Reading: Romans 11:33-12:2
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and[a] knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! 34 “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” 35 “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?”36 For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen. 12 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will
Teaching:
It’s good to be back in the book of Romans, I have to admit that I wasn’t expecting to land here just so quickly after we spent so many months working through the letter last year and the year before. We are looking at today’s passage from the perspective of transformation, becoming more like Christ, with a focus on mental health. That is a huge topic all by itself, and I want to give some background and some discussion around what this means to us as Christians today. Before that there is some safety netting I need to put in place.
Mental health is hugely important; in line with physical health it is a genuine issue. In the same way that people have different levels of physical fitness their mental wellbeing will vary. It is often a lot easier to assess someone’s physical wellbeing than their mental wellbeing, as it can be easy to “put a good face on things”. Mental illness still has a stigma attached to it, which is clearly wrong. Those people who have poor mental health can attempt to hide their condition to avoid being treated differently to others.
We know that God can do all things. He is all powerful, all knowing, all loving. God can absolutely heal mental illness in the same way he can heal physical conditions. I whole heartedly believe this, and rejoice in his power. Just because God can heal does not mean that he will – the passage at the end of Romans 11 gives us great hope that He knows what he is doing. Sometimes His divine purposes are served through weakness – physical or mental – and much longed for healing does not take place. We will not know all the depths of his wisdom until we stand beside him in glory.
I was almost going to read the whole way through a very tired sermon illustration at this point, I couldn’t bring myself to do it all though – It is the one where a man is on the roof of his house in the middle of a flood. A rowing boat goes past, but the man is waiting for God to save him and refuses. The same happens with a motorboat and a helicopter, and the man dies. When he reaches heaven he asks God why he didn’t save him, and God tells him that the boats and helicopter were the means he was using to save him.
We, as Christians, are still human beings. We have had our souls redeemed by Christ, we are certain of our hope in Him, but we retain human bodies and minds which are subject to disease, damage, decay and decline. While He can use supernatural means to bring healing, far more often God uses practical, human, secular methods to give relief. Just as he sent the boat and helicopter he can send people – friends, family, church family – to support us physically and emotionally, he provides health workers who can prescribe medication which can improve our mental state and who can provide professional counselling. All of those may be the mechanisms by which God provides support, strength and healing. I am anxious to ensure that nobody stops those sources of God given support in an effort to prove He will heal them. Do not stop medication or therapy without professional advice. I apologise for taking so long over this section, but I have been convicted this week that this needed to be said.
Right, let’s get back to the passage.
The doxology in chapter 11 is extoling how far beyond us God is – we cannot give him riches, we cannot give him advice, we cannot tell him anything he does not know. I have looked in a couple of commentaries in preparation, and they comment on the disconnect between Paul talking theology and his more practical advice at the end of the letter – yet they are not different things. Practical service is theology in action. Faith without works is dead. If we do not demonstrate that we love someone then we have failed to follow the teachings of Jesus; our theology is therefore incorrect. God is not separated into theology and practice, physical and spiritual. He sees holistically – body mind and soul – as one. I have heard that analogy being used in an attempt to explain the Trinity.
Let’s look at Romans 12
I urge you brothers in view of God’s mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.
There are a few points to make – firstly the word translated as mercy is plural in the Greek. God shows us mercies, plural, there are many of them! Isn’t that great! The hymn “Great is thy faithfulness” has the fantastic line “morning by morning new mercies I see”. God does not ask us for anything he does not repay abundantly.
He asks for sacrifice – then most religions, like the old order of Jewish Law required sacrifice of animals. They died. This new order is a living sacrifice -something that is done on a daily basis, that results in ongoing service to the Lord. It does need daily effort to bring yourself to the point of sacrifice though. It is putting God as a priority ahead of other things you may wish to do.
