Sun Kwak, “God Commissions Us”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd7iqUcgUFA

TEXT: Romans 11:33-12:2

[33] Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

[34] “For who has known the mind of the Lord,

or who has been his counselor?”

[35] “Or who has given a gift to him

that he might be repaid?”

[36] For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

[1] 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. [2] Do 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.

SERMON: “God Commissions Us”

Today marks the beginning of Holy Week, the week where we commemorate the last week of Jesus’ earthly ministry. And today we reflect upon Palm Sunday, which was when Jesus came riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. And when you look at the Gospels, and I’ll highlight here the end of Luke 9, which precedes this event known as the Triumphal Entry, Jesus is said to have set his face toward Jerusalem. And Jerusalem is his end game, where he is to be crucified and killed. Meaning everything he’s arranged is premeditated. Him coming into Jerusalem riding on a donkey. Then, to object against the Temple and everything going on there. To then, feeding sacrificially friends who would leave him. And dying on the cross, with the mocking sign set above him — King of the Jews. Which was not a form of flattery but very much the contrary. Because everything about Jesus made people question — What kind of king is this? And what kind of kingdom is he bringing? I’ve shared this before. One of my favorite things that I’ve heard someone say comes from Friedrich Nietzsche, who was not a friend to Christianity. But he was observing the behavioral patterns of manic people. And he concluded that they are those dancing to music that no one else can hear. I remember reading that and thinking — That’s the Christian. We dance to a tune that others may not hear — yet. That for those who are asking the question — What kind of king is this? And what kind of kingdom is he bringing? These also ought to look at the movements and the behavioral patterns of the church and of Christians and conclude — They must be dancing to music no one else can hear. Because in the words of Madeleine L’Engle, when Christians respond to the our faith stirred and moved by the gospel, our behavior should be what she calls a living mystery. Where the only explanation can be found in the God we sing to, worship, and find our rest and salvation in. And so, for our Palm Sunday meditation today, we are looking at how the countercultural story of the gospel brings about this countercultural movement of the church — us who belong to a different kingdom and a different order. Because the gospel changes everything. It transforms individual sinners hell bent toward everything anti-God. It transforms communities through how we turn toward and not away from one another. And it transforms cultures through showing a new and different way to live.

So, we’re in the letter to the Romans today. And this is kind of the hinge to the whole book. The first eleven chapters kind of depict what God has done in his approach toward sinners — how he changes our judicial status before him. But then, the last five chapters, starting here in chapter 12 is about how those with changed statuses now experienced changed behaviors. And in these first eleven chapters, the apostle Paul has really described some of the high water marks for how God in Christ has committed to loving his people by his grace. And so, this larger section ends with what we call a doxology, which is what we sing at the end of our worship service — having experienced and observed all the ways in which God has loved his people. And the final statement preceding the Amen in verse 36, which seals the doxology. From him, meaning he’s the source. Through him, meaning he’s the means. And to him, meaning he’s the end point, the telos. From beginning to end, and everything in between, this is the immensity of the eternal God, who by his grace, stepped into time and space. Paul here explodes in worship, as he sings — How big is our God, how great is his love, how deep is his grace. There’s a German poet by the name of Rainer Maria Rilke. And in one of his journals, he recalls a time when he spent hours in a museum. And he was particularly fixated upon a giant statue of the Greek god Apollos. And as he was astounded by the size, the artistry, and the grandeur of the statue, he records this reaction in his journal — I must change. There was something about this statue that when standing next to it, it brought about this reaction. And if Rilke reacts in such ways to a statue of a mythical Greek god, how must we respond when considering our God where all things are from him, through him, and to him? And when we hear that he is not distant but that he has come near, it necessitates of us who observe this travel of a deep change.

And here, the apostle Paul doesn’t charge the Romans to change by his apostolic authority. He could have, but he doesn’t. Because as we’re going to find, there’s not enough power with our personal commitments and efforts to change. It requires something cosmic. Because what catalyzes deeper and more lasting change is not a set of forceful commands. But rather, it’s the mercies of God. That the mercies of God serve as the greatest power source and engine to this call for change in the Christian life. And when I was first learning how to read the Bible, there was a certain Scottish mentor I’ve never met by the name of Alistair Begg who first brought this to light for me. And it’s not anything unique to him — it’s commonly stated by most everyone who teaches on the Bible. But it’s stuck with me, with his Scottish brogue in hearing. That whenever we see the word therefore, we need to ask the question — What is the therefore there for?Meaning, we need to look at the context, at what preceded the therefore to make sense of the words that follow. And we noted of how the preceding section in chapters 1-11 was a long spelled out section where the apostle Paul disclosed of how God is for us and not against us. And when you look through chapters 1-11, there are a total of seven commands. In chapter 12 alone, there are twenty commands by my count. Because what the apostle Paul is spelling out in these first eleven chapters as of first importance is not about what we have to do. But rather, the focus is upon what has been done. And so, with the turn of the therefore — having known all that God has done through Christ. With the turn, we get the therefore that drives us to application, the call to live in accordance to what we know with what Christ has accomplished on our behalf.

