People hire acting coaches, career coaches, executive coaches, financial coaches, job search coaches, and life coaches in addition to athletic coaches. What are all of these coaches supposed to do? I mean, White Sox pitching coach Don Cooper didn’t want to take anything away from Mark Buehrle’s perfect game the other day, but when he said he could take NO credit for a pitching performance, I had to ask myself why the position existed. It seems to me like a coach is there to offer counsel from the position of broader experience; to provide sound fundamentals from both experience, knowledge, and observation; to provide encouragement when things aren’t going well; and to offer direction for improvement and accomplishment. So, you’re wondering what all this has to do with worship?
Well, if everything else we want to accomplish requires a “coach,” maybe we need a “worship coach.” And fortunately, as with everything else we need, we find that God has already provided a “worship coach” in the Bible. So turn with me, if you will to the first two verses in Romans 12.
Before we get to today’s text, though, I think it’s important to get the overall thrust of the Book of Romans. Here’s a quick chapter by chapter outline.
In the first two chapters, Paul removes any philosophical excuse for avoiding the issue of God’s will. He takes the socio-religious-cultural divides of the ancient civilization, Jews and Gentiles, Greeks and Barbarians, and places them all on the same level.
Chapter 3 introduces the SIN problem and together, Chapters 4-5 introduce FAITH as the solution.
Chapter 6 reminds believers not to take GRACE and the life of FAITH for granted.
Chapter 7 confesses that the life of FAITH is still a struggle, but Chapter 8 guarantees the VICTORY in Christ Jesus.
To many of us, Romans 8 is the high watermark of Romans, but Paul (guided by the Holy Spirit) isn’t finished yet. He wants to pull all believers together, regardless of their socio-religious-cultural differences.
Chapter 9 speaks against the early church’s tendency to devalue the heritage it inherited from Israel and God’s future plans for Israel.
Chapter 10 ensures that no one gets the idea that there is any substitute for the saving work of Jesus. Both the Old Israel of the Jews and the New Israel of the church would be united in Jesus.
Chapter 11 demonstrates that God wants to save Israel. God’s purpose is the same for the Jews as it is for those of us who call ourselves “completed Jews,” people who have responded to God through the New Covenant.
Chapter 12 teaches that the life of a believer is intended to be a life of service, but everyone’s service isn’t the same. We serve God according to our different gifts. God intends for there to be diversity within the church.
Chapter 13 emphasizes the fact that the life of FAITH is a practical life, FAITH lived out in daily life.
Chapter 14 affirms our individual freedom as believers, but Chapter 15 challenges us to self-denial.
Chapter 16 wraps things up with Paul’s personal concerns and instructions. That’s probably a good model for us because it means that theology and worship are never completed till we get personal.
Please follow along in your Bibles as I read my translation from the Greek text. Pay attention, I’m going to be a little less literal than usual, building off the root ideas of certain Greek words.
1) I’m coaching you up, Family [of God—literally, “Brothers”), by means of the merciful provisions of God. Offer your physical lives [bodies] as a living sacrifice—set aside [holy] as special [pleasing] for God—[this is] your logical service.
2) And don’t be squeezed into the schematic [root idea of “conformed”] of the present trends [or “fads,”--literally “this age”], but undergo an organic metamorphosis [root idea of “transformed”] in having your minds made new again [“renewing of your minds”] in assaying [root idea of “prove” or “discern”] the Will of God: the good, the pleasing, and the lasting [often translated “perfect” with regard to being “final”].
