If you’ve got your Bibles with you, please do turn to Romans 12. This morning, I introduced my two-part series of sermons on Christian resolution by asking two questions. Both of them were related to the experience of Jonathan Edwards. The first was, what is it that prevented the resolutions of Edwards from being mere legalism? The second was, what inspiration would have moved him not only to make but also to keep such resolutions?

I trust by now the answer must be fairly clear. It is the mercy and grace of God in salvation. If you and I are going to make true commitments — commitments that will change our lives and commitments that will make us change our world — we mustn’t begin with ourselves. We mustn’t begin even with the world. We need to make our way back to the primary tributary of the river of life, God himself. We need to see what we deserve from him by way of nature, and then what we instead have received from him by way of grace. That’s where we need to start, because without that fountain constantly bringing fresh supplies of life into us, merely keeping a list of dos or a list of don’ts becomes terrible legalism. It drains life and joy out of you, and you end up miserable, but more than that, you end up an utter failure.

In the Light of God’s Mercy

Now, in this second installment, what I want us to do is to ask but one question: What should Edwards have resolved to do in the light of the mercy of God towards him? What is it that he should have taken the pain to write down? There are two options. One would have been to commit himself to a torture of his body. There are people that have done that. They have entered basically an ascetic lifestyle that says, “Well, God has brought me away from the world, and consequently, I must have nothing to do with anything that brings pleasure to me through my body.”

Others have given themselves to a life of celibacy, thinking that that’s really what God wants them to do. I’m sure you know of the brothers and fathers in the Roman Catholic context that have made such vows. In that context, we can also throw in vows of poverty, that I will own nothing. I will keep myself away from any material possessions. Now, clearly, that’s not what we find in Romans 12:1. Let’s quickly read it together, and then I will explain, before we throw our weight into it:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

No Fragmented Christian Life

You will remember that I said, at the beginning of the last message, that in the book of Romans, you always have these major points where, clearly, the apostle Paul is changing gears, and Romans 12:1 is one of them. Here, you have the apostle Paul beginning to deal with the major applications, or another word would be implications, of the Christian doctrine of salvation and sanctification that he has dealt with.

Our understanding of the kind of resolution or commitment that we’re then called to in this first verse is that it helps us to stop seeing the Christian faith in a fragmented way. The apostle Paul is about to go into this section where he is going to be dealing with issues, for instance, of the use of our gifts, individual abilities. He’ll be dealing with issues related to our relationships with the government, our governors, and issues of paying tax and so on. He’s going to be dealing with issues of love for one another. He’s going to be dealing with issues of worship, the way in which we have to bear with one another’s likes and dislikes within the context of worship. He’s going to be dealing with all those issues, and it’s very easy for us, as Christians, to be very loud in one area and very quiet in another, because we have a fragmented understanding of the Christian life.

We may be very strong, so to speak, and very loud with respect to issues of money, the way in which we use money, and perhaps issues of tax and revenue for the state. But on the other hand, we may be monsters at home, terrible husbands and wives, but very good out there. Usually, this is the failure of a resolve to yield my all to Christ, to simply say, “Everything about me is going to be a response of love to this God, who has done so much for me, and therefore, whatever situations come into my life, my question will always be, “How would he that has loved me with an everlasting love want me to respond to this? Because in all situations, my primary relationship is not with the situations, not with other people, but it is with him. This is basically the resolution that the apostle Paul makes here.

When we come to the response to God’s mercy, we mustn’t see the various parts that the apostle Paul is bringing out here in Romans 12:1 as one thing after the other. Rather, it’s like the peeling of an onion. You’re still dealing with one thing, but you’re simply opening it up further and further and getting more and more into its detail.

A Total Consecration

First of all, then, we notice that the kind of mercy that God has had upon us calls us to a total consecration to God. That’s the first and most deliberate response. It’s saying, “God, I am going to be yours and yours alone.” The apostle Paul here uses the language of an Old Testament sacrifice. He says, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifice.” Clearly, it’s language you can only understand if you have the backdrop of religious animal sacrifices that were there in the Old Testament and, no doubt about it, in a lot of other religions apart from the Jewish religion.

