Good, Pleasing, Perfect

Romans 12:1-2

July 24, 2016 • Mount Pleasant UMC

Opening Video

Sermon Study Guide

If you’re anything like me, you find yourself from time to time saying things like, “Well, in a perfect world…” or, “If I ran the world…” Of course, we say those things because we know we don’t live in a perfect world. As we talked about the last two weeks, we don’t live in a world where God’s will always and forever happens, and if you don’t believe that, then you must not have had the news on for the last couple of weeks. I cannot wrap my mind around a worldview that says violence is the way to combat violence, but after shootings in Louisiana, Minnesota and Texas, it seems that worldview has come to the forefront. This is the world in which we live: a world where truck bombs kill people in a patriotic celebration in France, a world where human life is cheap and purpose seems a question many would rather not deal with. Fifty-nine years after they were spoken, we’ve still not learned the truth of these words from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In a 1957 sermon, King said this: “The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” We have never needed those words more than we do today.

We’re in the midst of a series of sermons dealing with what I’ve called “Questions in the Dark,” questions that people are sometimes afraid to ask or reluctant to ask out loud. At some point, all of these questions get back to the real issue, and that is whether or not God can be trusted. That’s especially true as we come to questions of purpose, or, more specifically, how can I find God’s will for my life? Today, we might put it this way: how do I discern God’s will in a world of violence and hatred? Can I even hear God’s voice above the sounds of gunfire and hate and death? That is, in many ways, the very question Paul is getting at in the twelfth chapter of Romans, when he turns from the theology he has laid out in the first eleven chapters of the letter to practical matters. In the latter part of Romans, Paul suggests that those who follow Jesus will need to actively pursue a different life than the one the world puts forth as “normal” or even “desirable.” Only when we make that move, that choice, will we be able, Paul says, to discern God’s will, “his good, pleasing and perfect will” (12:2).

Now, any time we begin to talk about God’s will, we need to be honest about one thing in particular. There are times we know the will of God; we just don’t do it. We don’t live it out. As Mark Twain reportedly said, “It’s not the things in the Bible I don’t understand that bother me; it’s the things I do understand!” Some things about God’s will, God’s desire, for us are very clear in the Bible. For instance, in 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul is very clear: “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God…For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life” (4:3-5, 7). A bit later in the same book, Paul says it is God’s will that we “rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). Peter says it is God’s will for us to do good, and even to suffer for doing good if that becomes necessary. He says by doing so we will “silence the ignorant talk of foolish people” (1 Peter 2:15; 3:17; cf. 4:19). These are particular instructions in the Bible that are described as “God’s will” for us, for each and every one of us. Either we don’t know God’s will in these cases because we don’t take the time to read the Scriptures, or we actually know some of what God’s will for us is, we just don’t do it.

So there are general instructions for all those who follow Jesus, general guidelines that describe God’s will for all of God’s people. But what we usually want to know when we ask this question is this: what is God’s will is for my life? The reason, Paul says, we struggle with knowing what God wants for us is because we are more a part of “the world” than we are a part of “the kingdom.” In Biblical language, “the world” is everything that is in opposition to Jesus and his kingdom, and Paul’s concern is that we let the world dictate the terms and conditions of our lives rather than turning to Jesus. The Christian life is meant to be counter-cultural (cf. Wright, Paul for Everyone, Romans: Part Two, pg. 69). So in these short two verses, Paul walks us through four steps for discerning God’s will, the first of which is found in verse 1: “offer your bodies” to God (Harper, Walking in the Light, pg. 82). When Paul uses this language, he’s talking about giving our whole selves to Jesus. One of my seminary professors, Dr. Steve Harper, based on this verse, argues for the inclusion of “The Hokey Pokey” in the next hymnal, especially the verse where you “put your whole self in” (cf. Harper 34). That’s what it’s all about! Present your entire self, not just a part, to God. I think of it as being similar to getting into a pool or a body of water. I’m not a swimmer, so I’m not one of those “dive right in” sort of people. I sort of stick my toe in, then walk a bit further in, get used to the temperature, bit by bit. But then comes that moment when I have to make the decision: am I going to get all in or get all out? That’s the first decision we have to make if we want to know God’s good, pleasing and perfect will. Are we going to get in or go all in? We can’t know God’s will if we’re just playing church rather than living fully as a Christian. Present your bodies, your whole self.

