View this sermon as preached for Le Sueur United Methodist Church on August 27, 2023
Someone once said, “The problem with living sacrifices is they keep crawling off the altar.” Maybe people cringe from offering themselves completely to God because they focus on what they will lose when they make a sacrifice. Maybe it’s because our idea of a sacrifice is pretty gory, and always fatal.
But Paul asks us to consider a different meaning for the word “sacrifice.” He calls us to remember that the root of this word is the same as the word “sacred.” Instead of thinking of a sacrifice as something we have to give up, or give away, or kill, Paul invites us to recognize that true sacrifice means setting apart something as sacred or holy. The thing we are to make holy is ourselves, our whole selves.
This changes our focus from what we lose, to how we live. How can we, as devoted followers of Jesus Christ, live sacred, set apart lives, while still staying connected to the world in which we live? How do we live in the world without being assimilated by the world? How can the way we live our lives be so full of joy and peace, so different from worldly living, that our lives attract others to Jesus?
Paul tells us, in remarkably concise language, what it takes to be transformed into Christ-likeness, rather than conformed to this world. Through the renewing of our minds, we are able to know God’s good and perfect will for us, and become “living sacrifices.”
Our transformation begins the moment we claim Jesus as Lord, and continues throughout our lives. We aren’t talking gory death here, but full and abundant life, dedicating to God our entire will and being. But in order to be transformed into Christ-like people, we must also fight against the urge to conform to the world around us. We have to stop crawling down off the altar.
Even churches struggle with this pull toward conformity with the culture around us. In our eagerness to be accessible, to be inviting and welcoming, churches often try to look and act as little like “church” as possible, making themselves attractive to those for whom the word “church” has negative meaning.
Churches eager to appear relevant in today’s world can get stuck investing in their look instead of their substance. By striving to accommodate the desires of un-churched people, these churches sometimes seem to offer faith as a commodity they are trying to sell, rather than a life-giving source of deep joy and transformation.
Paul reminds us that a Christian’s transformation requires an entire mindset change. We have to start thinking differently in order to grow into our new identities as children of God. We have to get our minds right, and that means getting our hearts in the right place.
So the first characteristic of living a sacred life in a secular world is humility.
“By God’s grace,” Paul writes, “don’t think of yourselves more highly than you ought to think.” In other words, beware the sin of pride. It’s an easy trap to fall into. After all, if Christ has set us apart as a chosen people, doesn’t that make us better than everyone else? Well, no. It doesn’t. Being part of the Body of Christ is less about privilege and more about responsibility.
Following Jesus changes our thinking from being self-centered to being God-centered. Instead of putting ourselves first, we recognize our place in the body of Christ, and live into that purpose and function with humility.
This was one of the features of the early church that set Christians apart from the rest of society. Gary Ferngren writes, “Compassion was not a well-developed virtue among the pagan Romans; mercy was discouraged, as it only helped those too weak to contribute to society. In the cramped, unsanitary warrens of the typical Roman city, under the miserable cycle of plagues and famines, the sick found no public institutions dedicated to their care and little in the way of sympathy or help. Perhaps a family member would come to their aid, but sometimes even close relatives would leave their own to die.” (Christian History, Issue 101, 6.)
And yet Christians, risking their own health, often stepped in to care for the sick and bury the dead. Their humble service to the sick and dying set them apart from the rest of society, and at the same time, began to transform that society. Humility and compassion became more powerful virtues than strength and wealth. This kind of humility showed itself in sacrificial service above and beyond the call of duty.
Does the world see us giving time we can’t spare, and resources we can barely scrape together, in such a humble and sacrificial way?
The second characteristic of living a sacred life in a secular world is community.
Notice what Paul says here in verse one: “present your bodies as a living sacrifice.” Bodies, plural. This kind of set-apart, holy living needs to happen in community. None of us can be the Body of Christ by ourselves.
Each part of the body is necessary to the whole, and we are connected to one another through Christ, though our functions may be quite different from one another. I often say ‘we can be believers in isolation, but true discipleship only happens in community.’ This is why, when we celebrate Communion together, we say, “Because we partake of the one loaf, though we are many, we become one in Christ Jesus.”
Does the world see that we are one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world, as we claim when we celebrate Communion together?
Our part in the body connects us to all the other parts of Christ’s body, the church. We depend on one another to make the body of Christ function as it should. It takes all of us to be the Body of Christ, and each of us has a distinct place within that body, based on the gifts we’ve been given.
That brings us to the third characteristic of living a sacred life in a secular world: exercising our giftedness.
The gifts we bring, the parts we play in the church’s work, are all different. Paul lists seven examples here, but he identifies at least 20 among his letters to Rome, Corinth, and Ephesus. While it isn’t an exhaustive list, the gifts of prophecy, ministry, teaching, encouragement, generosity, leading (which may really mean administering finances, or being a benefactor), and compassion, are all examples of good gifts, used well.
