06-05-11 The Body Battle

ROM 12:1 I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

ROM 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

These are the words Paul uses

to open the 4^th and final section

of his letter to the Romans.

It is a section designed to be supremely practical in nature,

a section in which Paul takes the principles he has given us

in the first 11 chapters

and shows us how those principles

will play out in our daily lives

if we have understood them correctly.

But it is far more than just that.

It is Paul’s presentation

of 6 essential principles

that govern life within the family of God.

This is Paul’s manual for the local church.

No matter what culture we may live in,

no matter what type of church government may be in operation,

no matter how large

or how small the group may be,

if these principles are understood

and are being applied within the group,

there will be life,

and power,

and health.

And if these principles are not being applied,

no matter how big the building,

or how large the budget,

or how many may be on staff,

or how full the place is on Sunday mornings,

it is nothing more than man-made religion

being cranked out under the banner of Jesus Christ.

Back in my college days,

way back in the 60's,

the Christian world in the United States

went through a tremendous amount of upheaval.

The youth culture looked at most of the established religious institutions

and found them completely out of touch with what was happening around them,

and incapable of offering real answers

to many of the very real questions facing our nation.

And during that time

as churches scrambled to try to reconnect

with the needs of the society around them,

I can remember a tremendous amount of talk

about the need to become “a true New Testament Church”.

None of us had any clear idea what that meant,

but whenever some authoritative voice declared that this group,

or that group

was “a true New Testament Church”,

we would all go trotting over to see what it looked like.

At the time

I can remember thinking

that becoming a “New Testament Church”

must have something to do with the governmental structure of the thing.

Instead of the monthly business meeting that I was accustomed to

in which the will of God

and the mind of the Holy Spirit

were determined on the basis of a 51% majority,

I figured a true New Testament Church

must have Elders that really functioned as Elders,

and deacons like those in the book of Acts,

and maybe even a prophet here and there

and an apostle or two.

What I did not understand then,

and would not come to understand for a number of years,

is that it was not the structure,

the form that separated the early Christians

from those of us who have followed after them.

It was just two things -

the way they related to their Lord,

and the way they related to one another.

It never has been about our finding the “right” structure,

it’s been about us finding the right relationship with our Lord,

and with our fellow Christians.

And, as we move into Paul’s six principles

for life within the Body of Christ

we are going to discover that all six of these principles

can effectively and powerfully be applied

within virtually any church form or structure in existence.

None of them need board approval

or a solid majority vote on the part of the congregation

in order for us to apply them daily

in our personal walk with the King.

Once again we have been deceived.

We live in a religious world

that has convinced us what we need for our spiritual success is the perfect church,

the church that can meet all our needs,

and supply us with everything necessary for our life,

and growth,

and spiritual vitality.

But what we really need

is not the right church,

but rather the right relationship

with our God

and with one another

within whatever church structure we happen to be.

The principles Paul gives us

in this last section of his letter to the Roman Christians

are given to equip us with the knowledge we need

to make that a daily reality in our lives.

OK, just another few words of background

for those of you who may be new to this study -

Paul wrote the book of Romans

in order to provide his readers

with the answers to 4 crucial questions about Christianity.

1. Why was Christ needed (1:18-3:20).

2. What is a Christian? (3:21-8:39)

3. What happens with the Nation of Israel in the light of God’s creation of the Church? (chapters 9-11)

4. What are the key principles governing life within the family of God? (chapters 12-16)

And with that as a foundation to help get us into it,

let’s plunge into that first principle.

We’ll call this first principle “Understanding the battle we fight”,

and Paul lays out for us

the nature of that battle in 12:1

and the strategy for victory in 12:2.

And here is where it all starts:

ROM 12:1 I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

Those words were written by Paul

3/4 of the way through this letter.

They are words deeply rooted

in several crucial passages

that appeared earlier in this letter,

and if we were to attempt to rip 12:1

out of the context of what has come before

we would, at the same time,

forever destroy the power

and the tremendous significance

of what Paul gives us in these first two verses of chapter 12.

If it is ripped out of context

what we end up with

is little more than a call

to try to flesh out the Christian life

with some kind of all-consuming strength of will and determination.

