Our Old Testament lesson comes from Ezekiel chapter 36. Ezekiel 36 starting in verse 16. Hear now the word of the Lord. The word of the Lord came to me. Son of man, when the house of Israel lived in their own land, they defiled it by their ways and their deeds. Their ways before me were like the uncleanness of a woman in her menstrual impurity. So I poured out my wrath upon them for the blood that they had shed in the land, for the idols with which they had defiled it. I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed through the countries. In accordance with their ways and their deeds, I judged them. But when they came to the nations, wherever they came, they profaned my holy name, in that people said of them, these are the people of the Lord, and yet they had to go out of his land. But I had concern for my holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations to which they came. Therefore thus says thus therefore say to the house of Israel thus says the Lord God. It is not for your sake or house of Israel that I am about to act but for the sake of my holy name which you have profaned among the nations to which you came and I will vindicate the holiness of my great name which has been profaned among the nations and which you have profaned among them and the nations will know that I am the Lord declares the Lord God. when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean from all your unclean this is and from all your idols. I will cleanse you. and I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers and you shall be my people and I will be your God and I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses and I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you. I will make the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field abundant that you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations. Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations. It is not for your sake that I will act, declares the Lord God. Let that be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel. Thus says the Lord God. On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities I will cause the cities to be inhabited and the waste places shall be rebuilt and the land that was desolate shall be tilled instead of being the desolation that it was in the sight of all who pass by. And they will say this land that was desolate has become like the Garden of Eden and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are now fortified and inhabited. Then the nations that are left all around you shall know that I am the Lord. I have rebuilt the ruined places and replanted that which was desolate. I am the Lord. I have spoken and I will do it. Thus says the Lord God. This also I will let the house of Israel ask me to do for them. To increase their people like a flock. Like the flock for sacrifices. Like the flock at Jerusalem during her appointed feasts. So shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of people. then they will know that I am the Lord. This is the word of the Lord. Did that last verse sound a little strange? God increases his people like a flock for sacrifices. What do you do with a flock for sacrifices? You kill them all, okay. What's God doing with this picture here? Well, God's purpose for your life is that you might be a sacrificial lamb. That may sound strange, but it is true. God's purpose for your life is that you might be a sacrificial lamb. It was certainly true for Jesus. the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And the Apostle Paul will not shy away from this exact language in Romans 12. Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. It's actually the same point you often hear in the New Testament, where if we're going to follow Jesus, then we must follow the way of the cross, the way of sacrifice, that what we are called to. Now, and this is where, what we're gonna see, and this is very, it's true right here in Ezekiel. What is a sacrifice? Don't think burnt offering. Burnt offerings are not called sacrifices in the Old Testament. Burnt offerings are destroyed in the fire. We're here, God, to worship you. We're here to ascend to the Lord. You're not the burnt offering. Only Jesus is the burnt offering. You're not the sin offering. That's Jesus. He's the sin offering. The word sacrifice in the Old Testament is used to refer to the peace offering. and the peace offering is where peace is expressed between God and man, that we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. The New Testament will also say that Jesus is our peace offering, but then we'll use this sacrificial language to refer to that our offering of our bodies as living sacrifices is our participation in Jesus' peace offering, that we become in our laying down our lives in the service of Christ and one another, we join ourselves to his peace offering that we are expressing in the way we lay down our lives for one another. We are expressing that we are, this is the place where God's peace, God's shalom is made evident. That's the picture that Ezekiel's using And that picture is also maybe what helps us understand our psalm of response Psalm 51 because maybe you've noticed this in Psalm 51 before where towards the end in verses 16 and 17 it says you will not delight in sacrifice or I would give it. You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit a broken and contrite heart. Oh God you will not despise. Then, the very next verse, he says, do good to Zion in your good pleasure, build up the walls of Jerusalem, then you will delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings, then bulls will be offered on your altar. God does want sacrifices. He wants the sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart, living the sacrifices of lives dedicated to him, because that's where, when Jesus, becomes the burnt offering, the sin offering, then we are joined to his peace offering. We are joined to that life that is dedicated to that pattern. Our New Testament lesson comes from Paul's epistle to the Romans, chapter 12. Romans chapter 12. Here now the word of the Lord. 