This has been a rough week on the cultural scene in America. First, Kate Spade. Then, Anthony Bourdain. Suicide has become a major public health concern in the United States. It is the tenth leading cause of death in the U.S., according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and prevention.
According to the CDC, "Middle-aged woman, between the ages 45 and 64, had the highest suicide rate among women in both 2014 and 1999." Furthermore, "Suicide rates for white females increased 60% between 1999 and 2014."
Anthony Bourdain is the latest in a string of celebrity suicides in recent years. Why is this happening?
Kate Spade suffered from bipolar disorder, yet she lived a productive life.
Anthony Bourdain, in a November 2016 episode of his show, "Parts Unknown," was filmed at a psychotherapy session where he admitted to "feeling isolated and having trouble connecting with others."
"I'd like to be happy," said Bourdain. "I'd like to be happier. I should be happy. I have incredible luck. I'd like to look out the window and say, 'Yay, life is good.'"
Bourdain battled depression in his adult life and it's sad to see where it led him.
Secular sources advise the mentally ill to find professional treatment through therapy and medication, and these can help. They say, "Avoid alcohol and drugs," and that's good advice. They counsel exercise and joining a support group. These are all good suggestions.
But what about the love and hope that we find in Jesus Christ and His Church? What about the resources for life that we receive from the Holy Spirit? What love and hope can we in the church bring to those who are struggling under the weight of mental illness?
In Troubled Minds: Mental Illness and the Church, Amy Simpson writes,
"The suffering of mental illness, whether for the afflicted or for their families, is typically marked by isolation. When people desperately need to experience the love and empathy of their fellow human beings and to know that their Creator has not abandoned them, many reach out and are shocked to touch the church’s cold shoulder. Other’s fear the church’s rejection enough to hide their struggles and not seek exposure at all. [p. 16]
The church should be a healing place, but for many, it’s not. Many others have given up on the church and no longer darken our doors. Yet, there is help here. We can offer to others the love and care that we have received from God. We can proclaim in word and action that God our Creator offers His love to everyone. We can show through our concern and care for others that God has not abandoned anyone.
When people reach out to us, we can embrace them with God’s love.
To be the people that God has created us to be begins in our minds. Healthy minds lead to healthy lives.
In Romans, chapter 12, Paul moves into the practical section of his epistle. If you study his epistles, you’ll see that Paul’s most basic structure is doctrinal content first, then practical content.
I invite you to open your Bible or a Pew Bible to Romans, chapter 12. We’ll begin with verse 1.
v.1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Paul makes an appeal to the members of the church in Rome. This exhortation or encouragement isn’t a command; it’s an urging.
Paul urges the Christians in Rome to present themselves, their whole selves, as a living sacrifice to God. Paul urges them on the basis of God’s mercies to them. The mercies of God refer to God’s tenderhearted compassion for all that He has created.
President Calvin Coolidge awoke one morning in a hotel room and saw a burglar going through his pockets. The president spoke up, asking the burglar not to take his watch chain, because it contained an engraved charm that held sentimental value for him.
Coolidge then initiated a conversation with the thief and learned that he was a college student who had no money to pay for his hotel bill or buy a ticket back to campus. Coolidge counted $32 out of his wallet, that he had persuaded the dazed young man to give back. The president handed the money to the young man and declared that it was a loan. He also advised the young man to leave the way he had come so as to avoid the Secret Service.
That was mercy. By the way, the loan was paid back!
No human mercy is as great as God’s mercy. God sees humanity locked in desperation and helpless without His Son. God, in His mercy, comes to humanity in His Son to free us from our sin, guilt, and stubborn self-will.
In His mercy, given to us in Jesus Christ, God does not punish our sins as we deserve, but instead, offers us deliverance from His righteous judgment and wrath. God, who is rich in mercy, says to us through the Apostle Paul, “present yourselves as a living sacrifice.”
Author and speaker Elizabeth Elliott quipped a number of years ago that the problem with living sacrifices is that they tend to crawl off the altar. That’s the temptation we all face. Each of us who have taken up our cross to follow Jesus faces many temptations to fail Him.
Paul says, as living sacrifices, we are to be “holy and acceptable to God.”
To be holy is to be set apart for God and His service.
To be acceptable is to offer ourselves as living sacrifices in ways that please God. If you break down the word in the original Greek of the New Testament that is translated as “acceptable,” you get the words “well” and “pleasing.” Our lives are to be well pleasing to God. Paul says, “this is your spiritual worship.”
What the apostle means by spiritual worship is expressed well by the Stoic philosopher Epictetus:
“If I were a nightingale, I should be singing like a nightingale, if a swan, as a swan. But, as it is, I am a rational being, therefore I must be singing hymns of praise to God.”
We were created by God to be worshiping beings. William Nichols says,
“”Worship is the supreme and only indispensible activity in the Christian church. It alone will endure, like the love of God it expresses…” [quoted in David Peterson, Engaging with God, p. 15]
We were created to worship God our Creator, yet all too often we’re drawn away from the love of God to lesser goods. John Calvin was certainly right to say that our hearts are idol factories. Nietzsche was also correct when he said, “There are more idols in this world than there are realities.” [Twilight of the Idols]
How are we to offer God pure spiritual worship? Paul gets practical in verse 2.
v. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
“Do not be conformed to this world…”
Eugene Peterson translates this phrase this way in The Message:
“Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without thinking.”
