A LIFE OF COMMITMENT

Romans 12:1-2

Before embarking on a flight, most people want to know where their plane is going. Otherwise, as Yogi Berra, the former New York Yankee catcher, once said, "If you don't know where you're going, you might end up somewhere else." In our life's journey, it is important that we understand our direction, or our target in order that we don't waste a lot of resources and energies and end up frustrated and defeated.

For this reason, we as a church adopted this significant slogan last year believing that this will help define the direction where we should be going as believers and as a church:

"Leading people to a life of commitment and productivity in Christ"

Yes, this is the target for everyone to aim at. We want to focus our resources and energies in helping everyone, who come to our church, especially our members to become more committed to God and become more productive in life.

As we begin another year, I believe this is the best time to set the direction for our church, and explain the Biblical basis of the two important concepts included in our slogan. So, allow me to do this today and next Sunday.

First and foremost, let's consider the life of commitment. Would you consider yourself committed to God? Do we really understand what it means to be committed to God?

The apostle Paul in our passage extends a call to a life of commitment. For Paul, a committed Christian must have the following:

I    THE RIGHT COMPULSION: (v. 1a)

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy"

This first phrase in our text establishes the driving force for commitment. The apostle Paul makes his appeal to the believers on the basis of God's mercies.

It is difficult to appreciate God's mercy without understanding the first eleven chapters of Romans. The word, "Therefore," in our text, signals a conclusive statement. I believe the verse that captures the first eleven chapters is Romans 6:23:

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Using this verse, God's mercy literally means God withholding our punishment despite all our sins, and giving us eternal life on account of Jesus Christ.

Therefore, in Paul's appeal for commitment, he is not asking for a favor; rather, he is stating an obligation. It is our obligation to think about what Christ has done and to make our commitment accordingly. Our commitment must emanate from our grateful attitude towards what God has done for us in our salvation. The greater our comprehension of what God has done for us, the greater our commitment should be. This is exactly what Isaac Watts conveyed in his hymn, "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross." One of the lines said:

Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all

II   THE READY CONSECRATION: (v. 1b)

"To offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship"

True commitment also includes a ready consecration. The idea of consecration comes from Paul's usage of the language of sacrifice - "To offer." This picture carries two important characteristics:

A) Total - When you place a sacrifice on the altar, the fire will consume everything. As believers, the passage demands that we offer our bodies, not just our skin or bones, our total bodies or simply speaking our total life. This should help us recognize that God demands a once and for all consecration. The sacrifice cannot crawl out of the altar. With our bodies, the fact is that it truly belongs to God.

Since our bodies belong to God, we have to keep them healthy (living), holy, pleasing to God.

B. Reasonable - The rendering in the NIV, "spiritual service," is rendered "reasonable service" in the King James Version. Bible. Scholars often prefer the KJV since the Greek word use for this is logikos, which is translated often as "logical." You see, for Paul, offering ourselves to God is reasonable and logical because it is consistent with a proper understanding of the truth of God as revealed in the Bible.

We are not our own, we are the property of the Lord, by the right of creation and redemption; and it would be as unreasonable as it would be wicked not to live to his glory. (Adam Clarke)

III  THE RIGHTEOUS CONDUCT: (v.2a)

Do not conform any Longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind

Living a committed life also includes a righteous conduct. In verse two, Paul gave us a negative and a positive command:

A) Negatively - We should do our best not to conform to the pattern of this world.

"Pattern" - From the Greek word schema, which means scheme.

We are all called to live righteously in the world. We have to be careful with what we read and watch so that we are not influence by the lures of the world. Above all, we should never be afraid to be different from the world.

B) Positively - We are to be transformed by the renewing of our mind.

"Transformed" - Transliterated from the Greek, you have the word "Metamorphosed" or Metamorphosis, the change from one form to another, as in the transformation of the tadpole to the frog or the caterpillar to the butterfly.

Committed Christians are continually changing into the image of Jesus Christ. This change takes place when we live out the truths that we are learning from the Word of God ("By renewing your mind").

IV  THE REWARDING CONSEQUENCE: (v. 2b)

"Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is -- his good, pleasing and perfect will."

Here is how a modern translation renders the last part of verse two, "Then you will be able to discern the will of God, and to know what is good, acceptable, and perfect" (The New English Bible)

As a Christian is transformed in his mind and is made more like Christ, he comes to approve and desire God's will, not his own will for his life. Then he discovers that God's will is what is good for him, and that it pleases God, and is complete in every way. It is all he needs.

Nothing but total commitment of our lives to God makes it possible to really understand the will of God whereby we are guaranteed with blessings, which only God can give. How important is this? Listen to the words of a great man of God, Alexander Maclaren:

To know beyond doubt what I ought to do, and knowing to do it, seems to me to be heaven on earth, and the man that has it needs but little more.

Would you consider committing your life totally to God? Total commitment is the only logical way to live.