If we pull it out of context,

when Paul calls us to offer our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice,

it sounds as if he is using the word “bodies”

as a term to describe “our total selves”.

It sounds like the closing cry

of some well meaning

by severely misguided teen evangelist

who ends his rally

with a call for his listeners to “lay it all on the alter...

Give God your time!

Give God your money!

Give God your dating life!

Give God your future!

Give God your sexuality!

Lay it all on the alter for Him

and never pick it up again!

I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”

It sounds great,

and if it worked,

if that approach could take us from where we are

to where we need to be,

I’d be the first in line to give the cry.

But the truth is,

rather than leading us into true life and maturity in the Spirit,

it leads us into a futile, frantic attempt

to crank out the life of God

through the power of the flesh.

Do you want to see this approach and its end results

in the life of Peter?

Jesus ended His last meal with His disciples

by telling them that He was going to be struck down

and all of them would desert Him.

Peter responded to that statement with these words:

MAT 26:33 But Peter answered and said to Him, "Even though all may fall away because of You, I will never fall away!"

Now, doesn’t it seem

like Jesus would have responded to that bold affirmation from Peter

by saying something like, “Well done, Peter! Give it your best shot.

I’m proud of you for your vow of commitment and determination!”

Do you know what He actually said?

MAT 26:34 Jesus said to him, "Truly I say to you that this very night, before a cock crows, you shall deny Me three times."

Now, Peter came right back at Him and declared, “Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You...”,

but why didn’t Jesus affirm Peter in his bold pledge of faithfulness?

Because He knew it was a pledge

rooted in his emotions,

based upon his flesh abilities to pull it off.

And as such it was utterly worthless.

JOH 6:63 "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing...”

And less than eight hours later

when a bystander accused Peter

of being one of Jesus’ disciples

we hear Peter curse and swear

and proclaim to the world,

not just once, but 3 times,

“I do not know the Man!!”

When Paul says,

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

he is not attempting to drum up

some well-intended flesh-based commitment to give God our all.

He is giving us a clear,

precise explanation

of where the resistance to the life of Christ within us will come from

and how we can go about overcoming that resistance.

And it is crucial for us to notice

both what Paul says here,

and what He does NOT say.

He does not call us to “present our lives” to Christ.

He does not call us to “give our hearts” to Christ.

He does not urge us to “give ourselves” to Christ.

He calls us to “present our bodies”

as a living and holy sacrifice.

And here,

just as in Romans 7

when he talked about the war that is raging in the “members of my body”,

he is talking about our literal,

physical,

flesh and blood bodies.

Now, those of you who have been around here for a while

know where we’re going with this thing,

but there is simply no other way

for us to correctly understand Paul’s words to us in Romans 12:1

except in this context.

If you are not familiar with what’s going on here

I’ll take just a few minutes to get you up to speed,

but I would also strongly encourage you

to read the chapter entitled, “Evil Within” in The Grace Exchange

if you can still find a copy somewhere.

Paul presents this concept

in Romans 7:14-25,

with the two key verses being 7:22-23:

ROM 7:22 For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man,

ROM 7:23 but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.

And the quickest way for me to do this

is to use those funny little drawings

that show up whenever we get near this concept.

But first let me remind us

of the foundation upon which Paul places this truth.

In the chapters preceding these verses in Romans 7

Paul told us about all of the things

that have already changed in the life of the Christian.

He told us about the change that has already taken place within the Christian at the spirit level,

how our spirits have been recreated in righteousness.

In simple terms,

Jesus Christ places a new heart within us,

a heart that loves Him

and loves righteousness.

He told us about how we now have absolute and eternal peace with God.

He told us about how we have now died to the law,

died to a relationship with God that rests upon our performance,

and we have been joined to Christ Himself,

with our spirits now living in a constant love union with the Spirit of Christ.

He told us about how we have now been freed from sin,

both from its penalty and from its power over us.

All of these changes have been presented to us

not as things that should take place in our lives,

but rather as things that have already been accomplished by God in and for us.

And then,

against that backdrop,

Paul brings up the question,

“If all of this truly has changed in our lives,

then why do we still battle sin in our lives?”

