A Living Sacrifice

Romans xii. 1

I tiiiieh JOB, therefore, brethren, by the meroie« of God, that j* prtMat you

bodlea liring sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto Qod, which la yoar reaaonaUa mitIm.” Romaaa zil. 1.

This verse makes a transition from the first to the second half of this letter. All before it is what we call doctrinal, the most of what comes after it is practical. And the “therefore” of my text carries us back, not merely to the words immediately preceding, but to the whole presentation of the Christian scheme of salvation from the beginning of the Epistle up to the present point. That is to say, in PauFs notion, all the practical is to be built upon all the doctrinal. There are many men that say: “Give us the morality of the New Testament; never mind about the theology.” But you cannot get the morality without the theology, unless you like to have rootless flowers and lamps without oil. If you want men to live as Paul enjoins, you will have to get them to yield to the mercies of God, which Paul pleads as the motive for all holy life.

And, on the other hand, a great many good people, and

some professed theologians and Christian ministers forget that the end of doctrine is life, and that the meaning of all that we are taught about God is conduct and character, and that therefore the most orthodox orthodoxy, divorced from practice, is like the dried flowers which botanists put between sheets of blotting-paper, with no perfume nor colour, nor growth nor life in them — the skeletons of dead beauty.

Let ns, then, always remember this little word “therefore” that binds together indissolubly the two halves of Christian teaching — the setting forth of Christian truth, and the earnest exhortation — built upon that truth — to all manner of Christian duty.

These words of my text are not only the flower and the outcome of all that has gone before, but they are likewise the basis of all that follows. The whole of the detailed exhortations which fill up the rest of the Epistle lie, as the folded leaves in the spring time in the sheath-like bud, here in this exhortation. The two precepts of this verse, and of the one that follows it, give us, in the most general terms, the highest notion of Christian morality and duty. Sacrifice and transformation, these two, if yon will analyse and expand them, you will find to lead up to all manner of nobilities and heroisms and holinesses, of life and conduct.

I. — So then, we have here, I think, in our text a very remarkable way of putting what I may call the sum of Christian service.

“I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies” — “present,” of course, being the sacrificial word for bringing the ofi’ering — “a living sacrifice “; not dragged dead to the altar, but living when brought there; and living because brought there;” holy ‘* with a true consecration because it is a sacrifice, and, wonderful to think, “acceptable unto €k)d, which ii our reasonable service.” Now the main leading idea there is, as I said, the gathering together of all Christian duty into the one mighty word “sacrifice.” And what does that mean? It means, no mere fine metaphor, but a thought that has a very wide sweep, and a very tight application to our daily lives.

Sacrifice, to begin with, means giving up everything to God. And how do I give up to God? When in heart and will, and thought, I am conscious of His presence, and do all the actions of the inner man in depeudeiice on and in obedience to Him. That is the true sacrifice, when I think as in His sight, and will, and love, and act as in obedience to Him.

And this sacrifice, which consists in the reference of the whole of my being and actions to God, will, as it were, becoming visible in the sacrifice of the body which is the manifestation of the inner man. That word is not to be passed over as if it were only a synonym for “yourselves.” My text speaks about what is to be done with the body; the next verse speaks about what is to be done with the mind.

“Present your bodies living sacrifices.” We are to look upon our corporeal frame with reverence as the gift of God. We are to look upon it and to use it as a wonderful instrument, and to keep it well in hand as a possible enemy and antagonist. The body is the organ of all our activity, that by which we come into communication with the outer world; and we render it up as a living sacrifice to God when in all common actions we have a supreme and distinct reference to His will, and do, or refuse to do, because of the fear and for the sake of the Lord. As one of the Greek commentators has it upon this verse: —” Let the eye look upon nothing evil, and it becomes a sacrifice; let the tongue say nothing foul, and it becomes an oflering; let the hand do nothing unlawful, and it becomes a holo-

81S A LIVmO SAORIFIOB.

canst.** The body has wants and appetites — food, drink, clothing, shelter, rest, recreation; you have to see to it that these are supplied with a distinct reference to, and remembrance of, Him, the Creator and Saviour of the body, and so made acts of religious worship.

The excess which dulls the spirit and makes it all unapt to serve Him, and to walk in the lofty regions of truth, and to cultivate the habit of meditation; the absorbing care about outward things which checks all the nobility of a man’s life; the mere selfish indulgence and enjoyment in them which brings men below the level of the beasts that perish, these are the grosser forms in which the body comes in the way of the soul, and the regulation and suppression of these are the elementary and simplest parts of the offering of our bodies as living sacrifices. We should neither care so much as some of you men do for what you eat and drink, nor so much as some of you women do for the wherewithal you shall be clothed; but consult for these needs and satisfy them as in the sight of God, and so realise that high and difficult attainment of Christian godliness, to “eat our meat with thankfulness and with singleness of heart, praising God.”

