Having a Servant’s Heart Part II: A Three Step Offering Romans 12:1-8 Castalia Baptist August 26, 2007
There seems to be a growing fascination in dancing recently. Shows are on television today focused on dancing. There is Dancing with the Stars which has captivated many Americans. Now, I don’t know anything about dancing, really. My wife will tell you and my kids will really tell you that I’m no Fred Astaire or Michael Jackson. Basically my dancing moves are Thrillers. I was a little disappointed to hear my family say that Big Bird has better dancing moves than me. But I mean Big Bird can’t do the Jive dance. (Illustrate) Now I know that many people especially some religious homes do not approve of dancing, and I would agree that some of the dance moves that are out there today do not bode well and are not proper forms of dancing.
But this morning I want to share with you that as Christians you and I have been made to dance. Regardless if you have two left feet or have no rhythm we have been called to dance. Now first let me identify what the definition of dance is. Webster’s says that dance is “to perform or participate in a particular series of rhythmic steps and movements, usually to music.”
As Christians we have been called to do the Servant dance to the music of Jesus gracious love for us. Think of your favorite song. Now when that song comes into your head or you hear it on the radio what starts to happen. You start to move your head or your lips, you find yourself humming the song, tapping your finger to it, whistling it and wondering where did this come from and why is it in my head.
Serving for Christ should be one of those things that not just sneaks up on us but sneaks inside of us. That somewhere in our journey of life as develop our relationship with Christ, and as the song captures our heart with its melody and glory we should begin moving towards the song. Our whole life should be one of a servant’s dance where as we listen to the music of Christ in our life and allow His rhythm to awaken us and it’s tempo to move us and to share it with others.
This morning as we continue our series on Having a Servant’s heart, I am going to encourage you to join me in the Servants dance as we respond to the music of God’s love resonating within us. To be honest if we are tuned into God and hear the song he is playing in our lives, it should cause us to dance. And by using these three steps it will help us to get ready for something fresh, something new, and something unexpected. But you have to be willing to do the Three Step Servant’s dance. So today let me encourage you to simply surrender yourself to the song that God is playing in our lives and to simply dance to His music.
Now in order to do the servants dance, we must understand that it will take more than our feet to get the dance right. It requires our entire body. In verses 1-2 Paul says Therefore, I urge you, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices. Now let me just hit on two words real quick in that first verse. First, the word therefore. Now whenever we see the word therefore in the Bible, we must always ask what it’s there for. Well it is there for us to take what we have read or heard before this passage and begin to put it into practice. For the first 11 chapters in Romans, Paul has been talking about theology and doctrine. He has been speaking of God’s mercy and how he loves all people that he sent His son to die on the cross for our sins so that we might live. And now the last five chapters explain the obligation that we have to God because of what he has done. If the early message of the letter is the way we all can come to God through Christ, then the closing part of the letter is the way we all can live for God in Christ. In view of all God has done. So Paul is basically saying based on everything that I’ve Just said, this is what you now need to put into practice.
I can sit in a dance studio and watch and listen to people tell me how to dance but if we don’t practice it’s lifeless. So it is with Christianity. If we just listen and watch people serve and do the will of God but don’t do it our self then its cold and lifeless and without meaning. And since Christ has done all of these things for us, then should we not be willing to offer a dance of service with our bodies.
The second word to focus on is the word URGE. Now remember I said the first 11 chapters speak of all that God did for us. Understanding that we would expect Paul to say Now God demands us to offer our bodies. But it’s not a command rather it is an invitation. And so in this first verse Paul is inviting all who are believers in Christ Jesus to get involved. And we are to do it because of God’s mercy. Because of what God has done for us, then we can’t help but respond to Him by being committed to service for Him. I must admit that there are many times in which I focus on God’s grace and less focus on God’s mercy. But both are vitally important. God’s grace is demonstrated when we get what we don’t deserve, whereas His mercy is what keeps us from getting what we do deserve.
