When we first moved into our home – it’s been twenty-five years ago now – but when we first moved in, we had a peach tree growing on the north side of the house. And it produced peaches, hundreds of them! The birds loved it, and the neighbors hated it.
The neighbors hated it because the tree was right next to the alley that we all use as a driveway, and it hung over into the easement just enough so that some of the peaches – a lot of them, really – would fall off the tree onto the surface of the driveway and, if that weren’t enough, the branches of the tree would scrape the our neighbors’ cars as they went by. So, it’s not difficult to see why our neighbors hated that tree. It didn’t take long, in fact, for me to hate the thing – what with the neighbors’ complaints and the added chore of cleaning up the driveway every day. And we couldn’t even eat the peaches because the birds would beat us to it! You know how a bird eats a peach? It sinks its beak into the fruit and sucks out the juice. Let me tell you: once the bird’s been there, you lose your appetite for peaches.
But, as much as I came to hate that tree, there was one thing I could always count on. I knew that that tree would never produce anything but peaches. I never expected to find an apple or an orange or a pear or even a coconut on its branches. It was a peach tree, and, if it produced fruit at all, it would be peaches. That’s because it is in the nature of a peach tree to bear peaches.
The same principle works with people. The “fruit” we bear will reveal what is in our nature. Jesus himself said that, didn’t he? “You will know them by their fruits” (Matt. 7:16). And if our hearts have been transformed by the grace of God – guess what? – that will show up in the fruition of our lives. Grace will produce in us glad and joyful obedience.
It’s so important to understand this, because, if we don’t, we will think of religion as nothing more than a set of do’s and don’ts, burdensome rules that we have to follow, or else. And Christianity will become for us nothing more than a code of ethics, against which we measure ourselves. And if that happens, more often than not we will turn away from God in utter defeat because we can’t live up to all the demands.
Now, the portion of Scripture we are looking at today has in it some pretty far-reaching demands. In fact, Paul urges you here “to present your bodies as a living sacrifice” and to “be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God” – and, presumably, do it. In other words, Paul presses you to give your whole being to God, body and soul.
But what I want you to see is the basis upon which he makes his appeal. And you don’t have to look hard to see it. In verse 1, he says,
“I appeal to you therefore, …by the mercies of God.”
I believe it was Howard Hendricks that I first heard say, “If you come across the word ‘therefore’ in the Bible, you have to ask, What is the ‘therefore’ there for?” And, of course, it’s there to tell us – in this case – that what Paul is about to say is based upon he has already said. He has made some point, and now he is going to draw an inference from it.
The fact is that Romans, chapter 12, represents a major break in Paul’s letter to the Romans. In chapters 1 through 11, Paul writes about what we are to believe, and then, beginning in chapter 12, he writes about how we are to live in light of that belief. To put it another way, the first eleven chapters of Romans have to do with doctrine, and the rest of the book, beginning with chapter 12, has to do with application.
So, what is the doctrine we are to believe and on the basis of which we are to give ourselves – body and mind – to God? Paul summarizes it nicely here in verse 1 in four little words: “the mercies of God.” Listen again to what he says: “I appeal to you therefore, …by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice….” Everything in Romans that has gone before this verse – in other words, all of chapters 1 through 11 – is encapsulated in the words, “the mercies of God.” And it’s on the basis of these, God’s mercies, that we are urged to give ourselves completely to God. So, you see the point: We don’t offer ourselves sacrificially to God in order to gain his favor. No! We offer ourselves sacrificially to God – we present our bodies “as a living sacrifice” – because we have already received God’s favor.