This brief list is not given in any particular order of importance, either. It is simply an illustration of the many ways we work together for the kingdom of God. One gift is not better than any other. We need them all.
Everything we do as a church should line up with the ultimate goal of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. We nurture faith and love for God, we reach new people, and we help to heal a broken world by exercising the gifts God has given us.
Notice that Paul lists each gift as both a noun and a verb. if your gift is ministry, it shows up in ministering; if you are a teacher, that gift is evident in your teaching. Are you an encourager? We will see it in the way you encourage. Is your gift generosity? We will see it in your giving.
These are not secret gifts, to be hidden away. They are made evident as they are used. They are made stronger as they are exercised.
These spiritual gifts are not only to be used for the benefit of others, however. They contribute to our own spiritual growth, too. Using our gifts draws us more closely into Christ-likeness, transforming each of us into what God created us to be. When Paul says, “use your gifts to equip the saints for every good work,” we must realize that we who have received these gifts are those saints being equipped for ministry. And equipping ourselves for ministry takes dedication.
You can’t be a half-hearted follower of Christ.
When she was serving as Director of Ministry for the Minnesota Conference, Cindy Gregorson often said that she would like to eliminate the word “volunteer” from church vocabularies. When we volunteer, it implies that we are using our discretionary time and energy in an optional activity. Following Jesus is a 24/7 endeavor that requires a completely transformed mindset: there’s nothing optional about being a disciple of Christ.
At the same time, “exercising our gifts is never a matter simply of letting ‘inspiration’ take over,” Tom Wright tells us. “… You can’t just play at it when you ‘feel like it.’ Christian service isn’t a hobby, though people sometimes think of it like that; it’s a divine calling, and if that calling is to make cups of coffee after church, that needs to be done with energy, care and flair.” (N.T. Wright, Paul For Everyone: Romans, Part 2, 76.)
Is this how the secular world sees us living out our sacred lives?
We demonstrate the Body of Christ at work through humility, community, and exercising our giftedness. But there’s one more thing to consider, and it’s what ties these three things together in a way that the world cannot mistake. This is what sets us apart as holy, without appearing to be holier-than-thou. We find it in another of Paul’s letters, this time to the church at Philippi.
In Philippians 2:5, Paul writes: “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus…”
Can you imagine, for a moment, how your life would be different if your relationships with others in this church were built on Christ’s viewpoint? Can you imagine how you would talk to the people who irritate you, if you were speaking with Jesus’ voice? Can you imagine how your conversations would go if you listened like Jesus? See, the question we should be wearing on our wrists isn’t WWJD – what would Jesus do – but HDJDI – how did Jesus do it?
Everything Jesus did he did by the power of the Holy Spirit. J.D. Walt writes, “To “have the same mindset as Christ Jesus” means to be filled by the same power that filled Jesus” — that power is the Holy Spirit.”
And Paul points out that idea of community yet again: “In your relationships with one another,” he says. Do you see the power of being the church here? As we deepen our relationship with Christ, it deepens our relationships with each other, and that is what the world is watching.
Even when our clothes and homes and cars look just like everyone else’s, how we treat one another within the church should show a way of living and loving together that the world has not experienced. It is the way of being transformed into Christ’s likeness, and we are not transformed alone. Growing deeper in faith means growing deeper in our life together.
J.D. Walt continues, “The reason most of us are stuck is we do not have the kinds of relationships it takes to sustain the level of work the Holy Spirit wills to do in our lives.”
It is that work of the Holy Spirit, transforming us by the renewing of our minds, that the world around us is desperate to see. Our ability to be in the world in a distinctly Christian way, set apart as humble and holy, makes a difference to people who are hungry for the good news that God loves them, that Jesus died for them, that there is more to life than scraping by.
There is abundance. There is peace. There is joy available to all who accept Jesus as Savior and Lord. And our mission as followers of Jesus Christ, is to be and make disciples whose lives reflect that same abundance, that same peace, that same joy we have come to know.
This is the gospel.
How do we live sacred lives in a secular world?
In Philippians1:27 Paul writes: “Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel.”
What does “conduct worthy of the gospel” look like? It’s behavior that shows others you value them, and believe the best from them. It’s conduct that shows gratitude. Conducting yourself in a manner worthy of the gospel means letting yourself and your thinking and your behavior all be changed, transformed by Christ’s deep love for you.
It’s not so much about what we do or don’t do, but who we are becoming together. It’s about becoming a community of people whose relationships are telling a different story from the story we hear around us. It’s a story of grace, told with humility and love, using the gifts we’ve been given to build up one another, as we are each and together transformed by the renewing of our minds.
May it be so.
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