That reminds me of the man who stormed into a photo studio complaining about the quality of his photographs. He smashed his fist on the counter and fumed, “Sir, these pictures do not do my looks justice.” To which the photographer responded, “Sir, with a face like yours, you don’t want justice, you want mercy!” Friend, even if you look good in pictures, be careful about asking for justice, because you might just get it! If I received what I deserved I’d end up in Hell, and so would you. But thanks be to God for His mercy that He shows us. And understanding God’s mercy should compel us to want to dance to the music that he has choreographed for our lives.
So what are the three steps that are required for service? Well as I mentioned earlier in order to learn how to dance you have to be willing to use all parts of our bodies. And the first step is that we are to:
I. Offer Your Body
Notice verse says that we are to offer our BODIES as living sacrifices. Now when we think of offering our bodies as sacrifices what images come to our mind. We think of the O.T. days when people would come to the temple and they would offer up animals to be sacrificed to God. This represented the O.T. people giving of themselves to God through the sacrifice of a dead animal. They would say this animal takes my place as a sacrifice to God. Paul understood that when he used the word sacrifice people would think of giving an animal as an offering to God and so Paul is quick to point out that things have changed. Today Christ is not interested in receiving a dead animal as a sacrifice to Him. Rather he is interested in us offering our bodies as living sacrifices.
When we are called to present our “bodies” to the Lord, we are exhorted to offer our total being to Him, not just bits and pieces. God wants all of us to be in service to him. Not just your feet, not just your hands or mouths, but our entire bodies. God does not just want to be a “part” of our lives; He wants us to be completely committed to Him. As someone has said, the problem with living sacrifices is that they keep crawling off the altar!
God isn’t interested in beasts today; He’s looking for bodies of believers who will be sold out to Him. He wants us to be living sacrifices, not dead offerings. God wants us to give him our best. Our bodies, our lives are to be offered for service to him with the intention of it being holy and pleasing to God. It does not mean just saying well God I can give you an hour on Sunday. No what God is interested in is for us to take our bodies, all the things that we do everyday, in everyplace at every time and be an example and witness for Him.
Our bodies are all we have to offer—we live in our bodies. The body enfolds our emotions, our mind, our thoughts, our desires, and our plans. Thus, the body represents the total person; it is the instrument by which all our service is given to God. In order to live for God, we must give him all that we are, represented by our body. God has so much that he wants to do through us but we must be willing to offer ourselves for His work.
But not only does God encourage us to offer our bodies, but in verse 2, He encourages us to do the second part of the Servant dance and that is by offering
2. Offer Your Mind
You know its one thing to say Yeah I need to offer my body as a living sacrifice to God but it’s another thing to make your body do it. You see even if I want to spend the time learning about how to dance, and even if I want to make my body to move, my mind has to tell my body to move. The brain is the epicenter of the body. It controls the hands and feet and other parts of the body. Paul understood this as well and that is why in verse 2 he continues his teaching of how to do the servants dance by encouraging us to tell our bodies to dance by offering our mind.
Verse 2 says that we are not to be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. What does he mean by this?
Well like we said last week, it’s important to understand our purpose as to why we are serving. Paul says that we are conforming to the world which means that we are focused on our selves and it’s time we change our focus.
Paul was saying that if we are truly committed to living our lives for God then there will be a change in the way we live and the way the world wants us to live. Christians are called to a different way of living than this world wants us to live. Where the world wants us to be selfish, we are to be selfless. Where the world wants us to be filled with greed, Christ demands we be filled with charity. But the problem happens when we are not able to distinguish between Christians and non Christians. There will be pressure to conform, to continue living according to the script written by the world, but believers are forbidden to give in to that pressure.
Rather than conforming to what the world wants us to do, we should be willing to be transformed by the power of God. We must be transformed to service not just by our bodies but by our minds as well. We should have a complete transformation both inside and outside. And the only way that can happen is by allowing the Holy Spirit to teach us how to dance towards his music for our lives. And we will hear that music as we memorize and study God’s word, as we seek to worship him in many different ways, as we commit to prayer and becoming a whole new Christian.
