A Changed Relationship to God

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Today we will initiate a new sermon series based on the Apostle Paul's letter to the Romans, chapters 12-15, entitled “God's Vision for a New Humanity.” If you are at all familiar with the letters of Paul, if you've ever read them, you may have noticed that oftentimes the letters start with theology and then they turn to practice. They begin with belief, and then they turn to behavior. And we'll see here in Romans 12 that this is the turning point.

Romans 12 begins with the word “therefore,” which means that in effect, Paul is taking everything that he has laid out in chapters 1-11 — all of this rich theology, this whole gospel message — and then showing us how it transforms a human life. And isn't that what we want to know? We want to know, how does all of this theology touch down in our lives, and what difference does it make? What practical difference does it make in the life of a Christian?

Well, this section reveals that the gospel of grace radically changes all of our relationships, not only to God but to ourselves, with one another, even with our enemies. With the state, with the law, with the times in which we live, and toward those who are weak. And so what this section of the letter shows us is that if the essence of the Christian religion is grace, then the essence of Christian ethics is gratitude. Grace, then gratitude. Everything we do, everything we are is lived in gratitude to what God has first done for us.

So to start, I'd like us to consider how the gospel fundamentally transforms our relationship to God, and what then does this transformation look like? In a word, I would call it “surrender.” Now there are at least two different forms of surrender. One form is when you have a gun pointed at you: “Hands up; lay your weapons down!” So there is a form of surrender that is forced. And there is a sense in which, as human beings, we are rebels against God, and we do need to lay down our arms.

But there's another form of surrender, which is not forced by the sight of a gun; rather it's a little bit more like falling in love. Someone might ask you, why would you give up your freedom? Why would you tie yourself down? Why would you commit yourself exclusively to another person? And you might say, “Well, the answer's easy: Because I love her” or “Because I love him.” See, there's another kind of surrender that isn't forced but that is voluntary. You voluntarily give up some of your independence because you're seeking something even better: intimacy.

That is what we're talking about here in Romans chapter 12. Paul is calling us to a total joyful surrender to God in response to his mercies. And so today I'd like us to consider three things: 1) Why do we need to surrender to God? 2) How do we actually do it? And 3) What does it look like in practice?

¹I 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. ²Do 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.

Romans 12:1-2

Why do we need to surrender to God?

First of all, why do we need to surrender? In verse 2, Paul writes, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” Another way to translate that verse might be, do not let this present age squeeze you into its mold. Like most people in his day, Paul believed that you could divide the whole history of the world into two ages: There is this present age, which is marked by brokenness and sadness as a result of human opposition to God, but then there's the age to come, the age in which God will not only reconcile us in relationship to himself but renew the whole world. Core to Paul's gospel message was that the age to come has already broken into the present through the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus, and therefore it means that a whole new way of life is now possible. A whole new way of life is now accessible to us, and we're called to live in light of that reality now.

So the reason why we need to surrender our lives over to God is because this present age exerts pressure. That's why Paul says, do not conform to this present age. Do not let this age squeeze you into its mold. That's not to say that this world is as bad as it could possibly be, because that's not true. There's so much in this world for us to appreciate and enjoy. But as New Yorkers, I think we can understand how the very culture of New York places pressure on us. It seeks to squeeze us into its mold.

We could think of the culture of New York in terms of money, power, and sex. How does this work? Well, in New York, we're surrounded not only by extreme poverty, but also by extreme wealth. And it's easy to fall into the comparison game. There's always someone doing better than us in New York. So no matter how much we have, we feel like we need more. And even if in the past we didn't consider ourselves to be all that money-conscious, after a few years we might find ourselves being that way, sucked into the gravitational pull of New York. All we know is that we want more.

And money's connected to power. For many people, money is less about survival and it's a lot more about status. Our wealth functions a little bit like a language, and therefore where you live, where you eat, where you shop, where you go on vacation, even the things on which you casually spend your money communicate a message. They send signals about your status. And for many of us, we don't love money for what it can buy, but for what it can give us in terms of access or influence or opportunity. So therefore, again, even if we weren't all that status-conscious years ago, we might find ourselves over time slowly becoming a little bit less hospitable, a little less open, more closed, more restrictive in our relationships, more selective because we want to get in with the in-crowd. Or whatever social status we've achieved, we want to maintain. We want to maintain that insider status.