Some today, like in Paul’s time and in the Roman church, instead of giving themselves over to God have chosen to give their bodies over to pleasure, self-gratification. That has become one of the highest goals of life in the twenty-first century. Sex, indulgence, gluttony—some of these things that used to be considered “deadly sins” are now simply the norm. Or, on the other end of the spectrum, some give their bodies over to pain, in the form of self-mutilation or self-humiliation, cutting and drug abuse are only a few examples of that. On either end of the spectrum, it’s self-centered, being focused on ourselves rather than on giving ourselves over to God. Paul calls us to something greater: present your whole selves to God.

The next piece of that, then is this: we present ourselves as what Paul calls a “living sacrifice” (12:1). Sacrificial systems were well-known in the ancient world, and certainly in Israel. Much of the Biblical books of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers describe in detail the way sacrifices were to be done in Israel, but they weren’t alone. Ritual sacrifice was common all across the ancient world, but what made Israel different is that their sacrifices were made to express gratitude or to ask forgiveness for sin. In other cultures, sacrifices were often done to convince or even to manipulate the gods into doing what you wanted them to do. That was not the case in Israel. Another thing that made Israel’s sacrificial system unique is that human life was sacred; there were no human sacrifices allowed, as there were in other cultures. Except now Paul calls for us, for God’s people, to be “living sacrifices.” That language would have seemed odd in the first century. Every sacrifice anyone knew was a dead sacrifice, but this phrase, “living sacrifices,” is Paul’s way of reminding us that this is different that a traditional sacrifice (Harper 84). A traditional sacrifice can only be offered once. A living sacrifice is offered each and every day. We present ourselves to God anew each and every day. Every morning, when I wake up, before I even get up out of bed, I give myself to God again. I’ll often pray that Wesleyan Covenant Prayer we prayed together at the first of the year: “I am no longer my own, but thine. Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.” Every day, I give myself again to God, laying my life on the altar and asking for his guidance, direction and strength for the day ahead. I remember the late Rich Mullins, who was known for ruffling a few feathers in the Christian world, saying he had once frustrated an interviewer who wanted to nail down exactly when he had been “saved.” His response to her was, “Which time?” He went on to explain that we need Jesus every day, and we need to give ourselves to him anew every day if we’re ever going to be able to find his will—his good, pleasing and perfect will. We present our whole selves to God as living sacrifices.

Paul’s third step, then, follows in verse 2: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world.” Or, as the Dennis Ticen paraphrased version says, “Don’t get sucked into this cultural moment.” We like to think we live in a unique time in history; I’m not sure of that. Other times have come and gone which have also been tricky for the church to navigate. Rome in the first century, to whom Paul was writing, was not all that different from our world today. There was then and is now intense pressure from the culture to give in, to conform, to assimilate, to be just like everyone else. Go along to get along. We see that same pressure exerting incredible stress within our own United Methodist Church, as some Conferences, churches and even whole Jurisdictions choose actions that either push the boundaries or outright defy church doctrine and law in order to, we’re told, be on the “right side of history.” Honestly, that phrase sounds lot like “conform to the pattern of this world,” and Paul says—don’t do that! There are some folks want to give up on the United Methodist Church, but I believe God is actually doing a new thing, and that he’s not done with us yet. There are those yet who refuse to conform to the pattern of the world and who long for the church to stand up, refocus and begin once again actively making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

Those same pressures exert themselves on your life, as well. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, knew this struggle in his own life, and so when he began to form small accountability groups among the early people called Methodist, he expected them, each time they gathered, to ask questions of one another. The questions were these:

1. What known sins have you committed since our last meeting?

2. What temptations have you met with?

3. How were you delivered?

4. What have you thought, said, or done, of which you doubt whether it be sin or not?

5. Have you nothing you desire to keep secret?

These questions were meant to help the believers hold each other accountable; we tend to think twice about perhaps doing something that will conform us to the world if we know someone is going to be asking us about it! In any sort of small group setting, those are good questions to ask each other, and they are good questions even to hold ourselves accountable. If we’re going to find God’s will, we cannot be conformed to the pattern of this world.

