0800 sermon HTC, 13 January 2019

Romans 12:1-5

Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts together be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

Integrity – longed for by many people. The longing shows when people say, “I want to be truly me. I’m so tired of fitting into other peoples’ plans and expectations”; or, “I never get the chance to say what I am really thinking”; or, “I so much wish I could become the person I was truly made to be”.

It’s really hard to fulfil these longings. The world bears in on us with immense force, whether because we are trapped by the pressure of what other people need us to be, or distracted by a media barrage of insincere slogans and promises, or quite simply we never get a break, or indeed – it has to be said – our spirit is willing but our flesh is weak.

If this is true for you, then our Epistle reading offers a lifeline, a way out, a real chance. The way out is to take a long hard look at ourselves from a very different point of view: to present ourselves to God as living sacrifices, and to resist being ground down by the world. Instead we are to allow our basic points of view to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

It’s as much as to say, the pressure of the world is far too great for us to resist on our own. But we can, if we so choose, call on the far greater power of God. And then, instead of being ground down, we will be changed and strengthened to become the people that God truly made us to be.

Notice: this transformation project is not a one-off instant deal. We are to keep presenting ourselves as living sacrifices, to keep allowing our minds to be transformed, It’s a life-time project, not a quick fix,

What does this offer involve, practically speaking? It involves letting our minds be renewed: regular prayer, regular careful listening to the Bible, regularly thinking what the message means to us in practical day-to-day terms.

It involves presenting our bodies to God as a living sacrifice, which is to say, being ready to do the things we see need doing for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ – whether that is befriending a newcomer, refusing to speak ill of others, helping with a charity, or simply doing a job well to the best of our ability.

Or another example – I tried this once for Lent – secretly deciding for a period to agree to any reasonable request that anyone might make to me. That was the hardest Lent discipline ever, and it left a deep impression on me.

The offer also involves thinking of ourselves honestly and accurately, neither considering ourselves any better than others, nor concealing what we can do. We are all different, and we all belong to each other in Christ; indeed often the Lord uses others to push through this transformation project in our own lives.

And we've got a big promise in this passage. If we commit to this then, by the mercies of God (which is to say our Lord Jesus, whose saving death and resurrection we will now celebrate in Holy Communion), God in his mercy promises we will see His good, acceptable, perfect will worked out in our lives.

This passage urges us: if we want integrity in our lives,
we should ask God’s Spirit to transform us into whom we truly are.

Amen