for ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise."

IV. It is a "reasonable service."

Is sanctification too much? Jesus prayed for it, and died for it, and it is His will. Has not God such a claim upon us? Can we give the Infinite Christ too much who gave His all for us? Creator! Preserver! Redeemer! Oh, let me give myself entirely to Him, to show forth His praise.

Many are afraid of losing something. Yes, you will lose ever so much corruption, the damning sin! the inward strife! the constant defeats! Your old companions may fall away as the withes fell from the limbs of the aroused Samson. But oh! the gain! -- purity, peace, victory, Godlikeness of character, the indwelling of the keeping Spirit, heaven! What a gain for what a loss!

V. "Be not conformed to the world."

An English bishop says, "The world is human society organizing itself apart from God." It means those fashions, maxims, customs, principles of action, sentiments, aims and feelings which imperiously rule unregenerate lives. All these taken together constitute that hostile world which crucified Christ and is still in deadly opposition to the kingdom of God. "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him."

But that is the characteristic weakness of the church of our time. The great bulk of its membership is "in torpid conformity with the world." It is swayed by the world's ambitions, delighted by the world's pleasures, intoxicated by the world's applause, ruled by the world's customs and fashions and laws. They measure themselves by the world's standards, and try to slake the thirst of their souls from the world's fountain of pleasures. God knows it. Angels know it. Devils know it. Unregenerate men know it, and unanimously vote that such mawkish piety is only detestable cant and hypocrisy. Well does God call upon us to get a blessing and a kind of salvation that will spoil us for "the world."

VI. "Be transformed" -- "transfigured."

The same Greek word describes Jesus' transfiguration. Let a person get this blessing which the apostle is urging upon Christians, and they will be transfigured sure enough. The lines of care and impatience and restlessness will be smoothed out. The look of spiritual hunger will disappear. A new shine will come into the countenance and a new light into the eye. The look of heavenly peace and rest will transfigure the face. "Another worldliness" will appear in the life. The ambitions, temper, plans, purposes, and aims of life will all be metamorphosed into the image of Christ. One smile from Him will be more highly prized than the approbation of the world for ever.

Such a Christian will know by a blessed personal experience, and "prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God." "This is the will of God, even your sanctification... for God hath called you into sanctification" (1 Thess. 4:3, 7). Few Christians, compared with the great number of professors of religion, have any conception of what Christ's salvation might do for them. The very word "sanctification" means nothing to them. But God wants them to know and prove by experience how sweet and blessed is His perfect will concerning us.

VII. Now the exhortation, "I beseech you."

How anxious the great apostle must have been that his fellow-Christians should get rid of "the sin" dwelling in them which had been such a bane to his own life! He knew the weakness it induced, the moral defeats it caused, the temptations it fostered, the sins it begot, the peace it destroyed. So with a tenderness of devotion, with a passionate earnestness he writes, "I beseech you." Take the blessing that will make you "holy, acceptable," wholly pleasing to God, and prepared to dwell in His presence. The new Queen Mary of England has let it be known that ladies dressed in a certain mode may not come into her court. So has decided the Infinite King. We must be "holy" to be acceptable to Him. "The sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord."

God is ready. Jesus died for it. He calls you to make the sacrifice that He may sanctify you. "Now," while you read these lines, "is the acceptable time." Say now, "A body hast Thou prepared for me." "I give it Thee O God." "Lo, I come to do Thy will."

The lamb had to be taken to the temple. But God would make you His sanctified temple. Now, as you are, and where you are consent, make the sacrifice, and trust God to accept it and make you the fit temple of the Holy Ghost. Then will follow the life described in this twelfth chapter of Romans, which, with the Sermon on the Mount and the thirteenth of 1 Corinthians, is the finest picture of a holy life in the entire Word of God.