As we do these things our way of thinking will change. Our minds become first informed, and then conformed to the pattern of God, the pattern for which we were originally designed. When believers have had their minds transformed and are becoming more like Christ, they will know what God wants and they will want to do it for it is good, pleasing to God, and perfect for them.
It’s interesting that the word Paul uses for being transformed from the world is where we get the word metamorphosis from. A metamorphosis is not something we can do on our own. If we present ourselves as living sacrifices and reflect upon the mercies of God as evidenced in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit will transform our minds.
There is a story told of a very ugly man with a hideous face. He was good and kind, but people were terrified of him and would not stay in his presence. As you can imagine, he was very lonely. The thing he wanted most was to marry the mayor’s pretty daughter and to be loved by her. So he decided to wear a mask of a handsome face so that he could win her love. He kept this mask on 24/7. Soon he was married to the mayor’s daughter and living the happy life he had always wanted.
After a number of years his wife began to notice that his handsome face was indeed a mask and asked him to show her his true face. And because he loved her, and could not bear to refuse her, he slowly took off the mask, bracing himself for the gasp of horror he knew would soon be coming. But instead of screaming, his wife just smiled. The man ran to a mirror and realized that the years of wearing the disguise had transformed his face into the handsome features of the mask. When we put on Christ and wear his face, we find our lives transformed into his likeness. 2 Corinthians 3:18: “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
It is by the renewing of our minds - trading the old pattern of selfishness for the new pattern of Christ’s kingdom values that we are transformed. The Message translation says “Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”
3) Offer Your Services
The final step in our dance is for us to be willing to offer our services. In verses 3-5 Paul once again invites us to understand that the dance must work together. With the show Dancing with the stars, if the dancers do not work together then they will not be successful. Rather they must have a partner to perform the dance. And so it is with our service. The good news is that you don’t have to serve alone. Rather we are to work together fulfilling the will of God in all things.
Verse 4 reminds us that we have all been given different gifts and roles. And we can’t do it alone. Each person in this body is important. Nobody is a nobody in the Body of Christ. And as a body all of us are needed to serve in their God given capacity. That is why we are asking you to share with us where it is that God is inviting you to join us in this dance of service for him here at CBC this year.
Paul encourages us of our need to offer our services in verses 6-8. He tells us that we all have different gives and we are to be using those gifts. Now these are not the only gifts that God has given us but it shares with us that all are called to serve.
The final point I want to share with you about offering these services to God is that these gifts must be used.
You know I can’t dance to the music of today’s generation, but it does not mean that I can’t dance to the music of God’s direction in my life. It seems that everyone in America likes to ask well what’s in it for me. So today if you are here and are saying Look I’ve got a busy schedule, kids, work, school, bills entertainment, yada yada yada. So what’s in it for me? Well what’s in it for us is an invitation to experience the Holy Spirit working through you to change the lives of individuals. And not only will it change individuals but our lives will be changed as well.
Noted Brian Mclaren says that when one is willing to serve God through the ministries of the church, three things will happen:
1) The individual will be fruitful. Our theme verse here at CBC is John 15:5 which says: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit.” As you discover, develop and use your spiritual gifts, you will see fruit. It’s a guarantee.
2. You will be FULFILLED. Psalm 138:7: “The Lord will fulfill His purpose for me.”
There is nothing more satisfying than to be used by God. God wants to do some amazing things in and through us -- when He does, you will be fulfilled beyond your wildest dreams.
3. The Church will be Strengthened. Ephesians 4:12 teaches that spiritual gifts are given “so that the body of Christ may be built up.” One reason that CBC has been strengthened is because there are many of you who are using your spiritual gifts and dancing to the Lord’s music. Now can you imagine what will happen if everyone in this room and in this church will put our gifts into action? You want to talk about revival.
Today are you willing to get on your feet and dance for the Lord? Are you willing to offer your bodies as living sacrifices for God wholly and pleasing to his name. Are you willing to be transformed by opening your mind to the wonderful and creative things that God wants to do in your life. Are you willing to offer your services to God and watch as he uses you?