And sex, of course, is intertwined with both. People tell me all the time that the dating scene in New York feels very transactional. People are constantly sizing each other up, not only in terms of appearance, but also in terms of wealth and status and lifestyle. And so people use their looks, their allure, their appeal, their desirability to get ahead or even to get leverage over others. And it often seems as if people really don't even care if they ghost somebody else and just abandon the relationship without even saying a word if that person is no longer serving their purposes.

So my question to you is, what is currently shaping you the most: God's mercy or the world's pressure? Don't let the present age squeeze you into its mold. Many people have come to me over the years and have said that in the past, their time living in New York without a church like Central was a very dark period because they found themselves developing unhealthy, destructive patterns of thought and behavior. And that's what we're talking about. The world around us exerts this subtle, invisible, but ubiquitous and relentless pressure to conform, and therefore we have to resist it if we want to be generous rather than greedy, if we want to be self-giving rather than grasping, if we want to be servant-minded rather than status-hungry.

This doesn't just happen. We have to choose to share our resources. We have to choose to be people who use whatever connections or influence we have to open doors for other people. And we have to choose to serve other people rather than to use them. That is why Paul tells us, don't be conformed to this present age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. In other words, if you don't surrender yourself to God, you will be shaped by something else; it's only a question of what or who.

How do we actually surrender to God?

So if that's why we need to surrender our lives to God, how do we actually do it? How do we surrender ourselves? How do we experience this transformation? What is the motivational power? Notice that Paul says, “be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” It's a passive imperative. “Be transformed.” Rather than letting the world conform you into its image, let God conform you into his image. And the way he often does that is through a combination of the work of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. Then you'll be able not only to discern but even to desire God's will — his perfect, acceptable, and good will.

Now, notice Paul's not saying change yourself, but let yourself be changed, and it all starts with the mind. “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” Building off of the teaching of the Puritans, the theologian J. I. Packer once said that the way that God works in our lives is by reaching us through the mind, to the heart, and out to the will. See, we first grasp the gospel with our minds, and the first thing that the gospel does is make us think. And when we grasp the truth of God's reality, it sets our hearts aflame. It kindles our affections, and that's what drives our will. That's what transforms our words and our actions, all of our thinking and our behaving.

And if that's true — if God reaches us through the mind, to the heart, and out to the will — then it explains a common experience that all of us have had. If you're anything like me, you will know that we human beings, we tend to drift. We tend to drift off course as the minutes, the hours, the days pass. We drift away from God and from the things that we know to be true. Earlier this week, I used the example of a car. If a car hits too many potholes, it's going to mess up the suspension. You're going to find that the car is starting to constantly pull to one side, or maybe the steering wheel is going to rattle and shake. Its alignment is all off. You have to send it to the shop to be aligned.

Or you could think of a satellite. A satellite could fall from its orbit if it loses speed or altitude, and then it gets pulled into the atmosphere and it's burned up. And you see, it's the same way with our hearts. As the minutes, as the hours, as the days pass, we drift. We become misaligned. We fall out of our orbit, and therefore we have to remind ourselves of the mercies of God. We have to rekindle our hearts.

See everything that Paul says here is an appeal to call to mind the mercies of God. “I appeal to you therefore, brothers [and sisters], by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice.” Paul's call to surrender to God is predicated on the mercies of God. We deserve judgment, but we receive mercy. The reason why our hearts grow cool is because we forget God's mercy. We take it for granted. We say, “Well, of course God would love and accept me, because I may not be perfect, but I'm a good person.” But no, there is no “of course” about it. If you think, “Of course God will love and accept me,” then you have not considered yet the seriousness of sin. Every moment of every day, our thoughts, our words, and our actions not only offend against God's holy laws, but worse, they break God's holy heart.

Imagine any other relationship. It could be a friendship, or a marriage. I'll use myself as an example. Let's say that in my marriage, I know the kinds of things that will make my wife, Ashley, happy. I know the things that will make her feel loved and appreciated. I know the things that she values and cares about. But I also know the things that irritate and annoy her. And beyond that, I know the things that offend her or would deeply hurt her.