Now, those of you who aren’t into sports may not like my free-wheeling translation, but I assure you that it’s ingrained in the text. The Greek verb used here is composed of the prefix “para” [idea of standing beside] combined with the verb for “calling out” [pronounced “pah-rah-kah-LOH”]. It was actually used in the ancient world for cheering people on. In Aeschuylus’ play about “The Persians,” the verb is used by the captains of the ships and the masters of the oarsmen to encourage them before a battle (Line 380). In Euripides’ “The Phoenician Maidens,” it was used by the leaders to prepare the young men for war—“cheering them to the fray.” (Line 1254)
The verb was sometimes used for inviting people to do something and sometimes, virtually demanding that they do something, but the root idea is closer to our idea of a basketball coach running alongside his players shouting out the number of a play or a baseball pitching coach coming to the mound to settle down a pitcher after giving up a home run or walking a batter on four pitches. It’s like calling out the strokes for a sculling team. It reminds me of a phrase often used when they talk about getting a college football team ready for “Game Day” when they haven’t quite shown that they can execute and win, yet. They say, “Coach So-and-So” is gonna’ have to coach ‘em up!” It is the consistent word that pulls a team together, corrects the flaws in what they’re doing, and directs them toward success. In fact, since Paul is going to speak about spiritual gifts later in this chapter, it makes sense that Paul would claim to be calling out the strokes or “coaching ‘em up” at this point.
I like to think of Paul as the assistant coach because the Holy Spirit (often called by another word that comes from the same root—pronounced “pah-RAH-klee-tohs” or “pah-RAH-klay-toss” and meaning “advocate,” “comforter,” or “helper”) is the Head Coach. In fact, it is the same verb used in II Corinthians 5:20 when Paul said that God is pleading through us and beseeching on Christ’s behalf. In other words, as God’s assistant coaches, we are to “coach unbelievers up” until they realize that the only way to experience God is through Christ’s sacrifice. Of course, we’re also supposed to “coach up” each other in discovering God’s will and the full blessings God has in store for us.
But notice that we aren’t supposed to do this “coaching up” ourselves, we’re supposed to accomplish it by means of God’s merciful forgiveness. We need to be encouraging, exhorting, cheering, challenging, and “coaching” each other, but not on the basis of our own prowess. We’re supposed to do this by means of God’s grace. We’re not the kinds of coaches that yell at our players a lot. We have to remember that we’re involved with each other by grace, not something we have earned.
Continuing the sporting analogy, I suppose that we would have to say that “presenting,” “proffering,” or “offering” one’s physical life as a living sacrifice means to “take one for the team.” Even in our softball games for the church team, we’ve seen a little of that. Some player risks injury and goes all out to take that extra base, make the catch, or break up a play. Usually, we’re not even thinking about it. We’re just going all out, doing all we can.
Well, that’s pretty much what Paul means with the word used here. The word sounds almost like the one we translated as “coach ‘em up.” It’s pronounced “pah-rah-STEE-seye” or “pah-rah-STAY-say” as opposed to “pah-rah-kah-LOH.” Where the latter means to stand beside and encourage, guide, invite, or plead, this one means to stand beside something and present it for sale (or as an offering) as they would have in an open-air market (or in a temple). It means to let go of something, not to let oneself be “possessed” by our “possessions.”
In this case, Paul challenges, guides, encourages, coaches us to get outside of ourselves. Paul doesn’t tell us to punish ourselves or deliberately harm ourselves like the adherents of some religions do in order to “force themselves” to be more pious. It isn’t a matter of deliberately making things harder for ourselves; its’ a matter of giving back all of our lives as an attitude of gratitude—a response to those mercies of God already mentioned. It isn’t a matter of hurting ourselves as a make-up call for things we’ve done wrong, a SIN offering. Jesus’ sacrifice has already taken care of that. We can tell we’re correct because Paul doesn’t tell us to sacrifice the FLESH, usually representative of the negative aspects of life and our tendency toward sin and death.
He uses the word, σ͡ωμα, from which we get the word “somatic” (often used for “mind over matter” when we speak of “psychosomatic” illnesses and the like) or “somatotype” (where a personality is influenced by physical body type). You see, our bodies aren’t evil of themselves. God doesn’t want us to become all mystical and try to deny the needs of the body. Rather, God wants us to put all of our physical lives at God’s disposal for the purpose of service. Just as we sometimes get beside ourselves to make a play in athletics and go all out for the team, we are to go all out for God.
This is a LOT different than the “Gospel of Success” approach to faith. We aren’t serving God so that we can get comfortable, so we can get rich, or so we can be successful. The “Gospel of Success” is almost as if we are trying to live so to placate God so that God will give us something to improve our well-being. That’s garbage! We don’t obey God to placate God. Worship isn’t about negotiating with God.