It is not fitting in this place (though I would fain do it for some reasons), to dwell on some of the grosser forma in which this great exhortation is neglected, especially by some of you younger men. Let me but hint at what I cannot do more than hint here. Remember, my young brother, “He that soweth to the flesh shall” — as sure as one and one make two: he shall — “of the flesh reap corruption.” Remember your body is the temple of a spirit which may be the temple of a living God, and “live soberly” in this present world of evil.

There is no need in this generation to preach against asceticism. We are too good Protestants, that is to say, many of lui are too fond of our own self-indulgence to fall

Into any danger of fasting and hair-shirts. All that kind of life was an extreme, unquestionably; and the kind of life that a great many of you professing Christians live is an extreme the other way, just as unquestionably. And looking at the two, the man that mortified his body in the monk’s cell, and the “liberal-minded” professing Christian that never thinks of curbing his animal gratifications, or of eating and drinking as in the fear of God, I for my part would rather, of the two, be the monk. I am quite sure that there never was a generation that wanted this exhortation more than this generation does, when all round about us we see senseless luxury, the making provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof in all classes of life, when “plain and high thinking” are no more; when you cannot look at the hoardings on the walls without having jour eyes offended and your decency insulted; when poetry, painting and sculyture, and the stage, and the newspapers, seem all to vie one with another to feed the flesh, and to proclaim a crnsade against the subjugation of the body for the sake of the spirit; and when young men and old men, young women and old women, professing Christians and non-Christians, are alike in danger of being tainted by the leprosy. My brother, I bring you the old message. Better John the Baptist’s garment of camel’s hair and his meat — locusts and wild honey, if, like John the Baptist, I shall see the heavens opened, and the Spirit of God descending on the Son of Man, than this full-fed sensualism which is the curse and the crime of this generation. “I beseech you, brethren, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice.”

Now a word or two about other matters connected with this first thought as to the sum of Christian service. Here we get this truth that such offering makes a man live more nobly and more truly than anything else.

“A living sacrifice.” Of course that refers to the contrast between the death of the sacrifice, in Jndaism and Heathenism, and the life of the man in the Christian sacrifice. But it carries with it this lesson, too, that, not mutilation but consecration is the true sacrifice; that we are not calkJ upon to crush our desires, tastes, appetites, or to refrain from actions, but that they are to be controlled and done in obedience to God.

Now and then it may be necessary, it very often is necessary, that a man should offer his body a living sacrifice in the sense of giving up, and altogether crucifying and contradicting some natural taste and desire. As Christ tells us, circumstances may come in which it is the plain dictate of Christian duty to put your hand down there on the block and take an axe in the other and chop it off. It is the best thing you can do; better for you to go maimed into life than with all your limbs into hell. But that is second-best; and if the man had always consecrated his faculty to God, he would never have had need to cut it off. To harness and tame it, to yoke it to the cart, and make it work, not to shoot the wild beast, is the right thing to do.

Thus to consecrate oneself is the way to secure a higher and a nobler life than ever before. Just as when you take a flower out of the woods and put it into a greenhouse, and cultivate, and keep it back, and nip off some of its flower buds, and guide its growth, you will get a broader leaf and a finer flower than when it was wild, so the disciplined, restrained, consecrated man is the man whose life is the richest, fullest, largest, the gladsomest, the noblest in every way. If yon want to go all to rack and ruin live according to your own fancy and taste. If you want to be strong and grow stronger and more and more blessed, put the brake on and keep a tight hand upon yourself, and offer, your whole being upon His altar.

Then, again, this sacrifice is “your reasonable service.”

A LIVING SAORIFIGB. 32]

Apparently “reasonable “here is not opposed to” unreasonable ‘*; Paul would not have called the Jewish sacrifices unreasonable, nor did it lie in his way here to assert that the Christian sacrifice was in accordance with reason — however true that may be. But the antithesis is with the material sacrifices consisting of the “flesh of bulls” and “blood of goats,” and the Revised Version gives the true meaning in its marginal rendering “spiritual.” It is a service or worship rendered by the inner man, transacted by the mind or reason, and thus, as indicating the part of our nature which performs it, is reasonable. For though the body be the sacrifice, presenting the body as sacrifice is the work of the mind and will, and while the offering is a corporeal, bringing the offering is a spiritual service.

Now there is no need to exaggerate in depreciation of outward forms of oral worship. But still we have all need to be reminded that devout daily living is true worship. All Christians are priests, and all their lives should be worship. Where the common food is eaten with thankfulness and in the consciousness of His presence, it is holy as the Lord’s Supper. The same authority that said of the one “This do in remembrance of Me,” said by His Apostle of the other “Whether ye eat or drink, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Lahorare est orare — to work is to pray, if the work be done from a right motive. The bells that jingle on the horses in the waggoner’s team may bear the same inscription as blazed on the High Priest’s mitre, “Holiness to the Lord,” and the shop-girl behind the counter may be as truly offering sacrifice to God as the priest by the altar. The mere formal worship is abomination without this. “When ye make many prayers, I will not hear you; your hands are full of blood.” “Do you think that you are going to lift them to My Throne with acceptance?” Is there not every bit as much

T enperstitioTis dependence on forms and places of external worship amongst us nineteenth-century Nonconformists as ever there was at any time in the world’s history? There are people in this chapel this morning that think they have done a meritorious thing in coming here to thif service, and whose only notion of worship is a wear sitting in this place for an hour and a half. Do you think that is of any use? Your prayers will never go above that roof, and no blessings will ever come down through it to you, unless the worship of the Word be purified and proved by the worship of the Life. The sacrifice of praise is right, “but to do good and to communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.”