So let's just say that not on merely one particular bad day, but day after day, week after week, I don't pay any attention to her needs, her desires, or her wants. I don't listen to her. Imagine that I don't give her any of my focus, because I'm too distracted. And I choose to just do whatever I want, whatever pleases me, regardless of what her wishes might be. And I do even those things that I know will offend her and make her feel small or insignificant. How long do you think a relationship like that would last? Who would bet on the odds of that kind of a marriage?

See, the point is that's the way that we treat God. We deserve judgment, and yet we receive mercy. The love that we receive is the exact opposite of what we deserve. Therefore, there is no “of course” about it. The question then is, how can God do that? How can God give us mercy when we deserve judgment?

Picture Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. What's he doing? What's going through his mind? What is he praying? Jesus knows that it is his calling to go to the cross. This is his vocation. And he knows that he's going to the cross to bear our sin in our place as our substitute because it's the only way that Jesus can condemn sin without condemning us. It's the only way that he can destroy sin without destroying us. It's the only way that he can hate the sin but love the sinner. As a result then, by going to the cross in our place as our substitute, Jesus knows that he is going to be cut off from God, not because of who he is and what he has done, but because of who we are and what we have done. But imagine what it would be like to not only be cut off from God, banished from his presence, but to be cut off from the very source of everything that is good and beautiful and true.

Do you realize that every person on this planet right now is being upheld and sustained by the God of the universe, whether they realize it or not? Let me give you this analogy. We know that even when the earth is turned away from the sun, even when it's dark out, even when it's nighttime, though we may not be able to see the sun, Earth continues to be upheld and sustained by the sun's gravitation and radiation. Without the sun, this would just be a dark, frozen rock.

And you see, in a similar way every human being, even those who reject God, even those who are hostile to God, even those who say, “I have no need for God; I'm the master of my own life,” even those people are being upheld and sustained by God at every moment. Without God's existence, without God's power, we would lose our integrity and our coherence as human beings. Paul says in Colossians 1:17 that in God all things hold together. Without him, everything, all of us, would fall apart. We would unravel like the earth being banished from the solar system. We would unravel if we were banished from the presence of God.

Years ago, when my children were very little, we had a small little Volkswagen Jetta, and one night I parked it up on Park Avenue and 65th Street. The next Saturday morning, I'm walking with our family. We're headed out to Central Park, and my son, who was only three and a half at the time, spots it first. He sees that our car is completely totaled. The police report was on my windshield, and apparently a taxi driver was speeding across that 65th street transverse while an SUV was barreling up Park Avenue, both of them going as fast as they could possibly go. One of them ran a red light, and they crashed into one another with such force that they slammed into our parked car and completely totaled it. When my son saw our car, he burst into tears. And I said, “Don't worry about it. We've actually outgrown that car. We could use the insurance money.” And now we have a minivan.

But the point is that when a car is totaled, it doesn't cease to exist, but it ceases to function. It's lost all ability to operate. And you see, to be cut off from God, to be banished from his presence, to be cut off from the very source of everything that is good and beautiful and true, means that you are totaled as a human being. You can't experience joy. You can't give or receive love. And Jesus knew that was what he was facing. When he was in the Garden of Gethsemane, he knew what it meant to be cut off, forsaken, totaled as a human being.

And you see, you'll never be able to surrender to God until you first see how wondrously Jesus surrendered himself for you. In the garden, Jesus knew what was going to happen to him, and it filled him with horror. As he prays in the garden, as he just begins to taste the cup, his sweat becomes like drops of blood. He knows that he's experiencing extreme stress, so much so that it sends him into shock. And Jesus prays, therefore, Father, look, if there is some other way, if there's any other way around this, I want out. Get me out of this. But nevertheless, not my will but yours be done. I surrender my will to yours. If there's some other way, take it. But I know you, I love you, I trust you, and I believe that if I have to go through with this, you will bring about unimaginable goodness, unimaginable blessing through it. And therefore I surrender my will to yours.

So do you see what Jesus does? He surrenders to God's will not for his sake, but for your sake and for my sake. And what did it cost him to surrender? We will never know. We will never know what it was like for him to endure the horror of the cross, but Jesus knew what he was signing up for. Jesus had to die for you because he knew it was the only way that he could destroy sin without destroying us.