God’s commandments are basic, correct, right, and true. We fight the essence of reality, the very basis of truth, when we disobey God. We’re in total denial when we disobey God. It isn’t that God is policing us, placing us under a moral microscope to try to catch us doing wrong and deny us success, it’s that our actions work against us. But it’s not like God is holding out on us.
But proffering our physical lives as living sacrifices, we get the benefit of living life to its fullest because we are in agreement with God as to priorities and purpose. We aren’t really giving up our lives. We are learning to stand beside ourselves and see ourselves as God sees us. We see our potential through God’s eyes. We see the possibilities for service from God’s perspective. Instead of burning incense, offering animals, or even putting our money on the line, our sacrifice is to be a life lived according to God’s agenda.
Now, just as you don’t really have an athletic contest without rules (and usually, without keeping score), you really don’t have worship until it leads to action. The great behavioral scientist of the early 20th century, William James, made this a point in his Varieties of Religious Experience. He said that the only way to judge a faith was to see what it accomplished in a practical way. I’m not sure we can ever have enough facts at our disposal to make such a judgment about others, but I think we need to see our faith making a difference in our daily lives if we’re really living in faith.
My former New Testament professor, Dr. Fred L. Fisher, repeatedly said that there was no such thing as worship in the New Testament that didn’t lead to service. Faith that doesn’t lead to action isn’t real faith. You might have heard that before. James told us that in James 2:17. To continue the athletic analogy, it isn’t enough to get the ball into the “Red Zone,” we need to get it over the goal line. It isn’t enough to take it to the warning track, we want to hit it over the fence. And that goal line or home run fence is serving God and serving God by serving others.
In the ancient world, philosophers such as Aristotle emphasized that human beings who wanted to build society acted “logically” when they acted appropriately to help the most people. Though Aristotle insisted that “happiness” was the greatest good, he believed that the “logical, rational” human would even sacrifice her or his immediate benefit for the sake of benefiting a greater number of people. Aristotle believed such self-restraint would lead to greater happiness in the long run. Obviously, there was a core of naivete within Aristotle’s perspective because he failed to recognize that human beings aren’t always “logical” when it comes to self-sacrifice. In fact, without God’s intervention, I know that I often act first and consider the action’s greater ramifications later. God directs us toward the best instead of toward the acceptable for our lives.
Now, just as a coach offers his or her game plan for an upcoming game, God has a game plan for us. And, just as an opposing coach also has a game plan, so does our opposition. In this case, the game plan that often trips us up is the ordinary reality all around us. We’re often tripped up by common consensus, limited vision, and economic, intellectual, and physical restrictions. We’re forced to play by the rules of others instead of opening ourselves to the most beneficial rules of God.
The Greek verb used in this text, Συσχηματίζεσθε, is the root from which we get our noun “schematic.” A “schematic” is something mechanical, something that provides a blueprint for doing things exactly as they need to be done. By definition, it is something limiting. If you don’t follow the blueprint, the product isn’t going to come out right. It’s a lot like programming something on the computer. If things aren’t done just right in just the right order, the result can be chaos.
But I’m not a computer. I’m not a piece of machinery. I’m more than the sum of the biological processes that act like little nano-machines building and rebuilding my body at infinite levels of complexity. That biological machinery is amazing, wonderful, but it isn’t the whole story. My personality is more than the aggregation of pathways in my brain. My feelings are more than the total of my nerve endings.
So, do I want to limit my potential, my relationships, my future, my feelings, and my dreams to the schematic of the present age? Do I want to walk by sight instead of faith? Do I want to limit the rest of my life to what I already understand or do I want to grow in grace, constantly discovering the reality of God’s love and purpose for my life? Do I want to invest in those things that will eventually decay because of the limitation of time or do I want to invest what’s remaining of my life in that which is protected from time—the Presence and Power of God?
I don’t want to be restricted, constrained and constricted by the limitations of the physical, temporal world. I want more!
