"Discerning the Will of God"

PRAY

As a pastor I am often questioned about matters of faith.  That’s an important part of my job and I take it seriously.  One of the questions I am frequently asked is “How do I find (or how do I know) God’s will for my life?”  Particularly when we are faced with an important decision, when we are trying to discern the best course of action, when we think about making a change, we are apt to ask ourselves and maybe even the people close to us: “How do I know if this is God’s will for me?”

One of the best answers to that question is found in the first two verses of the twelfth chapter of Romans.  We’ve been taking a serious look at the book of Romans this summer.  In the opening chapters Paul methodically set forth his theological position.  He thoughtfully and systematically presented the basic tenets of the Christian faith.  Chapters 1 through 11 deal with the purposes of God made manifest through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  In the first two-thirds of this book Paul offered a careful review of salvation history – the record of what God had done, is doing, and will continue to do to redeem humankind from the deadly consequences of sin.

Beginning with chapter 12 Paul turns to the practical.  Now that we know what God has done in and through Jesus Christ, what are we to do?  How are we to respond to God’s gracious offer of salvation?  That’s Paul’s theme for the last third of the book.  In Romans 12: 1 and 2, Paul gives us a clear and concise description of the believer’s response to God’s grace in the gospel of Jesus Christ.  In a sense these two verses offer a summary of what is to follow.  These two verses are among the best-known passages in the Bible.  Please turn with me to Romans, chapter 12, and follow along as I read verses one and two.

(Read Romans 12: 1-2)

Paul begins this portion of his letter with a heart-felt request.  “I appeal to you therefore by the mercies of God.”  I like the way the NIV translates this portion.  “I urge you, in view of God’s mercy.”  In essence Paul is saying: “Think about everything God has done for you!  Don’t you owe God a response?  Sure, you do!  Now let me tell you what your response should be.”

You need to present your bodies to God as a living sacrifice.  First we need to present our bodies.  This would have been a revolutionary concept in the first century Roman world.  Greek philosophers had long held that what really mattered to God was the spirit.  In their minds there was a dichotomy between the spiritual world and the material world.  According to their line of thinking and their teaching, the view held by most well-educated people, the spirit was intrinsically good while the body and everything material was intrinsically bad.  The body was nothing more than the corrupt earthly home of the spirit.  Christians believe that our bodies are not corrupt.  Our bodies are a gift from God.  Everything about us – our bodies, our minds, and our souls are a gift from God.  In 1 Corinthians 6:19 Paul reminds us that our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit.  By using the term bodies, Paul is saying that our response to God’s love and grace is to present every part of our being to God – our body, our mind, and our soul.

How are we to present our bodies to God?  As a living sacrifice.  This is a perplexing phrase.  It seems like an oxymoron: living sacrifice.  In Paul’s day and for thousands of years before Paul, people associated sacrifice with worship.  The killing and offering of animals (and sometimes humans) to appease the gods was the focal point of worship.  Paul’s original readers understood quite well the meaning of sacrifice.  They knew it was very easy to go through the motions of religion, offering sacrifices at the prescribed times, with little or no regard for ones attitude or sincerity.  For centuries Jewish and pagan authors had warned about the danger of false worship – offering sacrifices without contrition and without pure intentions.  The psalmist wrote: “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (51:17).  As God’s representative before the people the prophet Hosea wrote: “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings” (6:6). 

In saying “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God,” Paul is suggesting that authentic worship only comes when we give ourselves to God completely – heart, mind, body, and soul.  And this is not something that is limited by time and place.  True worship is the offering to God of our body and everything we do with it every single day, everywhere we go.  The spiritual worship that Paul is talking about has to do with the way we live, not what we do on Sunday morning in church.  All of our life is to be a continuous worship of the God who created and redeemed us.

And how are we to accomplish this?  How are we to present our bodies to God as a living sacrifice?  Paul says we do this by changing the way we think.  “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.”  When we change the way we think, we change the way we live.  However, changing the way we think is a life-long process. 

The fact that Paul calls on believers to engage in this renewing of the mind shows that it does not happen automatically when we believe.  God wants to reprogram my thinking, but I must participate with God in that process.  I must respond to the Spirit’s work in my life and actively engage in the process if it is to happen.  Old habits are hard to break.  Old ways of thinking and acting don’t give up without a fight.  The lure of the world is strong and I am often tempted to go it alone without the help of the Holy Spirit.

So, if I am to be transformed rather than conformed, I need to think about the things that I do that are in conformity with the ways of the world and out of harmony with the way of Christ.  Then I need to do something about that.  And if I am to be transformed by the renewing of my mind, I must think about what I am putting into my mind.  If I don’t spend time feeding my mind on the word of God, if I don’t spend time exchanging ideas with other Christians, if I don’t seriously focus on my relationship with God, how can I be transformed?  Or to look at it from the flip side, if I spend my spare time watching network television, reading secular publications, and listening to non-Christian music, how can I expect to be transformed into the image of Christ?

Our response to God is to offer ourselves to God and allow God, through the Holy Spirit to transform us into the likeness of Christ.  And that brings me back to the question I posed at the beginning of this sermon.  What does all this have to do with knowing God’s will for my life?

Paul said, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

According to Paul, we discern the will of God after we have presented ourselves to God and allowed God to transform us by the renewing of our minds.  As we seek to love God and offer ourselves willingly to God, as we allow God to have his way in our lives, God’s will for us will become apparent.  I believe God wants us to know his will for our lives.  That means that when we are faithful, we don’t find God’s will, God’s will finds us.  As we strive to be faithful, God will reveal his will to us more and more.  Before we can know the will of God, we must be willing to submit to God.  And, before we can discover the will of God that we don’t know, we need to do the will of God that we do know, and let God take care of the rest.

The problem for many of us is we want to know what God’s will is for us so we can decide whether or not we want to do it.  That’s not the way it works.  God is God and we are not!  If we want to know God’s will for our lives, we must present our bodies – our entire selves, our whole being, hearts, minds, and souls – to God as a living sacrifice.  And then we must allow God to transform us by the renewing of our minds.  That is the essence of the Christian journey – the journey toward conformity, not with the world, but with God.  When we undertake the journey, God will do amazing things for us.  God has unbelievable blessings in store for us.  For God’s will for you and God’s will for me is far better than anything you or I have ever dreamed about or hoped for.

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, 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 renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

AMEN!