Living Sacrifices

[dave c]

HEALING SHELTER MINISTRIES #131ao Re-Written 08APR09

Save Me Today—Part Forty One: Living Sacrifices

by rev dave c

As you come to him [Jesus], the living Stone--rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him--you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1Pe 2:4&5; NIV).

There is so much to be prayerfully considered as we read the above verses from First Peter. What is immediately significant for all those who have confessed their sins to Christ and asked Him to become the Lord of their lives, is the knowledge that we worship a living God—not an inanimate object, not a ‘force,’ not the memory of some great person, not a religion, not a government, not an organization, and not some lofty philosophical ideal. Jesus is alive. He is the Son of God, “the living Stone”. Easter is a commemoration of The Crucifixion and a celebration of The Resurrection. To be a Christian is to be brought into eternal life in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. Like Lazarus, we have been called from the grave in order to proclaim the glory of the Father to all the world as we walk out our remaining years in this life with the full assurance of resurrection into the next. We have been reborn as new creations. We are alive—really alive—and we are living stones, living witnesses (interestingly, the Greek word for martyr means “witness”), and we are called to be living sacrifices.

With Jesus as the chief cornerstone, Peter tells us that we are being built into a spiritual house. The word translated “house,” oikos (#3624), can also be translated as “family.” First Peter 2:5 tells us that all true disciples of Christ are becoming a household, or a family, of holy priests who are themselves the temple of the living God. When the angel Gabriel tells Mary in Luke 1:28, You are highly favored, the phrase is from the Greek word charitoo (#5487), meaning “endue with special honor”, that is, “invest with a particular blessing”. She was to be honored with the presence of the baby Jesus biologically within her womb. This Greek word is only otherwise used in the New Testament at Ephesians 1:6 where Paul tells us that all Christians are highly favored with the very presence of Jesus Christ spiritually within our persons.

According to First Peter 2:4&5 we are priests and we are to be offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Here the word offering can mean, “take up.” In a very real sense we are to be “taking up spiritual sacrifices” in the same way that Christ commands us to “take up our cross and follow Him.” The obvious question then becomes, how do we know what sacrifices are spiritual and acceptable, or pleasing, to God? The New Testament describes three primary areas of sacrifice that are grounded in the Believer’s obedient love for God and for humanity.

1) Righteous Living. First of all, Paul tells us in Romans 12:1&2, Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your [reasonable] act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will (NIV) [the word that the NIV & NAS unfortunately translate as “spiritual” in Romans 12:2 is logikos/reasonable, not pneumatikos/spiritual]. Paul makes it clear that we are to decide and commit to the giving up of our fleshly evil desires and habits. Acts of obedience to the call for righteous living is the ‘taking up’ of our reasonable act of worship.

2) Thankful Praise. The Writer of Hebrews exhorts us in 13:15, Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise--the fruit of lips that confess his name (NIV). For Christians, praise is basically thanking God for what He has done, and will do, in our lives. First Peter 2 states in verse 9, But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light (NIV). A continuous attitude of prayerful, and thankful praise is a sacrifice that pleases God.

3) Good Deeds. Hebrews 13:16 continues, And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased (NIV). Good deeds, or works, while they are not a part of our gaining salvation, are essential to the working out of our salvation as acceptable sacrifices to the Father. Paul teaches us in Ephesians 2:8-10, For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (NIV).

As we learn to offer up sacrifices of Righteous Living, Thankful Praise, and Good Deeds that are acceptable and pleasing to God, I pray that we take the words of Ephesians 5:1&2 to heart, to head, and to hands: Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God (NIV). Amen.