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. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think but to think with sober judgment each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members and the members do not all have the same function. So we though many are one body in Christ and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them if prophecy in proportion to our faith, if service in our serving, the one who teaches in his teaching, the one who exhorts in his exhortation, the one who contributes in generosity, the one who leads with zeal, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness. Let love be genuine, abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good, love one another with brotherly affection, Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal. Be fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation. Be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. For it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For by so doing, you will keep burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. This is the word of the Lord. In Romans 12, Paul is launching a new section of his epistle, and he's talking about what we might call the practical side of the Christian faith. He's spent the last 11 chapters talking about the importance of Christian doctrine, Christian teaching, the gospel message of who is Jesus and what has he done for our salvation. And that's where we should remember that the word doctrine simply means the word teaching. Teaching is the starting point. for doing in all of Paul's epistles. He'll work through in the first section of each epistle the basic teaching of who is Christ and what has Christ done, and then he'll move in the second half of his epistle to talking about the applications and implications for what that means for our lives. Because doctrine also always results in practice. And I say always for a reason. Because Your lives are based on doctrine. And I don't just mean Christian doctrine, because whatever teaching it is that you really believe, whatever doctrine it is that you really believe, is what you will practice. If you want to know what you believe, look at your life. Look at what you do. That will tell you what you believe. because doctrine always results in practice. This is something that, I mean, if you think about, many of you have mastered a discipline, whether in academics or in professional life, in a trade, you've mastered a certain pattern of teaching, and that pattern of teaching affects the way you live your life. If you're a carpenter and you don't follow the pattern of teaching, you're not a very good carpenter. But if you're a professor and you're not teaching, your doctrine, your teaching will affect your life. Whatever it is you believe is what you will practice. And so that's where if you're looking at your life and saying, hmm, I'm not liking where things are going, well, maybe do a little bit of an audit as, well, what am I doing and what does that imply about what I'm believing? Because if your whole life revolves around your family, and that is leading to problems in other areas, that could be an indication that, hmm, maybe I'm overly focused on my family. Or if your whole life is focused on enjoying life, whatever the cost, well, Maybe that's a time to reevaluate what it is that really matters to you. What do your priorities say about what you really believe? And that's where what Paul is doing here in the second half of Romans can help us to think through how well we've done at processing what he said in the first part of Romans. Have we really understood, have we really taken to heart what it is that Jesus has done for our salvation? the things that he'll talk about in the latter part of Romans will really be rooted in what he said all the way through. So he even says, I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, which refers back to everything he's just said in Romans three through 11. And as we've seen, Romans three through 11 was held together by Paul's questions asking, what then? Paul is now turning to the implications of all of those what-thens. Since you have been justified by faith apart from works of the law, Romans 3 and 4. Since Christ has brought us life and righteousness through his death, Romans 5. Since you have been united to Christ through baptism into his death, Romans 6. Since we are no longer under law but under grace, Romans 7, since there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, we have received the spirit of adoption and thus all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose, Romans 8. Since God has called us Jew and Gentile by his word, Romans 9 through 11, therefore, Paul says, because of this doctrine, because of this teaching about who Jesus is and what he has done, I appeal to you by these mercies, because of these great blessings, present your bodies as a living sacrifice. And this is where Paul is using language that would be very familiar to his hearers. that they're familiar, whether Jew or Gentile, they're very familiar with the sacrificial practices of the day. Both Jews and Gentiles did sacrifices. I mean, Roman temples, it's all sacrifices everywhere. So they all know what sacrifices mean and how they function. And a sacrifice is presented as an act of worship. And the sacrifice is particularly, in the Old Testament, used for the peace offering. In the burnt offering, or the sin offering, these are substitutionary in nature. The animal dies in my place. And do you know what happens to the animal? In the burnt offering, the whole animal gets burned. Goes up in smoke. And that smoke ascends to God as a sweet aroma to God. It's an ascension offering. It's saying we are, the picture of it is, we are ascending to God to worship him. but the animal just winds up toast, burnt. The sin offering was, part was burned in the fire and the other