But Paul doesn’t leave it there. He tells us what to do instead: “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (12:2). Here is the key to opening our lives to the will of God. Once we’ve offered our entire selves as living sacrifices, and made the conscious choice to turn away from the pattern of the world, we are then ready for God to work in and through us. Tom Wright says a lot of us are confused about this point. We tend to believe we can live up to something like Christian standards while still thinking the way the rest of the world thinks. It can’t be done (Wright 69). The word Paul uses for “transformed” is our word “metamorphosis,” behind which is the image of what happens to change a caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly. The caterpillar doesn’t just change how he looks; his very nature changes. When he emerges from the chrysalis, he is a different being. He once crawled, now he flies. He sees the world from a different vantage point. As we are transformed, so should we. And as we see the world differently, we begin to think differently, we think straight rather than the twisted thinking the world forces on us (Wright 71), and we live differently as well. Our actions are changed as our mind is transformed (cf. Moo, NIV Application Commentary: Romans, pg. 395). And as we begin to live the way God calls us to live, we learn that this is true human living. This is the way God intended us to live from the very beginning (cf. Wright 69).

Each day, as I offer myself to God, I do find myself wishing God would just deliver his good, pleasing and perfect will for that day to my email inbox. Just send me a note and let me know what you want me to do today, God. It doesn’t have to be a long note; maybe just some general guidelines. That has not happened to me yet, and I doubt it’s happened to you, either. Part of our problem, even when we’ve opened our lives to God’s will for us, is that we tend to think that there is a story already written for us, and we just have to find it. We talked a couple of weeks ago about some of the problems with this mindset, mainly this: if such an idea is true, that God has already written the story for everyone, then God is responsible for all the rape, murder, shootings, war, hunger and all the evil in the world. If God truly is merciful, loving and just, this is impossible. God cannot be merciful and determine that this person would be raped or this person would be killed while doing their duty.

The other struggle with such an idea is this question: what happens if I miss it? Or what happens if I step out of the story? When I was making up my mind about where to go to college, I was planning to study journalism, and the two best schools for that in Indiana are Ball State and IU. Despite having lived near Purdue and cheered for the Boilermakers all my life, I toured IU and Ball State both, but ultimately decided to attend Ball State because it was a smaller school. That’s where I met Cathy, where we fell in love and then got married after graduating. Now, let’s suppose I hadn’t chosen Ball State. Suppose I had gone to IU instead; I would have never met Cathy, would probably have married someone else, had a different family, taken a different path, and may never have ended up in Terre Haute. So I could drive myself crazy wondering if I missed God’s will for me. Did I go the right direction? Did I make the right choice? I certainly believe so, but what if God doesn’t? Do you see how you could drive yourself crazy trying to figure such things out? I believe this may be one of the problems we have with discerning God’s will for our lives: we worry so much about being on the right path, in the right story, living out the right script that we actually miss what God is trying to do in our lives.

What if following God’s will for our lives is more dynamic than a pre-planned script? What if being part of God’s story is more like collaboration? The great missionary and literacy advocate of the early twentieth century, Frank Laubach, had as a part of his daily practice a simple prayer that went like this: “Lord, what can you and I do together to further your will today?” Laubach played what he called a “game with minutes,” and the goal was to see how many minutes each hour he could be aware of God’s presence and of doing God’s will. So, Laubach suggested, when we encounter someone on the street or in the coffee shop, our prayer should be, “God, what can we do together for this man [or woman] we are passing?” In every situation, we look for ways we can collaborate or cooperate with God in transforming the world. Sometimes, I believe, in spending our time looking for “the big will of God,” we miss so many little opportunities to participate with God in changing the world one heart at a time. I like the way Henry Blackaby says it in his book Experiencing God, “The truth is that God can do anything He pleases through an ordinary person who is fully dedicated to Him.” If you’re willing to be a living sacrifice, God can and will use you to further his will.

Here’s a way to think about it: a doctor will write a prescription for us, with directions on how to take this medicine that will lead to health and healing, but it’s still up to us to take it, to cooperate with the guidance of one who knows better (cf. Hamilton, Why?, pg. 64). We collaborate with the doctor and cooperate with his prescription. Some theologians refer to this as God’s prescriptive will. God has guidance for us, and waits for us to agree to cooperate with him, to collaborate with him. And, as I said a couple of weeks ago, there isn’t anything we can do that God can’t use in some way. As Pastor Rick mentioned last week, sometimes we go through things that we would never have asked for or prayed for, things God doesn’t even desire for us (because not everything that happens is God’s will), but God uses them for his glory. God has a prescriptive will for us. But also hear me clearly on this: though God calls us to cooperate, and asks us to participate in his will, God’s ultimate will for the world will not be derailed even by our disobedience. As Ellsworth Kalas once put it, “God can bring the divine will to pass, regardless of the ugliness of any situation” (The Will of God in an Unwilling World, pg. 9). You can’t throw God off, but you can jump into what he is doing.