In the story Alice in Wonderland, little Alice meets Cheshire Cat when she hits a fork in the road. And there, she doesn’t know which path to take. And so, she asks to Cheshire Cat which path she should take. And to that Cheshire Cat asks Alice where she wants to go. To which, she responded that she didn’t know. And so, his response — that it shouldn’t matter which path she takes, if she doesn’t know where she wants to go. Because where we’re headed has everything to do with how we move and take our steps. And when you look at verse 2, there are a set of words that need to be read in conjunction. And it’s the words conformed and transformed. Verse 2 reads: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” And if you look at the word conformed, it’s a word that’s only used twicein the entirety of the New Testament. It’s here and more informatively in 1 Peter 1:14, which reads, “Do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.” And while we often look at the charge to not be conformed to this world as kind of a separatist charge, it seems that Peter, along with Paul, uses this word to remind us of our identity — away from what we once were and toward what we’re becoming. And the word translated as world has that kind of nuance to it, where it’s often used of not just to talk about a place but also an age. Because that word translated as transformed in the Greek could also be translated as transfigured — the same word used of at the moment of Jesus’transfiguration in the Gospel accounts.

And so, here, the apostle Paul directs us of how we’ve been brought from one age to another. Through the king who stepped into time and space to bring in this order of a different kingdom, of what Tim Keller called the upside down kingdom. That we are a heaven bound people, those who are wholly shaped by the reality of the resurrection and the promises it provides for us who are not to be conformed but transformed. I used to have to lead small group discussionspretty regularly, and one of the things I’d always ask were icebreaker questions. And one of the regulars was — What superpower would you like to have? And of course, there would be a variety of answers from invisibility to reading minds to teleporting. But without fail, at least one person always responded with the answer — time travel. And you think about how the apostle Paul informs us of how we, in our renewed identities, are taken from one age to another, this is a bit like time travel. And this isn’t a one for one analogy, so take this with a grain of salt. When you consider fictitious time travel in novels and films, it’s usually through some kind of portal that carries you from one age to another. And either that portal has to be forged through some immense amount of energy or it has to have been created through an entrance from the other realm and age. And to take finite creatures and to give us the hope and vision of transfiguration, it took both. It had to take the entrance of one from eternity to this finite world and would have to involve an event of an immense amount of energy.

And one of the ways that the apostle Paul explains this is with one of the more well-known parts of these verses, when he urges us — to present your bodies as a living sacrifice. And before getting to how this connects to how we’re taken from one world to another, I want to note some intentional inconsistencies that force us to do a double take. And the first of these inconsistencies is with the combination of the words living and sacrifice. Sacrifices, throughout the Bible, were meant to be killed. G. Campbell Morgan says that the problem with a living sacrifice is that it will crawl off the altar. The whole purpose of a sacrifice is that it’s to be offered, and thus, slaughtered. Sacrifices were meant to be dead, killed — not living. That’s inconsistency number one. But the second one is something that the grammarians among us may have picked up on. Because we’re called upon to present our bodies — plural — as a living sacrifice — singular. And I’m not discounting that the gospel compels toward sacrifice. But there is a deeper power source that catapults into this time travel that causes to move and to dance and to sing in unusual and foreign ways. Like the things we see later listed in this chapter — the marks of the true Christian. By the ways we love one another, honor one another, as those who rejoice in hope, who are patient in tribulation, who seek to show hospitality. Those who bless those who persecute you. Those who rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Those who live in harmony with one another. Those who associate with the lowly. Those who repay no one evil for evil. What is the central power source this kind of countercultural behavior? It comes not through the sacrifices of the many but the sacrifice of one. Those inconsistencies we referred to. As we present our bodies — plural — as a living sacrifice — singular.

