Come Out with Your Hands Up

Introduction:  (Tell the story of what it was like as kids playing war games…come out with your hands up.)  Whenever you see the word “therefore” in the Bible you should always ask what it’s there for because “therefore” is THERE FOR a reason.  When we come to chapter 12 of Romans, Paul is making a shift from doctrine to practice. He follows a similar pattern in the books of Ephesians and Colossians when he establishes doctrine in the first part of the letter and then moves to application in the second half. Theology is never meant to be cold and lifeless. It must always have a practical application. It’s as if he’s saying, “Based on everything that I’ve just said, this is what you now need to put into practice.” The purpose of the message is to convince each of us to completely surrender to the Master’s will with our bodies, minds and wills.

 

I.  Offering of Your Body (v.1)

·        We are urged “to offer (present) our bodies as living sacrifices.” This word “offer” is a technical term that was used to describe the bringing and presenting of an animal for sacrifice on an altar. To “offer” means, “to present once and for all.” In the Old Testament worship included sacrifice. A live animal was brought to the priest and the owner would lay hands on the beast to symbolically say, “This animal takes my place.” The animal was then killed and the blood was sprinkled upon the altar.

·        This idea of a “living sacrifice” must have been a novel idea to the Jews of that day. This was something they had not heard of before, except perhaps in the case of Abraham offering Isaac upon the altar. They were used to offering dead sacrifices. Once a sacrifice is offered to God, you can’t take it back. When we are called to present our “bodies” to the Lord, we are exhorted to offer our total being to Him, not just bits and pieces. God does not just want to be a “part” of our lives; He wants us to be completely committed to Him. As someone has said, the problem with living sacrifices is that they keep crawling off the altar!