The New Living Translation puts it this way:
“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world.”
If we are set apart for God and His service,
If we are to live our lives as living sacrifices,
We will need to remember “that friendship with the world is enmity with God” - James 4:4.
James continues, “Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself and enemy of God.”
This world lives in rebellion to God and God’s ways. The Gospel of John describes this world as darkness, and Jesus as the light that shines in the darkness.
The light of God is found in Jesus, the light of the world. The world rejects God’s light and prefers darkness. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:4 that “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.”
We, who have received the light of Christ see His glory and the glory of His truth. Given this, how can we be transformed by the renewing of our minds? We do well to start with one premise that had three parts. This premise is found in Colossians 1, verse 15 and 16. Speaking about Jesus, Paul writes,
vv. 15-16 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.
First, Jesus is the image of the invisible God. When we see Jesus, we see God. When we hear Jesus, we hear God.
Second, Jesus is the Creator of all things. John 1:3 tells us, “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”
Third, all things were created not only through Him, but for Him. In Colossians 1, Paul speaks about Jesus creating all things “in heaven and on earth.” Paul says that in Jesus “all things hold together” (v.17). Jesus is the person who connects everything under God. He is also the head of the Church, the firstborn from the dead - the first to rise to new life.
The purpose of all this is revealed in verse 18 of Colossians 1: “that in everything he might be preeminent.”
There is a famous saying from the late Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper: “There is not one square inch in all of God’s creation that Jesus does not cry out, ‘Mine.’”
It all belongs to HIm. All things were created by Him and for Him. Including us.
So, in gratitude for our “creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life,” [1979 Book of Common Prayer] we offer lives back to God as living sacrifices.
We allow God to transform our lives through worship, Bible study, prayer, Christian fellowship, Christian service, and the Holy Spirit working within us in our daily lives.
We test, or prove, or seek to find out what God’s will is for us so that we can do it. That’s how Christians are to live.
Entire books have been written about how we can know God’s will. The most reliable guide by far is the Bible. The advice and counsel of others, particularly Christians who know us well, can help if what they tell us doesn’t conflict with Scripture.
Prayer can help with the same caution - testing our thoughts by Scripture enables us to separate God’s will from our own ego and projections.
A number of years ago, I was interested in working for a political campaign. Politics can be a dirty business, but I was a political science major in college and I wanted some real-world experience. I prayed about it and looked into Scripture, particularly Proverbs. I talked to other Christians, including an older man who was discipling me.
When I saw an FBI agent who I knew from church in the candidate’s law office, I went back to my mentor. He spoke with the FBI agent and then assured me that the FBI was there because of a client of the law firm, not to investigate the lawyer running for office.
In our daily lives, we take all that God has given us in worship, Bible study, prayer, Christian fellowship, and Christian service, and we allow God to renew our minds by the power of the Holy Spirit. In this, God enables us to discern what His will is for us in specific situations.
Paul describes God’s will as “good and acceptable and perfect.”
What is good? God is the highest good, as Thomas Aquinas would remind us. Lesser goods are the love, kindness, and gentleness that we offer others. Good deeds, spiritual, physical, and material well-being are all generally good.
The greatest good for us is to grow in our union with God as we grow more and more in the image and likeness of Jesus, His Son and our Savior and Lord.
We’ve already covered what is acceptable. What is acceptable is what is well-pleasing to God. This has to do with what sacrifices and offerings that God will be pleased to receive from us.
What is perfect? This means completeness, as in the complete fulfillment of God’s will, or our complete dedication to pleasing God.
So, with renewed minds transformed by the Holy Spirit, faithful Christians offer themselves to God in the self-renunciation of sacrifice and allow God to continue to transform our minds and lives. Healthy minds lead to healthy lives. What you think is who you are - King Solomon understood this about 3.000 years ago. He wrote, “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.” [Proverbs 23:7, NKJV]
In this instance, heart means the center of our inner personal life - our minds. This includes your thinking, feeling, and your will. As you think, so you are. What you think most about will influence who you are and who you are becoming.
If your thoughts are mostly focused on what the Apostle John calls “the desires of the flesh, and the desires of the eyes, and pride in possessions,” you are focusing on what is passing away. [1 John 1:16]
Why focus on what has passing value when God offers you what has lasting, eternal value? Bob Dylan was right - you gotta serve somebody. Are you willing to offer yourself as a living sacrifice to God?
Can you say with the Apostle Paul, “ I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me?” [Galatians 2:20]
Will you offer your life to God as your spiritual worship?
When you do so, God will transform your life by the renewal of your mind. Weekly worship, weekly Bible study, daily devotional reading of the Bible, and moment by moment prayer are means to this end. Fellowship with Christians and Christian service also serve this end.
As you practice the good habits of Christian faith, you will grow in your ability to discern the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God for your life. You will grow in your knowledge and love of God. Your union with God will grow. You will become holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship as a follower of Christ.
Let us pray.