A person, because of his relationship with God, takes a sin offering, a peace offering, or a fellowship offering to the tabernacle or to the temple and makes it a sacrifice. When he does that, he does not go home with it again. He has to hand it over. He will not, after that, use it for anything else. It’s given over to God. That’s what Paul is now saying here. He’s saying, “In response to what God has done for you, the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in saving us from our sin, the work of God the Holy Spirit in sanctifying us stage by stage and making us more and more like the Lord Jesus Christ, indeed the electing love of God in eternity, even before the dawn of time, when you gaze upon all that, what ought to be the response of your heart? The response is not to take an animal to the temple anymore; it is to offer yourself. It’s to say, “Lord, if this is what you’ve done for me, I give my everything, my all, to you, and I do so gladly.” It’s a response of love to love.

Now, when the apostle Paul here speaks about it as “offering your bodies,” he’s obviously speaking of the body primarily as the chief vehicle of your self-expression. But obviously, what he means here is everything about you, everything about you. It includes your mind. It includes your affections. It includes your will. It includes everything about you. Respond to him this way.

Instruments of Righteousness

Look with me quickly at chapter six, because it’s already spoken in a similar language there. Romans 6:12–13 says:

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

Resolve, the apostle Paul is saying here. Previously, sin employed the members of my body for its own purposes, but now that is it. I have gazed, as it were, into the face of One who has so loved me that I am now giving my all to him, holding nothing back, and not using the members of my body for anything that is outside him. It’s a total sacrifice.

Now, some of us know the famous story of the chicken and the pig. It’s not a true story, but it makes the point. They wanted to do a favor to some children and thought real hard as to what they could do for them. The chicken was the first one to suggest something and he suggested that they provide ham and eggs. The pig said, “No, no, no. You’re not being fair, because whereas yours will be a contribution, mine will be a sacrifice. You see, the chicken will lay eggs and move on, but to provide ham, I’m gone.”

We have too many Christian lives that are simply contributions. The life itself seems to be lived outside the life of God, and every so often, there is a contribution, but most of the life is lived for selfish gratification outside God. Paul is saying that’s not the way it’s supposed to be. God isn’t asking that when it comes to, perhaps, the use of your gifts or it comes to what you’re to do with your enemies, or whether you should relate to people who are lower to you in terms of stations in life, or whether you ought to pay your taxes, or whether you ought to respect government leaders that, at that point, that’s when you should be asking yourself, should I do it or shouldn’t I? Should I make a contribution this time or shouldn’t I?

He’s saying, no, you should’ve made the resolve long ago that whatever my Lord wants me to do, I am a vehicle through which he will do it. I give my life to him. I won’t be going through negotiations for the rest of my life. I am a living sacrifice. I wonder whether that’s a process you’ve already gone through or whether it’s something that you still need people to argue with you over.

Offering Our Whole Self

I was speaking about a husband who was saying, “I’m tired. I’m tired. My life is just impossible. I’m tired.” You ask him, “Fine. Let’s read what your responsibility is before God. He says, ‘Love your wife as Christ loved the church.’ Have you done that yet?” Now, this is what a truly consecrated husband will do. He will say, “Please pray for me. I need grace.” That is a living sacrifice. I’ll tell you what a non-living sacrifice will do. He’ll say, “No, I don’t like hearing things like that. Come on,” and storm away. He wants you to go out and find lollipops and toffees and ice cream and put them in front of him.

Are you a living sacrifice? Has that matter already been settled in response to the overtures of God in salvation? Consequently, when you turned from sin and put your trust in him, you laid your life on the altar as a sacrifice. That’s where the resolution should be. I resolve my life is his. That’s how he opens it up for them.

A Holy Sacrifice

Back to Romans 12. It says there, as he opens it up further to provide us greater clarity, that this living sacrifice is to be holy. Now, the word “holy” there is, first of all, primarily to do with simply consecration to God. It’s to do not so much with ethical holiness, which is there, we don’t doubt it, but the primary sense is this, that I am not going to compartmentalize my life so that there are certain areas that are no-go areas for God. That will not be the case. Let him use every inch of my life. That’s the use of the word “holy” there. It’s to do with a consecration to God, the sense in which Aaron and his sons were holy unto the Lord.

The clothes of the priest were seen as holy. There was a place in the temple or the tabernacle that was referred to as the Holy Place. Israel was seen as a holy nation, and in each particular case, it’s not ethical in terms of application. Clothes don’t sin, but they were holy because you could not put them on for any other activities except God-ordained activities in the worship of God. That’s what it’s talking about here.