I want to be transformed. The Greek verb for this is the word from which we get metamorphosis. Metamorphosis is a more organic change—from the inside-out. It doesn’t come from outside constraints or adhering to certain restrictive rules. It comes from within. In our case, it comes from the presence of the Holy Spirit, the “head coach” if you will, being inside us both to give us the desire to change and to empower us to change.
To illustrate this, I want to show you a simple little “tweening” animation that a lot of Adobe Flash students create when they’re first getting familiar with the software? In this case, the red rectangle transforms into the blue circle. From the center out, it changes its boundaries and characteristics until it looks entirely different.
And the purpose of the transformation Paul describes as making our minds new is to be able to determine, test out, assay, ascertain what God wants. Again, some people think we’re trying to be shamanistic mind readers trying to outguess God. That isn’t the case. When we “prove” or “assay” the will of God, what we’re trying to do is remove the impurities of our desires and our prejudices from the pure ore of God’s golden purpose for our lives. We’re trying to burn away or dissolve the stuff standing between us and God’s purpose.
That’s what is supposed to happen in worship, in sacrifice, and in service. We strip away the constraints of mortality, of selfishness, and of fear in order to reach the riches of God’s blessing. And what will we find when we get discover God’s will?
We will discover what is considered to be “good.” This is a word that indicates something of authentic value and a word often used in the classics to describe human ethics—what we do for each other and “ought” to do for each other. But when it is transformed into the service, the worship of God, it is no longer merely a human ideal of trying to help each other or some human idea of obligation, what we owe each other, it means something that is truly positive.
As mere humans, we can even mess people up by trying to help them. We might give a handout to a person or even hire an out of work person and pay them generously. We feel like we’ve done a good thing. However, what if we discover that we “enabled” the person to score and pay for drugs? We might not know about the person’s problem, but nevertheless we “enabled” them. God helps us really help people instead of just “enabling” them. Of course, there have been times that I allegedly “helped” people for my own convenience. Guess what? God didn’t bless that. I wasn’t acting as a “living sacrifice.”
And remember what I said earlier about not having to outguess God? This text tells us that when we offer all of our lives to God, we are taken through the process of discovering what is really pleasing to God. We won’t have to guess because we’ll be living out the kinds of actions that God would approve of. In pagan societies, there is a fear that they will accidentally displease their gods and bring disasters upon themselves. So, they often make propitiatory offerings to try to placate their gods. They want their gods to be pleased. But the only thing that truly pleases the Living God is to offer up all of our lives.
Finally, by offering up our physical lives—these lives that are destined for death and decay as part of the natural cycle of life—we open ourselves up to something that doesn’t die and decay—life everlasting, now and forever. The word that is often translated “perfect” is the same as the word for “final.” It is τέλεiος, the word from which we get “telephone,” “telegraph,” “telescope,” “telepathy,” and more. With telephone, telegraph, and telepathy, we’re sending voice, writing, and feelings respectively to the “end,” the destination were calling, telegraphing, or if ESP worked like it does in the science-fiction novels, thinking of. With a telescope, we’re seeing something further away than we could see with the naked eye (or at least with more detail than we could with the naked eye).
Here, we are no longer bound by the fourth dimension (Time). In worship where we surrender everything as a living sacrifice, we see beyond and communicate beyond the effects our deeds accomplish in this life. As living sacrifices, we discover the will of God in time to provide for our own legacy and, more importantly, for the legacy of the Gospel and the Kingdom.
Build up fortunes and they will be devalued. Build up a reputation and it will be maligned. Build up your physique and it will decay. Build up your brain and it will eventually succumb to the aging process. Anything we do that is totally dependent upon the physical laws of this world, this present age, will fail. But what we have sacrificed for God’s purposes, that will have lasting impact forever.
That’s VICTORY! That’s what God wants to give us—the championship that doesn’t become mere history when the next season starts, the victory that doesn’t have to be filed with the past when the next kick-off, tip-off, first pitch, or face-off occurs. To paraphrase the ancient prophet, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the PURPOSE of our God, God’s “game plan” lasts forever!”