part was given to the priest, so the priest would eat it. But the peace offering, the fat, the liver and the kidneys was burned in the fire, a portion was given to the priest, and the worshipers partook of the peace offering as a way of signifying that we have peace with God. That in a sense, you might say part of it has gone to God, there's a priest who is the intermediary between us and God, and now we have peace with God, and so we partake of this. And the peace offering is not there to make atonement for sin. The peace offering is what man offers to God after God is favorably disposed to man through the atoning sacrifice. So in other words, when Paul says, offer yourselves as living sacrifices, this is not to make atonement for your sin. This is because Jesus has made atonement for your sin, because we have peace with God through what Jesus Christ has done, Romans 5. Now, offer yourselves as a peace offering. offer yourselves as a living sacrifice that expresses the peace, the shalom that we have with God through what Jesus has done. So we are not adding to the atoning sacrifice of Jesus. It means that because God is satisfied by the offering of Jesus, because we have been baptized into Christ's death, because we have been joined to the life of the Son of God, therefore we are joined to his peace offering. Now, as we noted before, the sacrifice dies. And if we offer ourselves to God as living sacrifices, then we are sacrificing our old way of life. We are putting to death the deeds of the flesh, that old way of living. And particularly, Paul says, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice. There's a reason why he points to the body in particular, because it has to do with our behavior, our whole way of life, what we do, what we say, how we think, and he uses three adjectives to describe this sacrifice. Living, holy, and well-pleasing. The first point to note is that it's not a dead sacrifice. It's a living sacrifice. A dead sacrifice has a momentary usefulness. It accomplishes its purpose in expressing our peace with God and then is eaten by the worshipers. But a living sacrifice has an ongoing significance. As a living sacrifice, you are an ongoing expression of God's peace with us. As a living sacrifice, it's this life together, and Paul is turning now to a discussion of what does it mean to live as the body of Christ. If Christ is the peace offering, if Christ is the one who has brought peace with God, then when we are joined to the life of Jesus, we become part of that living sacrifice. because Christ is alive and we have been buried in baptism with him and raised up into newness of life in Christ. So the sacrifice is a living expression of the fellowship of God with man that we now have in him. Now, I was tempted at this point to say, do people see this in you? And then I realized that's not Paul's point at all. The question is not. Are you good at looking this way to others? Because who is the peace offering offered to? To God. It has nothing to do with whether people see this in you. That will happen if you're doing it, but are you offering it yourself to God? What does God see in you? You don't present sacrifices to man. I mean, at least you shouldn't, better not. You present yourself to God as a living sacrifice. And that's where recognizing that it is, what does God think of us? That's the question. And then secondly, present yourself to God as a holy sacrifice. Throughout the law, there's discussion of God's, the importance of the holiness of God's people, the holiness of God's sacrifices, the holiness of God's priests. And sometimes, Israel, and sometimes we, can get so focused on outward purity that we miss the point of the outward purity, namely the inward. And that's where Psalm 50 makes the comment that the one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me. To the one who orders his way rightly, I will show the salvation of God. To be a holy sacrifice means that you are set apart for God alone. This is where offering yourself as a living sacrifice, holy to God, is to say, I'm for Him. That's my point in life. And you're not being double-minded. You're not trying to serve both God and others. No, you serve the Lord Christ, and you are entirely devoted to Him, which is then why Paul puts well-pleasing to God third, because without holiness, no sacrifice will please God, but a living sacrifice of thanksgiving offered in a manner of life that is holy, this is well-pleasing to God. And this is one of the beautiful things that Paul will often do in his epistles, because did you know that you are well-pleasing to God? we so often think we're not. And we have good reason for thinking we're not, because boy, I've sinned. How can that be pleasing? No, sin is never pleasing to God. Didn't say sin was pleasing to God. You are pleasing to God. Why are you pleasing to God? Because Jesus died for your sin. And when you come to God confessing your sin, Why do we have that confession of sin, declaration of pardon every week? Because we need it every week. Because we're not, if you just look at me in my life, I'm not good enough. But Jesus died that we might have life in his name. That we might offer ourselves to God as living sacrifices, well pleasing to God. God looks at you and is well pleased because he sees you in his beloved son, our Lord Jesus, who loved you and gave himself for you. So when you offer yourself as a living sacrifice to God, this is a promise from God that he is well pleased with your sacrifice. And you might say, oh, but it's such a feeble sacrifice. It's such a half-hearted sacrifice. Yeah, granted. and yet he is pleased with it, even though it's so much less than it should have been, but he's well pleased because this is why Jesus came. And that's why, for instance, Hebrews, we'll talk about in Hebrews 13, through Christ, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God that is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. The sacrifices that we offer in our laying down our