If we’re aware, if we’re listening and watching, God will use us in unexpected ways. John Stonestreet tells about a time when he was a ninth grader in a Christian school. The last day of classes before Christmas break, the teacher announced that the boys’ Bible class was going to go out two by two and visit the elderly shut-ins, just about the last thing these Christian school boys wanted to do the day before Christmas break. John and his friend Brian were paired together, and each pair was given two shut-ins to visit. Brian suggested they go visit one person, pretend they couldn’t find the second and then go to the mall. John agreed, and off they headed to Mrs. Buckner’s home.

Mrs. Buckner was an 89-year-old widow who lived in a small apartment built by her grandson at the end of his house. Mrs. Buckner invited these boys in, and as they sat down, she suggested they sing Christmas carols. After one verse of “Silent Night,” however, she decided that was enough. “Well, Mrs. Buckner,” Brian said, “we’d best be on our way.” John agreed, “We still have one more person to visit before heading back to school.” But before they could leave, Mrs. Buckner asked if they could pray together. So they did, both boys going first, together praying a grand total of about 45 seconds. And then Mrs. Buckner prayed. She prayed in a way that made John feel like Jesus was there in the room with them. She spoke to God as if she knew him. And, at the end of the prayer, the boys left, not quite the same as they had been when they came in.

Two years later, John says he woke up with a strange feeling. On this particular morning, he woke up thinking about Mrs. Bucker; he had no idea why. But he went to her house and said to her, “You probably don’t remember me, but I was here with my friend Brian a couple of years ago.” Mrs. Buckner smiled. “John, I prayed for you today.” And from that moment on, she became a close friend, praying for him daily. He says God used her to alter the trajectory of his life. “To this day,” he wrote, “I cannot imagine what she prayed me into or out of” (BreakPoint commentary, May 25, 2016). An ordinary widow, open to whatever God placed in front of her, learned to cooperate with God, to allow God to work his will through her, to pray for a young man who would eventually become a well-known Christian leader, a young man who today gives leadership to the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. That story takes me back to that Laubach prayer: “What can you and I do together today, Lord?” How can I jump into the stream of your good, pleasing and perfect will today?

Mike Powers was our pastor when we were in seminary, and he once told the story of being asked by his District Superintendent to move to a new church. Things were going well in the place he was currently appointed, and neither he nor the church had asked for a move. So he asked for some time to pray about it, and the DS gave him that time. So Mike prayed about it. His wife, Sherry, prayed about it. And, as Mike described it, he cried out to God and asked to be shown what to do. What was God’s will in this situation? He had no real clarity. He said finally, when he got really quiet enough to listen, he asked God again, “What do you want me to do?” And he said at that moment, he clearly heard God say, “I don’t care! I can use you here and I can use you there, as long as you stay open to me.” Mike and Sherry did make that move and enjoyed several years of fruitful ministry in the next church, but had they stayed Mike had no doubt he could have continued to have fruitful ministry in the other church. Sometimes it’s clear which path to take, and sometimes it’s cloudy, and sometimes it doesn’t matter either way because God can use you no matter what choice you make. They key is to give yourself to God wholeheartedly, a living sacrifice, to turn away from the ways of the world and to allow your mind to be focused on Christ and his call. “Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (12:2).

In the final analysis, Jesus summed up living out God’s will perfectly this way. When he was asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus responded with what, at first glance, seems to be two commands: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength…Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:30-31). As I said, they seem to be two commandments, but they really aren’t. We love God primarily by loving those God has made, loving God’s children, and we can’t really love his children if we don’t first love God. These are two sides of the same coin, two pieces of the same command. Love God, love others. It’s what John Wesley called “entire sanctification,” the perfected Christian life. Love God, love others. Such a person, Jesus says, is “not far from the kingdom of God” (Mark 12:34). It’s the piece that is most missing in our violent world today. I’m not singing some sappy theme song like “love is all you need” or “love will keep us together.” But what difference does it make when we see the other as a child of God, a creation of God, someone made in God’s image? It changes the way we approach the other. It changes the way we view and value life. Violence seems a less appropriate option when that other person is made in the image of God, when we seek to love them as God does, for that is the will of God, the greatest commandment, for you and for me and for our weary old world. Love God, love others. Finding the will of God is as simple—and as complex—as that. Toward that end, let’s pray.