Transforming Mercy

 August 27 2023

Romans 12:1-2

         As a pastor I try and keep an open mind when it comes to other denominations so that I at least can say that I have tried to understand where other churches are coming from. That being said, I am totally baffled by the church that I have seen who gather on the town squares with their signs, yelling at all who might pass them by that we had better get right with God or burn in hell. Now, I am all for people getting saved but is this the best way to go about getting people to place their faith in Jesus? And I just wonder, where did they get this idea that what Jesus calls us to do is to carry signs and yell at people? I wonder if they have some different Bible than the one I read, because my Bible tells me that Jesus teaches us in the thirteenth chapter of John that the way people will know us as his disciples is if we love one another. Does marching around yelling at people that if they don’t turn they’ll burn, is this the loving actions Jesus spoke about? Like I said, I am willing to try and understand but what this church is doing is baffling! I mean, what does this group do when they come to the book of  Romans where we hear Paul tell us at the end of the eleventh chapter, “For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he might have mercy on all.” Somehow, this church with their signs spelling out doom and gloom has missed the point that God always leads with mercy not judgment. As James writes in the second chapter of his letter, “Mercy triumphs over judgment.” So, if this is true, why make it sound as if judgment is the last word when we are told that mercy will be victorious over judgment?

         Just so we didn’t miss the point, Paul, when coming to the time to wrap up his letter, concludes with the mercy of God. Its as if Paul is saying that if he had to leave his audience with one summarizing thought it would be, “For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he might have mercy on all.” Paul understood that the mercy of God is the very power that transforms the disobedient into those who are at last able to do what God wills. This transformation just cannot occur from ones fear of judgment because fear is rooted in death, and how can death bring about new life, only the resurrection can do that.

         Now, you might be wondering , just why have we skipped the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters. The reason is that in these chapters, Paul is speaking to the tragedy that was his people, the people of Israel. They were the very ones chosen by God to be his people, the ones who had been given God’s law, the ones who God had not abandoned in the exile. Yet in spite of the faithfulness of God, God’s own people did not respond with faith. It was the people of Israel, not the people of the nations, who refused to accept that Jesus, is the Son of God even though he has been raised from the dead. So here in these three chapters, Paul takes a deep dive into the history of his people and if we start into these three chapters then when we get to the twelfth chapter there is a good chance that we will not remember all of the subtle references that Paul makes to what he had said in the earlier chapters of this letter. I find that it just helps to make sense of Paul’s conclusion to his letter, in chapter twelve, if we read it as the ending which comes after the eighth chapter.

         It becomes apparent that Paul is summarizing his letter up in this twelfth chapter when we read the first sentence, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice…” This idea of sacrifice is a major theme of the eighth chapter of Romans. We hear this in the sixth verse, where Paul says that to set our minds on the Spirit is life and peace. This is the exact wording found in the second chapter of Malachi, where the prophet says that God’s covenant with his priests was one of life and peace. So Paul appears to be alluding to those in the Spirit as being priests like those found in the Temple. Further in this chapter, Paul states that if by the Spirit we hand over to death the deeds of the body, we will live. This is very close to what Paul is speaking of when he says that we are to present our bodies as living sacrifices. Paul, also in this eighth chapter, speaks of us being the first fruits of the Spirit in the twenty-third verse. This first fruits was an offering given to God which spoke of one’s faith in God to produce a harvest. And at the end of the eighth chapter, Paul quotes from the forty-fourth Psalm, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” To Paul this Psalm spoke of our conforming ourselves to the image of the Son, Jesus Christ. The eighth chapter began with Paul stating that God had sent his Son in the likeness of human flesh and as a sin offering. Here Paul echoes what is written in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, “All we as sheep have gone astray; every one has gone astray in his way; and the Lord gave him up for our sins. And he, because of his affliction, opens not his mouth: he was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is dumb, so he opens not his mouth”. So, as we follow the way of the cross, we too follow Christ in offering ourselves to the Father.

         You see, when chapter eight is fresh in our minds it is easy to see that the sacrifice that leads to life is when we offer up the deeds of our body. This is a call for us to cease using all of our time and effort chasing down what we are going to eat, what we are going to drink or what we are going to wear. This is our life when we  allow fear, anxiety and worry to live in us. These are the ways that only lead to death, so it is imperative that we cease allowing them to come to life in us. We need to sacrifice these desires of our body so that we, instead, seek first the kingdom of God.

         Well not only does Paul reference the eighth chapter in his conclusion of his letter here in the twelfth chapter, he also references what he wrote of in the sixth chapter. When Paul tells us that we are to, “ present our bodies”, he uses the same words found in the sixth chapter, where he implores us to present ourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life. This presenting is when we stand ready to serve, either God or sin. Paul adds that we can either be slaves to sin or we can be slaves to God. What Paul is saying here in the twelfth chapter that when we see such a decision, whether to be a slave to sin or to be a slave to God, in light of the mercy of God, the only logical choice is to be a servant of God; any other choice just does not make sense. In our language, choosing to serve God is just a no-brainer. Though this phrase, “spiritual worship” is often translated this way, the actual wording is, “logical service”. This service to God is understood as us being priests unto God. As priests, the sacrifice we offer up on the altar is the deeds of our body, so that the ways of the flesh might die and we might live, loving God with all that we are.