But at the same time, Jesus was willing to die for you because Jesus considered the horror and the shock of the cross, and he decided that it was worth it. It was worth it all. Because you mean so much to him, because this world means so much to him, he was willing to do it all in order to usher in a whole new world where he could reconcile us in relationship to himself and renew all things. And so he was willing to do whatever it takes, and therefore the only way that we can ever even begin to surrender ourselves to God is if we first see how Jesus surrendered himself for us.

What does surrender look like in practice?

We've considered why we need to surrender to God (to be transformed by the renewal of our minds), and we've considered how we surrender, where we find the motivational power (by considering all the mercies of God which are spelled out for us in the gospel). But the final question we have to ask is, what does it actually look like in practice? What does it look like to surrender ourselves?

In verse 1, Paul says, “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.” Now, if you stop and you slow down and you consider these words, you realize that this is a vivid, startling image. Paul is alluding to the practice of worship in the temple. In the Old Testament, people would take one of the best of their livestock — not the worst — they would take their best bull, their best sheep, their best goat, because we give God our best, not our leftovers. And then they would offer the best of their livestock as a sacrifice.

There were different kinds of sacrifices in the Old Testament, but what Paul's alluding to here is the burnt offering. You can read about it in Leviticus 1. In this case, the person would take this animal and would sacrifice it up entirely. The whole thing would be consumed by flames. There would be nothing left — nothing to eat, nothing to use. The whole thing would just be consumed. And it was a way of signaling that all that you are, all that you have is at God's disposal. Nothing I have is truly mine; I give everything over to you. It symbolized complete and total devotion to God, without hesitation, without restraint.

And now Paul is suggesting, I want you to do that with yourself. I want you to offer up your body as a living sacrifice. Rather than crawling off the altar, I want you to lay your whole body down. Give over to God your whole self — body, soul, heart, mind, and will. The only difference though is that this is a living sacrifice, and by surrendering yourself over to God, you will not be burned up. You will not be consumed. This will not end in death. No, it will end in life. You'll find an altogether new kind of life possible, but only when you offer yourself wholly and without reserve as a living sacrifice.

It's hard to imagine a more comprehensive vision of what it means to surrender yourself to God. And interestingly, Paul calls this our spiritual worship. “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” The only thing is, that word “spiritual” should be translated as “logical” or “reasonable.” I don't know why they translated it as “spiritual.” It means reasonable or logical.

See, what Paul is saying is that offering your whole life up to God, surrendering everything over to him, is the only logical thing to do. It's the only reasonable thing to do in light of what Jesus has already sacrificed on your behalf. It's the only thing that makes perfect sense. So view, consider, look at the mercies of God, and then the only appropriate response to Jesus' sacrifice on the cross is to offer yourself as a living sacrifice in return. And therefore, to surrender to God means that in the moment-to-moment existence, the day-to-day existence of your life, you say, “I will do whatever God says, and I will accept whatever God sends.”

Perhaps no one understood what it means to surrender to God more than George Matheson, a 19th century Scottish pastor. He decided at a young age to enter the ministry, and as he was nearing the completion of his studies, he realized that he was going blind. He was completely losing his sight. Through his late teens and into his early twenties he continued his studies, but then things took a turn for the worse, because not only was he losing his sight, but then his fiance broke off their engagement because she was just too overwhelmed by the thought of having to care for him his whole life.

So now Matheson is not only facing a life of darkness; in addition to that, he's facing a life of loneliness. But fortunately, his younger sister steps in and becomes his closest companion and his primary caregiver for two decades. But then in 1882, she decides to get married. And the night of her wedding, when everyone else was celebrating the festivities, he stays at home all alone in the pastor's manse, and he falls into deep, utter distress, because he concludes that this is it. My life is over. Everything is lost.

But even in the midst of his deepest, darkest moment, he feels God's presence and power. He feels God's strength, comfort, and assurance. And all of a sudden, that experience of painful suffering is turned into trust. He surrenders himself completely and entirely over to God. And that night, he writes a hymn that we often sing here — a hymn entitled “O Love That Will Not Let Me Go.”