Friends, the Christian life is a life unto the Lord. If you miss that, you cannot understand the resolutions of Jonathan Edwards. You can’t. Indeed, you won’t even understand your own Bible, like Romans 12–16. You won’t. But the moment you see it as primarily a life once lived for sin, once lived for selfishness, now being a life that is being lived unto God, exclusively for him, in my relationship with my spouse, my relationship with my children, my relationship with my parents, my relationship with my employers or employees, my relationship with my brothers and sisters in the church, my relationship with everybody and everything is as unto God, it changes everything.

You, too, can go and make your resolutions, because every time it will be asking, “What is it that God would want to use me for?” If my enemy has made my life impossible, I know what I want to do. I know. But if God wants to use me in his life, the message changes. It changes altogether. You know what I’d do? I’d take him a cold glass of water on a hot day. God wants to use me in his life to bless him. My enemy? Yes! I was once God’s enemy, too. If he had dealt with me as my sin deserved, I would be roasting in hell already, but he uses others to minister to me and he uses me to minister to others. I am holy unto the Lord.

A Life Pleasing to God

Closely tied to this qualification is also the qualification of pleasing him. Back to that verse. Paul says:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God . . .

Again, this is an important qualification. Remember, we’re not moving from one thing to the other. We are simply fine-tuning our understanding of this living sacrifice. We’ve said it’s for God, for God’s own use. I will not use my gifts or myself for my own selfish little ends and errands.

The second thing is that what matters the most will be, is God pleased with this? Is God pleased with this? That speaks about quality, a quality of commitment that honors him, that makes him stand out to be a magnificent, glorious Being. Consider Malachi 1. I trust most of us are familiar with that passage, but let’s go there, because if there’s anything that broke the heart of the Lord Jesus in the early church, it was the picture he brought up from Laodicea. He said, “You are neither hot nor cold. I feel like vomiting you out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:16). Any pastor would tell you, what vexes a pastor the most are the lukewarm ones, those who feel that they have done enough for this God by warming their pew for one hour a week, those who when it comes to financial giving want to give that which they’ve got no use for, what we call back home “change.” That’s what they want to pass on to God.

In the book of Malachi, this is what God says about this attitude. I’ll begin from Malachi 1:6–8:

A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. But you say, “How have we despised your name?” By offering polluted food upon my altar. But you say, “How have we polluted you?” By saying that the Lord’s table may be despised. When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not evil? And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil? Present that to your governor; will he accept you or show you favor? says the Lord of hosts.

In Africa, that’s not too difficult to imagine, because you know that when state leaders visit, especially in the villages, very soon a goat is handed over to them or something like that. You can be sure that when the community leaders are coming up with which goat to give, they’re looking for the best goat. Nobody will say, “I do have a goat that I’ve been failing to sell in the market. With everything wrong with it, I think it’s going to be a good opportunity to get rid of it now.” But isn’t that the thinking that takes place in a lot of minds when you put aside the mercy of God, the extreme to which he went to bring us salvation? When you lose sight of that infinite price paid for you, you start doing this. And it’s not just the infinite price, but the infinite majesty of him who has done all this for you.

Never the Leftovers

Malachi 1:10–11 continues:

Oh that there were one among you who would shut the doors, that you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, says the LORD of hosts, and I will not accept an offering from your hand. For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.

That’s Christianity. New Testament Christianity is the recognition that this God of mine is such a glorious being, I should give him my best. I should give him my all. When those things become clear in your mind, and you start going into Romans 13–16, and you’re seeing the various demands upon you, the various facets of the Christian life, the path of duty is clear, because you resolved properly, that you will only give to Him that which honors him, that which shows that he is a great God and a great Savior. That’s the sacrifice.

Friends, take that test to your church next time you are there, assuming you’re still here tomorrow, and just see the attitude of the people of God. Even you would not be pleased with it, and you’re a mere mortal, but you would not. I’m pretty sure you’ve heard people who are managers in their workplaces passing a comment like this, “You know, if these church members were working for me, I would have fired half of them already.” They’re right. It’s the attitude, and it’s all a failure to recognize my Savior didn’t hold back anything. He didn’t send an angel. He came himself, and he was willing to be hunted from the crib to the cross. He was willing to shed his blood. He was willing to suffer a rift from the very heart of almighty God the Father for me! How do I give him my second best? Tell me, how?

I was going to say it’s an insult, but I think I’ll use the words that I’ve learned from John Piper. It’s blasphemy. Thank you, John. I think that’s what it is. His name will be great, and may the world see it from our attitude. When I bless my enemy, when everything in me knows what I would have otherwise done, I’m saying, “Lord, you are great. I’m your obedient servant. I want to do that which pleases you, which pleases you, which pleases you.”