         You see, the world, that which Paul tells us that we should not conform our lives to, is the realm where fear, anxiety and worry call the shots. Jesus, in his teachings on the Sermon on the Mount spoke about this life in the world. In Matthew 5:46, Jesus asks the question, “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you get? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?” Here, where Jesus speaks of the Gentiles, he is referring to the people of the nations, in essence, the people of the world. What Jesus is getting at is that the people of the world want to love only those that they are sure will give them some love in return. The people of the world want to love just kinfolk because they are the ones who you know will be there for you, the ones that you know you can call on.  This love of the world then, is tied to this idea of the necessity of doing for others in order that they, in return, will someday do something for you. And, of course, this mentality shows up in the way the world interacts with God as Jesus describes in the sixth chapter of Matthew, “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” The people of the world are desperately trying to figure out just what do they need to say or do in order for God to be their means of fulfilling their desires. In this mindset, all one wants to do is the bare minimum that is needed for God to act on their behalf. So, it is obvious, that such an arrangement means that one will never give themselves fully to God.

         Well, this never being certain of just what it takes to move God to be the means to our happy ends, results in the people of the world, the ones that Jesus calls the “Gentiles, to become anxious, concerned about the necessities of life. At the end of the sixth chapter, Jesus tells us, “…do not be anxious, saying, “what shall we eat?, or ‘What shall we drink?”, or ‘What shall we wear?”. For the Gentiles seek after all of these things.” So the ways of the world are the ways of loving others in the hope that when we need them these we love will be there to show us a little love in return. In this same mindset, the people of the world are searching for the right words, the right incantation, that will move God to show some love in return. Without any certainty of whether they are saying the right words or doing the right actions, the people of the world are left to their own devices to frantically search for what is needed to live just one more day. And Paul emphatically warns us to not be conformed to such a life.

         What transforms this life that the people of the world are caught up in is the mercy of God. It is taking to heart what Jesus also says at the end of the fifth chapter of Matthew, that our Heavenly Father makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust. The mercy of God is God’s choice to take those consigned to disobedience and set them free from the consequences of that disobedience, for only one reason and that is that he loves us. This act of mercy is not determined by us saying the right words, uttering the right confession of faith or a us making a grand promise to do good from here on out. No, God offered us mercy before we ever realized that we even needed it or wanted it. God offers us his mercy solely because he desires a life with us, a life beyond the death that we so deserve. The reason for this is simply that God treasures us, this is why God is moved to be merciful to us. And if we know ourselves as the ones whom God treasures then it just makes sense that our Heavenly Father knows what we need before we even ask him. We are the ones who are under the constant attention of the God who desires a life with us. It is this love of God that we experience in his act of mercy that is to move us to trust our Heavenly Father. We must be certain that he will keep us safe until at last we are securely home with him. You see, when we have a new mind, a new way of thinking about God, that he is a God who treasures us, this transforms us into those who love God for who he is, the one who created us and the one who treasures us because we are his.

         You see, only as we know who are God is, only as we are certain of his mercy and his love for us, can we then figure out just what is the will of God. It seems that Paul, in speaking about the will of God, is echoing the words found in the Lord’s Prayer where Jesus taught us that we are to pray for our heavenly Father’s kingdom to come, that his will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. This ties in with what Jesus teaches us at the end of the sixth chapter of Matthew, “Your Heavenly Father knows that you need something to eat and drink, as well as something to wear, but seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”When our minds at last know our Heavenly Father as the very one who treasures us, the one who desires the very best for us, then we are set free from our anxiety and worry which control the actions of our body. Now we can be about seeking after his kingdom, this doing of his will, this bringing of the goodness of God, doing only those things which please him, here on earth because this is the end result God desires.

         When we begin to understand what Paul speaks about here in these first few verses of the twelfth chapter of Romans, then it becomes clear as to why Paul uses so many images, such as priests and sacrifices, that relate to the Temple. In Paul’s day, the Temple was thought of as being where heaven and earth touch and come together as one. But the Temple of Jerusalem belonged to the old covenant which ended with the death of Jesus upon the cross where his blood was shed upon the mercy seat. Through this mercy of God, heaven has come upon earth, the Holy Spirit reaching out from heaven into the lives of those who live under the mercy of God. So, as priests, as the new Temple that has Jesus as its cornerstone, we are where heaven comes upon the earth. What heaven pours in and through our life to touch those here on earth, is the holy love of God. We can test whether or not we are loving with the holy love of God only because we know of this love, only because we have known this love in the mercy of God. This holy love we show to others is done in the  knowledge that all people are those who are treasured by God, people whom God desires to demonstrate his mercy to them. Heaven touches earth then, when we, through the power of the Holy Spirit, love others as our Heavenly Father has first loved us. Heaven touches earth when we speak to others of our Heavenly Father’s love and care for them, and that through this love they too can be set free from the slavery of fear, anxiety and worry. Heaven touches earth when we invite others to join us in doing the very purpose God created us for, being the very ones who serve God by being the conduit through which heaven touches earth. So, let us be transformed by a new mind, a new way of considering life and love in this world so that through us, our world at last shall be transformed into a world that is good, acceptable and perfect. To the glory of God. Amen!