What, then, are these “mercies” that produce in us a desire to give ourselves – both body and mind, in the totality of our being – to God? Happily, they are summarized for us in Romans, chapter 8. In Romans 8, verses 29 and 30, Paul says this. He says:
“For those whom [God] foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son…. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.” If you count them, you will see that God has flooded your life with what we might call five distinct “mercies,” acts of grace so generous and undeserved that we call his grace “amazing.” The sixteenth century Puritan, William Perkins, called them collectively “the golden chain of salvation.” Five “mercies” which produce in us the desire to live completely for God, giving him our bodies as living sacrifices and our minds as servants of his will. The five mercies, strung together like pearls on a chain, and here they are:
First, that he “foreknew” us. Now, this doesn’t mean that he somehow discovered beforehand who would choose him and who wouldn’t. God has never been in a position to learn anything. There is nothing whatsoever that he doesn’t always and already know. God’s foreknowledge is best understood in relation to the way the Bible uses the word “know,” for example, when it says, Adam “knew his wife Eve, and she conceived” (Gen. 4:1), or when God says to Israel, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth” (Amos 3:2). What Paul means when he says that God “foreknew” us is that he loved us before we loved him. He placed his desire on us. Ephesians 1:4 says that “he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world…[and he did it] in love.” That, my friends, is mercy, and it is in light of that merciful action, that expression of grace, that we are called to give ourselves to him completely.
Next, Paul says, “Those whom he foreknew he also predestined.” I hope you won’t let that be a scary word to you. There’s no reason it should make you uncomfortable. It simply means that one of his mercies is that he has already charted your destiny, and your destiny is to be eventually like Christ. You are “predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” In Philippians 1:6, Paul says, “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will bring it to completion.” That’s what predestination is: it’s God’s guarantee that what he has started in your life he will finish. Is that mercy, or what? Knowing that, how can you think of doing anything else but presenting yourself to God – body and mind, the whole of your being – to love him and serve him and do his will?
Another of his mercies is that he called you. Isn’t that what Romans 8:30 says? “And those whom he predestined he also called.” In 1 Corinthians 1:9, Paul says, “God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord,” and in Romans 11:29 he says that “the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” When God calls you to himself, he will never change his mind. He will never take it back. That’s another one of his mercies. If you truly grasped how highly he has favored you by calling you to himself, you would offer yourself to him without delay. It is because of this mercy and all the others that Scripture appeals to you “to present your bodies as a living sacrifice” and to “be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God” and do it. This is the fruit that grace produces in you.
There are two more “mercies” that Paul mentions in Romans 8:30: justification and glorification. “Those whom he called,” Paul says, “he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.” He justified you – or declared you to be righteous – not because of anything you did but because of what Christ did for you. He lived a life of complete righteousness, and all his perfection has been credited to your account. And he took upon himself all your sin and died on the cross to pay the penalty for it. You are no longer under condemnation. You are justified. And, having been justified, you will be glorified. That is, you will be “transformed into the…image [of Christ] from one degree of glory to another” until the work of grace is complete. “What we…know is this,” John writes: “when [Christ] is revealed” – that is, when we see him face to face – “we will be like him…” (1 John 3:2). My beloved sisters and brothers, if justification and glorification are not mercies, what is?
And how will you respond to such an abundance of mercies? You will do what it is in your nature to do. As surely as a peach tree produces peaches, you, who are a child of God, will produce godly fruit. And doing so will not be a burdensome hardship for you. Not in the least. No. You will “present your [body] as a living sacrifice,” and you will consider it a reasonable thing to do. You will employ your eyes for holy ends. Your ears will be tuned to your Shepherd’s voice amid all the clamor around you. Your feet will take you where God leads, and your hands will be busy in doing God’s work.
Grace, you see, produces. The mercies of God compel a life offered to God. You will “not be conformed to this world,” but you will “be transformed by the renewing of your [mind], so that you may discern what God’s will is,” and, discerning it, pour yourself, body and soul, into doing it. Grace does that. You don’t work it up. You work it out. Chris Christian used to sing a song called “We Are an Offering.” The lyrics went something like this: “We lift our voices, we lift our hands, we lift our lives up to you. We are an offering. All that we have, all that we are, all that we hope to be, we give to you.” Why would anyone do that? The only possible explanation is the mercies of God. The only answer is grace. Because that’s what grace produces.