What a difference it would make to the world out there. Many would shake their heads and say, “Something has happened to my husband. Something has happened to my wife. I can’t understand.” Our only answer would be, “I want a life that pleases God.”

Our Service and Worship

Well, what’s the final peeling of this onion? In many ways, it takes us right back to where we started. This is your spiritual act of worship. Now, you realize there are two forms of interpretations of this passage. One tends to speak in terms of your spiritual worship and the other in terms of your reasonable service. I’d like to suggest that both are applicable, depending on the context.

It can be used as service to God or the worship of God. Here are two verses to quickly prove that. In John 16:1–2, the Lord Jesus Christ there refers to individuals who kill Christians, who persecute Christians, who confiscate the property of Christians, and they are doing this. Listen to this:

I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God (John 16:1–2).

Now, that “offering a service” is primarily exactly the same world as the one we find in Romans 12:1. Here is an individual whose doctrinal belief is that God wants him to kill God’s enemies. That’s what he understands. Therefore, although you are his son or you are his father or you’ve been buddies for quite a long time, when he discovers you are on the wrong side of God, he goes for your neck. He thinks he is serving God. He thinks he’s doing what God wants him to do.

The other is Hebrews 9:6, which is really the more common one. In fact, even Hebrews 9:1 has the same little phrase:

These preparations having thus been made, the priests go regularly into the first section, performing their ritual duties (Hebrews 9:6).

The priests entered regularly into the outer room to carry on their ministry. In other words, God has stipulated, according to what they understand, that this is what they ought to do from the morning to the time they knock off, and they are going through those processes, following what they understand God wants them to do.

A Reasonable Response

Putting this together, what’s the primary meaning there? Clearly, the emphasis is on reasonable. This is your reasonable response. That person who murders the Christian, like Paul used to do, is responding to what he knows. They think, “This is what Jehovah says. Therefore, these infidels must go.”

The priest who is functioning in the temple, again, is saying, “This is what Jehovah says. Therefore, I need to make these sacrifices,” and so on and so forth, across the day. There is a reality that I have processed in my mind. There is an action that is taking place inside that ties in with what I understand. Is that clear? This is what the Lord is saying. There must be no dichotomy between the great gospel truths and our lives. There mustn’t be. We must be able to look at the Christian life and say, “Okay, it makes sense.” Why? Because of the gospel. It makes sense that he lives this way because of the gospel. His life is an inevitable consequence, a logical deduction, from the information of the gospel. That’s all he’s saying here.

In other words, when a person like Jonathan Edwards took his pen or quill and began to write, what was he writing? He was saying, “This is my understanding of salvation. Therefore, therefore, therefore, this is the way my life ought to be.” It’s only reasonable. That’s what God is expecting of us. When you read the resolutions of Edwards, therefore, you see a man who wanted to give his every moment, his every breath to God, his everything. Should it be different with us? Is there any excuse or reason why we should be different, why there should be half-hearted consecration from our end?

The Christian faith must not be one where we call God to a negotiating table and say to him, “Lord, okay. I’m willing to go as a missionary. I am. Honest, I am, but not to Afghanistan, Lord.” No. It ought to be:

Take my life and let it be Consecrated, Lord, to thee Take my moments and my days Let them flow with ceaseless praise.

Take my love; my Lord, I pour At Thy feet its treasure-store Take myself, and I will be Ever, only, all for thee

Resolved to Live Fully to God

Oh, what a different world this would be if all of us stopped seeing the commands of God in Romans 12–16 as little bits here and there that we pick and choose. We think, “I think I can do this one. No, that’s a little too hard; I must leave for the pastor and his wife, but this one I think I can manage.” No. But resolve, even now, to say, “In the light of what you have done for me out of love for my soul, true love must respond in this way, to love you back.” In that mutual relationship of love, I will find my fulfillment; I will find my blessedness; I will find my joy in this life and, more than that, in the life to come. Oh brethren, therefore, as I close, I want to make this appeal. Don’t wait for another Resolution Conference in order to process the issue of this single resolution to be yours, O Lord, and to be yours alone. Whatever you say, I will do, and in that I will find my fulfillment.

You don’t need to wait for next year’s conference. You know what the Lord demands of you. Let the details come in daily situations, but the overall umbrella must be obvious, to live and to die for the glory of God.