lives for one another and caring for one another and being there for one another, these things are seen by both Paul and the author of Hebrews as primarily an act of worship. an act of worship to God, doing good and sharing what you have, which is your spiritual worship. Now, just to note, the word spiritual is the word from which we get our word logical. It could be translated spiritual, it could be translated rational, but the important thing to note here is that this is not the word for the Holy Spirit. So this is, when it talks about spiritual worship here, it's not talking about worship in the Holy Spirit, it's talking about worship that is part of our nature, it's part of our inner man. And given the fact that Paul will be talking a lot about thinking in the coming verses, the older translation, which is your rational worship, might actually be a better way of saying it. This is the reasonable, the rational, the proper response to all that God has done for us in Jesus Christ. And so Paul says, then, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. I like the way J.B. Phillips paraphrases this. Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its mold, but let God remold your minds from within. That's very much what this passage is saying. What is it that forms you? What is it that molds you? The world will try to squeeze you into its mold. Now, that mold changes over time. The Roman world emphasized emperor worship. The American world emphasizes worship of stuff. worship of pleasure, happiness. But the basic premise remains the same. The world will try to shape you in a direction that is hostile to God. Now, the world wants you to think that stuff will make you happy. In the grocery store, on TV, in all sorts of ways, both subtle and obvious, the world will tell you that stuff will bring happiness. And one of our dangers as Christians is we think we can be both, we think we can be spiritually minded and worldly minded. We can aim at both things, but it won't work. Because if you're prizing stuff, if you're prizing material possessions, if that's what your heart is set on, then you are being conformed to this world. And if you are being conformed to this world, then you will not be transformed by the renewal of your mind at the same time. So what is shaping you? What is forming your heart and mind? Now, if you wanna know the answer to that question, if you're like, I'm not really sure, well, look at your actions. Look at what you're doing. How you act. As you approach Christmas this year, what is it that drives the way you think about the Christmas holidays? Are you focused on making sure all the stuff happens? Or are you focused on the one who humbled himself and offered himself as the atoning sacrifice for our sin so that we might offer our bodies as living sacrifices to God? And okay, so what does that look like? What does that mean? Well, that's what Paul will then do in this next section in Romans 12. In verse three, Paul says, by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. The place to start is humility. Paul uses this root verb, to think, four times in rapid succession, all in the infinitive moods. not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober thinking. So how you think of yourself matters. If you think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, what does that look like? Well, it means that you're not seeing yourself the way that God sees you. And that's where, Actually, the Tuesday morning men's group will soon be starting Kelly Kapik's book. You're Only Human, thank you. And Kelly Kapik's basic point is you're only human. God made you to be a creature. Creatures have limits. No creature can possibly do everything. That's what God does. And so if you realize your limits, then you also realize you need others. In verse two, Paul had said that the reason why you need to be transformed by the renewing of your mind is so that by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. And that's where, that's not something that any of us is able to do alone. If you're going to think of yourself rightly, then you need to understand what God has called you to do and to be. And that involves listening to others, humbling yourself to hear what they have to say. And if you're being conformed to the world, then you will not think rightly about yourself. That's why Paul says that the mind must be renewed as you are transformed metamorphosized into the image of Christ. And as you come to see yourself in Christ, as you begin to offer yourself as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, then you will think rightly with sober thinking about yourself, and see yourself as being in your place in the body of Christ in Christ's kingdom. And that's really where Paul goes next because he says it is as in the body we have many members and the members do not all have the same function. So we though many are one body in Christ and individually members one of another. The body must be diverse in order to function well. Every part of the body needs all the other parts. Thinking rightly about yourself will mean recognizing your limits, because as a creature, your perspective on everything is limited. There's not a single thing in all of creation that I have an exhaustive knowledge of. It can be tempting sometimes to think that I do, but I don't. And that's where recognizing the value of other people in speaking into situations is really important. We need one another. And I say this in part because there can be a tendency, especially perhaps in our society, to clump together with people who are in the same stage of life, or with people who think the same way we do, or people who share the same interests. And that's where it can be really useful sometimes to get out of our little clumps. perhaps recognize that American society right now is fragmented in all sorts of ways where people oftentimes don't ever talk with somebody who actually disagrees with them significantly. And recognizing the importance