If we really are new creations in Christ,

with recreated hearts

that love God

and long to follow Him,

then why do we still have

such tremendous pulls toward evil

raging within us at times.

I have a good Christian friend

who, more than a decade ago, said to me,

“Well, Larry, if I make it through today

I will have made it 13 years without a drink.”

He made it through that day,

and every day since then,

and he has every evidence of a strong,

secure foundation in his walk with the King,

but his statement will stay with me for the rest of my life.

It is filled with so much truth.

After 13 years

the pull toward the bottle is still there,

and it still has the power to destroy his life.

And practical righteousness living

is always just one day,

one step,

one choice at a time.

But if it’s true that,

2CO 5:17 ...if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come...,

then how can those evil impulses

continue to exist within the child of God?

Paul says

it is because of our physical bodies.

And this is the way it works:

When we come into this world

we are each given a house in which to live.

That house is our physical body.

It is a remarkable creation,

with which our spirits and unique personalities

can communicate with this physical world.

Each body is equipped with the most amazing on-board computer

in the form of our physical brain.

It learns and records not just information,

but an endless stream of emotional responses

and reasoning processes

at a truly remarkable rate.

But even though it learns quickly,

it does not unlearn well at all.

Though there have always been and continue to be

many things about my Windows PC system

that frustrate me and confuse me,

there is one feature I like very much about it.

It’s the “uninstall” command in the control panel.

When I put some program onto my PC

and then decide I no longer want it,

all I have to do is to hit the “uninstall” command

and it goes through the dozens of files that contain bits and pieces of that program

and it automatically removes them all.

Our physical bodies

have no “uninstall” command.

Once we have recorded something within our minds and emotions,

it’s there until we die.

But a physical body is not the only thing

we bring with us into this world.

We also bring a heart in rebellion against God,

a spirit control center

that is determined not to submit to God at any cost.

It is that spirit

that gives the total leadership

for programing the entire basic operating system that is built into our physical bodies.

As a result

we all have bodies that are trained

to reason,

and feel,

and respond as if God cannot be trusted,

or doesn’t care,

or isn’t there.

Then those of us who respond

to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives come to Christ

and in that process

God creates a new heart within us.

It is a heart

that loves God,

and eagerly responds to His leadership.

But this new heart

does not get a brand new body to train.

Instead,

it must take up residence in the same old body

that has already been totally trained

to think,

feel,

respond,

and remember as if God was the enemy.

And this is exactly the situation

that Paul is describing

when He says:

ROM 7:22 For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man,

ROM 7:23 but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.

And this is also why

when Paul begins his principles for life within the family of God

the very first thing he does

is to remind us of the first

and the greatest calling we face here on this earth:

ROM 12:1 I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

Everything else he has to say to us

depends upon the degree to which

we co-operate with our Lord

in bringing our physical bodies

under the leadership of our new spirits.

This isn’t where Paul stops.

He then goes on to talk with us

about the way in which we go about doing that.

But we’ll have to save that for our next lesson.

Before I quit, though,

I want to add just one more comment

to something I said earlier.

I talked about the well-meaning

but misguided evangelist

who pumps up his eager listeners

to “lay it all on the alter for Christ”.

Some of you may have been a little offended by what I said.

But let me offer one further word of qualification to that whole thing,

and then explain what I see as the tragic missing ingredient

in that type of an approach.

First the qualification...

I do know

with absolute certainty

that God is seeking to move every one of us

to the point where we will make a choice

to place our lives

and our futures into His hands.

Real life begins

with submission to the God who created us.

But the problem I have

with the “all on the alter” approach

is that it can so easily set our young (and old) converts up

for a tremendous sense of failure

if they do not also understand this whole thing about the body.

It is an absolute certainty

that, no matter how fervently,

how sincerely,

how intensely we fling chunks of our lives onto the alter,

a short while after we have done our flinging

we will discover within our physical bodies

the same bents toward evil

that we wrestled with in the past

surging once again into our lives.

And unless we understand why that happens,

and how God views it,

and how He wants us to approach it,

it can shatter a young Christian life

in a helpless sense of failure and shame.