II. — We have not only the sum of Christian service, but we have likewise the great motive of Christian service. “I beseech you, therefore, by the mercies of God.” In the Apostle’s mind this is no vague expression for the whole of the diffused blessings with which God floods the world, but he means thereby the definite specific thing, the great scheme of mercy set forth in the previous chapters; that is to say, His great work of saving the world through Jesus Christ. That is, “the mercies” to which he makes his appeal. The diffused and wide-shining mercies, which stream from the Father’s heart, are all, as it were, focussed as through a burning-glass into one strong beam, which can kindle the greenest wood and melt the thick-ribbed ice.

Only on the footing of that sacrifice can we offer ours. He has offered the one sacrifice, of which His death is the essential part, in order that we may offer the sacrifice of which our life is the essential part. He has offered the dying sacrifice which is propitiation, in order that, on the footing of that, we may offer the sacrifice of thankful consecration, the Eucharistic sacrifice of grateful surrender of ouPMlves to Him.

The mercies of God, in Jesns Christ, are not only the ground upon which we can ofler our sacrifice, but they are the only motive power that will be strong enouirh to lead to this consecration of ourselves to Him. The fierce wants of the bodily life, the passions, and appetites and lusts that rage and rule in men will be subdued by nothing short of the mighty motive drawn from the great love of God revealed in the dying love of Jesus. There is one magnet strong enough to draw reluctant hearts and reluctant limbs, and that is Jesus lifted up on the Cross. There is one fire powerful enough to bum the bonds of flesh and sense which hold men, and that is the fire which Jesus longed to kindle on earth. Other restraints from propriety, prudence, or even principle will reach their breaking point at a much lower strain than the silken bonds in which Christ’s love leads the lion and the bear of our passions and appetites. They are useful and helpful in their places — but ‘* Gospel temperance,” a self-control based on Christian motives, is the really reliable breakwater against storms and passion and self-indulgence. You may try to coerce the corporeal nature by other bonds, they will be like the fetters upon the madman in the tombs. When the paroxysms come he will rend them asunder as Samson did the withes. Oh, if you want to tame the animal that is in you, and lead it in gentle following and docile obedience, here is the one motive that will do it — the mercy of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. That is one great and blessed peculiarity of Christian morals, that Christ is at once our pattern and our power to copy, and our motive. He is, to those who love Him, both example and stimulus. Let us then seek for power to yield ourselves body and spirit to God, in the habitual contemplation of that great gift which alone will conquei- seJf, and make all surrender and all self -crucifixion blessed and delightsome.

TS

III. — One other thing here I must just touch for a moment, that is the gentle enforcement of this great motive for Christian service, “I beseech you!” Law commands, the Gosi)el entreats! Paul’s beseeching is only a less tender echo of the Master’s entreaty. His word to His servants is never “Go,” but it is either “Come,” or “Who will go?’* Thus the harsh imperative of law is softened down by His lips. Instead of ‘* Thou shalt,” His most stringent word is J “If ye love Me, keep My commandments.” Instead of a harsh injunction, duty becomes the wish of a Friend, which wish is a delight to do. “His yoke is easy,” not because His precepts let dowm the ideal of morality, but because the motive is love, and the manner of command gentle and beseeching. Hence its power; for hearts, like flowers, which could not be burst open by the crowbar of law, may be wooed open by the sunshine of love.

It is a solemn task laid upon us preachers to try to soften our voices that they may not all unworthily represent the gentleness of Christ, and as God’s ambassadors, beseech men to be reconciled to God. Through even our lips, dear friends. He “prays you with much entreaty to receive the gift” of Himself, and to render back that gift which it will gladden you to give, and — wonderful condescension — will delight Him to receive — the gift of yourselves. Oh, let that pitying, patient gentle love of the Saviour draw you to Him in contrite faith, and love, and service. He invites. He prays you to let II is gracious power enter your heart. From His Cross He called to you and to all the world, “Come unto Me and I will give you rest.” Now He si)eaks from Heaven. “Behold I stand at the door and knock” Surely lhe.-e beseeching tones should touch your heart more than all thunders of command.

Surely as the morning sunrise drew a note from the Btony lips of the statue, which storm and thunder could not awaken, His pleading voice will bring an answer that could not have been won by any commandments, however rigid, or by any threatenings, however severe. “We beseech yon that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.’* “Yield yourselves to God as those that are alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God,” being moved thereto by the mercy of the Cross, and won thereto by the gentle voice of the Saviour of your sooli.