and the value of hearing from those different angles is really important. When I first came to South Bend, I came to Michiana Covenant as a grad student at Notre Dame, and they put me in a small group with two young families and two retired couples and me. And all of these different people came from very different backgrounds and experiences. And listening to one another was really valuable. If everyone forms groups that are sort of birds of a feather flocking together, then we'll miss the point of verse five. We, though many, are one body in Christ and individually members one of another. In order for the body to function properly, all the parts fit together and need one another. And it doesn't mean that everybody has to know everybody equally, but it does mean that we are interlocking members organically connected to one another in Christ. So thinkers and doers need to work together. And when we offer our bodies as living sacrifices to God, when we are being transformed by the renewal of our minds, when we are thinking wisely about ourselves, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned, then we will use our gifts accordingly. And that's the point where Paul goes in verses six through eight. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them. And Paul gives seven aspects of church life. And now the first two are grammatically different from the next five. And probably what's going on here is prophecy refers to the prophetic office, the office of preaching. Service is the word diakonia, which would be better translated ministry. And it's worth noting that many of the early fathers, especially the Greek ones, for whom Greek was their native language, understood this to refer to the office of minister, diakonos, which probably explains why Paul switches from the first person plural to the third person singular in the following five aspects. In the New Testament, prophecy and ministry are words that are regularly used for ordained leaders in the church. while teaching, exhorting, contributing, leading, doing acts of mercy, are things that can characterize the whole congregation. And actually, if you look at them as being the first two are referring to the ordained leaders, the next five are referring to the whole congregation, they actually map neatly on, the first one refers to teaching gifts, the second one referring to, you might say, ministry gifts, and then you have the leaders, and then you have the whole congregation. It's a point that Ed Clowney makes in his book on the church where he says that what the special officers, the pastors, elders, deacons, do specially, the whole congregation does generally. So it's not so much a difference in the sorts of things you do as much as the context of the leaders leading and the whole congregation doing the same things with them. And so, If prophecy refers to what the ordained leaders do in preaching the word of the Lord, teaching and exhorting are how every Christian is involved in speaking God's word. Paul will use that language in Colossians 3, where he talks about how we are to exhort one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, and he's talking about our daily life, not the worship service. In the same way, if ministry is what the ordained leaders do in the work of the ministry, then contributing, leading, doing acts of mercy are how every Christian is involved in the mission of the church. And it's worth noting that Paul gives priority to the word, which is not surprising, because he just said back in chapter 10, how are they to hear without someone preaching? Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of Christ. So the ministry of the word has central importance, But teaching is never the end. Teaching is always the means to an end. The end, the goal of teaching is, as Paul said at the beginning of Romans, to bring about the obedience of faith among all nations so that those who hear will believe in the name of Jesus and then live lives that are obedient to that faith, offering themselves as living sacrifices. And this is why for Paul, word and deed always go together. Prophecy is paired with ministry. Teaching and exhortation is paired with contributing, leading, works of mercy. So this is why it's important to say missionaries and pastors are not more essential to the body than people who have ordinary jobs. That would be like saying the mouth is more essential than the salivary glands. If you've ever had a completely dry mouth, You will know it is impossible to talk when you don't have any saliva in your mouth. If the body is not functioning properly, then the mouth is not going to function properly. So Paul says that the one who contributes should do so in generosity, rejoicing that he's part of this body that is bringing the gospel of Christ to the nations. Likewise, the one who leads, who literally stands in front, should do so with zeal, with eagerness. And the one who does acts of mercy is encouraged to do so with cheerfulness, because showing mercy is costly, showing mercy is hard. But we are called to be cheerful. You may have heard that the term God loves a cheerful giver is the word hilarious, hilarious, from which we get hilarious. God loves the hilarious giver. You may have heard that one. God loves the hilarious mercy giver. The cheerful task of showing mercy to those in need. So as we approach the Christmas holidays, and it's a good time to be thinking, are we being conformed to the consumer's quest for stuff? or are we being transformed by the renewal of our minds so that we present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy sacrifices, sacrifices that are well-pleasing to God because we are offering ourselves to him? Lord, have mercy on us and help us because we are weak and we need your grace and we pray that by your grace you would Help us to show forth our love for you and our love for one another in our gratitude for all that you have done in your beloved son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.