Matheson said that it's almost as if the hymn wrote itself. He dashed it off in five minutes. But this hymn is all about surrender. The first stanza reads, “O love that will not let me go. I rest my weary soul in thee. I give thee back the life I owe, that in thine ocean depths its flow may richer, fuller be.” See, he's lost romantic love, but now he realizes he has found a love that will never let him go — not the love of a fiance, not the love of a sister, but a love that will never let him go.

But notice the surrender. He says, “I give thee back the life I owe.” He knows that he cannot feel sorry for himself for one minute. God owes him nothing, and yet he owes God everything. And so he says, I give thee back the life I owe you in the hopes that I might get a better one. That “in thine ocean depths its flow may richer, fuller be.” It's only by surrendering my life to you that I'll find a richer, fuller life.

And so the first line of every verse points to the renewed trust that he has in God. “O love that will not let me go.” “O light that follows all my way.” “O joy that seekest me in pain.” “O cross that liftest up my head.” Even in the midst of his deepest, darkest pain, he finds love in the midst of despair, light in the midst of darkness, joy in the midst of pain, and a cross that transforms his loss.

He may have lost romantic love, but he finds the love of God. He may have lost his sight, but he discovers the light of God. And all the way, he's surrendering. “I give thee back the life I owe.” I only have a flickering torch. I only have so much sight in my eyes. My flickering torch, I yield to you. I can only make sense of this life in and through you.

Then ultimately he finds his hope in the cross. “O cross that liftest up my head, I dare not ask to fly from thee.” Where else can I go? “I lay in dust life's glory dead, and from the ground there blossoms red life that shall endless be.” He lays in the dust all of life's glory. He lays it in the dust dead. All my hopes, my dreams, my expectations, my relationships, my future. I lay it all in the dust.

Can you say that? “I lay in dust life's glory dead.” All my hopes for love, for acceptance, for approval, for recognition, for status, for wealth, for power, I lay it all in the dust dead? And then echoing the words of Jesus’ own sacrifice leading to new life, “and from the ground there blossoms red life that shall endless be.” Only that which we lay in the dust can ever blossom. Only that which has died can ever be raised to new life — the life that is endless.

So what Matheson realizes is that what may look like a dead end in our lives may be the beginning of an altogether different kind of life, if we would only yield. If we would only surrender. And you see, some people say, well, if I just knew why this was happening to me — Why have I been treated this way? Why have I lost everything? — if I just had some reason why, then I could make sense of it. Then I could bear it. But that's not submission. That's not obedience. That's not what it means to surrender.

Suffering will make you someone far greater than you are now. Like in Matheson’s life, suffering can transform you into a person who is wise and loving and tender and compassionate, or suffering can twist you and shrivel you and make you just more angry and bitter and resentful and sad. But you see, it all depends on how you respond. “Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” Someone or something will shape your life; the only question is what.

If you don't surrender your life to God, you will surrender your life to something else. You will be squeezed into someone else's mold. But do not be conformed to this present age; be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Consider the mercies of God. Take them into your heart. Allow them to rekindle your affection so that they transform your desires. And then (and only then) will you be able to surrender everything over to him. Only then will you become a living sacrifice, pleasing and acceptable to God.

So as George Matheson wrote, give back the life you owe. Offer your life back to him, not as a surrender of forced defeat, but as a surrender of joyful love. The only way that you can surrender yourself over to him fully, completely, without hesitation or reserve, is if you first see that Jesus already surrendered everything for you.

Let me pray for us.

Father God, we are fully cognizant of the ways in which the world around us seeks to squeeze us into its mold. But Father, we pray that we wouldn't be conformed to the patterns of this world, but that we would be transformed by the renewal of our mind. So allow us to consider the mercies of God. Allow the truths of the gospel to enlighten our minds, kindle our hearts, and transform our will so that we might give ourselves wholly over to you. Enable us to surrender ourselves to you so that we might become the people that you have destined us to be and find a life that is richer and fuller and that will never end. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Sermons

God's Vision for a New Humanity: A Changed Relationship to God

Why do we need to surrender to God?

How do we actually surrender to God?

What does surrender look like in practice?