Because this sacrifice is not ultimately about us. There’s one sacrifice. It’s not continual or repeated acts of sacrifice that we’re being directed to. But rather, the singular once and for all sacrifice that represented the ultimate paradox in this upside down kingdom, involving living and killing, life and death. Where in time travel, the eternal God wrote himself into the story involving his finite creatures. Where he created this portal through the event of ultimate paradox, involving an immense amount of energy. Where cosmic powers were unleashed upon one sacrifice. Where in ultimate paradox, a good king gave up his life for bad servants. Where the perfect man died in the stead of imperfect people. Where the sinless one died on the cross as the vilest of criminals. Where the perfectly obedient son received the punishments poured out by a just Father. The cross is this portal that transports us from being conformed to this age to having now a new identityin what we will one day fully be transfigured into. Because there on the cross, we have one who stepped into our world to transform us by being malformed himself. On the cross, where we have our sins nailed and smeared onto our King who made ultimate travel to offer his life once and for all. And sure, we live with a sacrificial commitment. But that comes as a response. Because — What is the therefore there for? The central power source for how we change doesn’t come with our commitments to sacrificing our individual lives. There’s not enough power in our own efforts — in our living and in our dying. But with Jesus and his commitment to us, there is a cosmic power, and it’s a transformative power to bring dead hearts to beat with new life.

In The Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis calls this cosmic power not the deep magic but the deeper magic. This was the hidden law written on the Stone Table from before the dawn of time. If you ever hear our son Cohen saying — He must die on the stone table. He’s not being violent, not that he’s incapable of that. But he’s referring to this event. You might recall from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe of how Edmund had betrayed Aslan in order to enact allegiances with the Witch. And that deep magic that Edmund had fallen into was him being conformed to this world, lured into the traps of temptation and sin, and thus, wrapped into its powers and dire consequences. But here’s how Aslan the Great Lionand Christ figure explains not the deep magic but the deeper magic. He tells Edmund’s siblings: “It means that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.” And as the story unfolds, it’s Aslan himself, who goes to the table, the altar to be killed in Edmund’s stead. And when that happened, indeed, the table, the altar cracked. And what that represented was that the altar was no longer functional to punish Edmund for his wrongdoings. The deed had been done by one in his stead.

I imagine that for some of us in here, when we walk into worship, we envision an altar. And we recall the sins of our past, our ventures into dark places. We are reminded our addictive patterns, where we are often rendered powerless. We are given stinging reminders of hidden sins and of deep hypocrisy. We who committed treason in betraying our King because of a deep magic that spoke false promises, to which we left Jesus for. And we look at the altar and know — That should be me, right there before a holy and perfect God whom I’ve offended. But the story of the gospel is that deeper magic, where the altar has cracked. And it is now no longer functional to hold those who trust in the willing victim who had committed no treachery, he who goes in our place and our stead. We hear it announced to us from the cross — Paid in full, it is finished. As the curtain tore in two from top to bottom, as the Son of God came from heaven to earth to live for, to die for, to pay for, to rise for sinners who place their trust in him. I need us to know — The altar is broken. It is no longer functional for us who place our trust in Jesus Christ.

And here’s how I want to begin closing our time here. There’s one last aspect of the text that drives us toward application. Because with all of this new creation and transformation alluded to through the apostle Paul, you almost anticipate him to write — offer up your minds or your hearts as a living sacrifice. Because these are the aspects of us that have been renewed. But that’s not what he writes, and it’s not what we’re to read. Interestingly enough, he tells us to offer up our bodies. And it’s interesting he says that, because the Bible tells us that the thing yet to be changed and left completely unaffected is our bodies. Our minds, our hearts, our souls are connected to the new order. But the remaining stench of our imperfections and the remaining attachment to this old older is our bodies. And here’s one Dictionary definition of that Greek word σωμα — The human body considered as the seat and occasion of moral imperfections, as inducing to sin through its appetites and passions. And here, when the apostle Paul calls us to offer up to the broken altar our bodies, our imperfections, I think it cues us in on some application toward gospel change. Because it’s not when we offer up our good deeds to God. But it’s when we offer up what’s broken, what needs healing, what requires forgiveness, what begs for transformation. It’s when we admit to our helplessness, when we confess our sins, when we speak aloud our imperfections. It’s when we speak of not our goodness but of another’s perfect goodness in our place. True and lasting change occurs when we bring our sins to the broken altar of the cross.

In a later book in The Chronicles of Narnia, the forgiven once traitor Edmund surfaces again. And there, he is now one who’s been transformed and changed. He’s royalty because of the one who showed that deeper magic. And so, Edmund, in this later time extends mercy to one who had done wrong, offering up these words: “Even a traitor may mend. I have known one that did.” What has the power to mend traitors like Edmund, like you, like me? It’s not in our commitments or our own efforts. It’s in the deeper magic, the story of the gospel. We admit to our sins, we speak aloud our deficienciesand our needs and our lacks, as those who are all in process. Because for Edmund, for you, and for me, our trust is in the one who stepped into our world in order to reclaim and restore traitors. And there is deep power in the story of the gospel. Enough power to create this countercultural community of love, sacrifice, honor, hospitality, and forgiveness. Because of he who stepped into world, singing to us the song of redemption, that we might dance to music that this world has yet to hear.