Then we have the phrase “this is your spiritual act of worship” – what does that mean? The commentators have a lot of debate. The word translated as spiritual can also be rendered “reasonable” “rational” “intelligent” and “informed”. This is not something vague, or silly. It is not something that is done because everyone else is doing it, or because it stirs the emotions. This is a rational choice, backed with cold hard facts, logic and thought. God is great and we should worship Him. Epictetus was a stoic philosopher and he made this statement “If I were a nightingale I should be singing as a nightingale. If a swan, as a swan. But as it is, I am a rational being, therefore I must be singing hymns of praise to God”.
Praising God, worshiping him, serving him, being living sacrifices to him, are all logical. He is absolutely worthy of all our praise. This is not dependent on how we feel, on our mood or on the state of our mental health. Sometimes it is wonderful to sing praises to God, everything is going well, we can stand “lost in wonder love and praise”. On other occasions it can be difficult. We are struggling for some reason, we are feeling blue, or, for some of us, we are struggling with depression or another mental condition. That doesn’t mean our worship is less valid. Epictetus tells us that praising God is a rational act and it does not depend on how we feel. If you are a Christian who has depression or another mental illness that does not mean that you are inferior, any more than a physical ailment would makes someone less. God makes His strength perfect in weakness. Praising God when your heart is breaking and your head is scrambled is far more valuable than a thoughtless celebration.
OK, so we are aware that God is all powerful, we know we are commanded to serve him as living sacrifices, we know to worship him – independent of how we feel – what are we told to do next.
We are to be transformed, by the renewing of our minds. That is a big call. How can we do that? We aren’t alone. We have the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, and without Him we would be nothing. This is through the power of God, not our own strength. Sometimes that may be an instantaneous change – George Newell, who is leading our evangelism training, told us on Thursday that when he became a Christian his foul language stopped immediately. There was an obvious, instant change in his life. Sometimes it takes a lot longer. Douglas Moo, who wrote the NIV commentary on Romans says “I came to Christ as a 20 year old college student, and almost 30 years later I am still fighting against the mental habits I developed in my first 20 years”. Sometimes it is a protracted battle. He goes on to say that God’s Spirit is working to reprogram his thinking, an ongoing growth.
What can we do in this process? Physical, mental and spiritual health are all connected. If we feed our bodies on McDonalds every day then our physical fitness and health will decline. In the same way if we feed our minds with the equivalent of junk food our mental health will decline. Some of those things may be obviously harmful – subscribing to anti-Christian ideologies, TV shows, magazines, internet sites. Some may be innocuous in small doses, but in the same way that any food in excess can become harmful they can take over our thinking. We are to be transformed, by the renewing of our minds. That means we change what we put in our heads. It needs time to read our Bibles, to pray individually and with others, to fellowship with like minded Christian friends, to attend worship regularly, to question and learn more and more about God and how we can serve Him. It is taking the junk food away and eating a fresh, vibrant, healthy new diet. George showed us a video of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well – we need to drink of the living water he so freely offers to us. The sacrifice may be that we can no longer spend the time on our favourite websites, because we are learning about God. The sacrifice may be that we don’t socialise with people who are making our Christian walk more difficult. The sacrifice may be that we stop drinking alcohol, because it lowers our inhibitions and takes us down roads that do not glorify the God who loves us and cares for us. The sacrifice may be something so personal, so deeply hidden, that nobody knows the thing God is calling you to give up in order to follow Him with a renewed, a refreshed, a rational mind that is following and worshiping Him in Spirit and in truth.
What support do we have in this? Well, we have an omnipotent God who loves us and is working out his perfect will in our lives. That does not mean lives free from emotional pain, any more than it promises a lack of physical pain. We have brothers and sisters in our church family who will love and support us. We are empowered by God’s Holy Spirit to live for God, to serve him, to worship him. That brings lasting joy – eternity spanning joy – to God and to us. We will, ultimately, have all our tears washed away by our loving God.
We are going to worship now, using the most appropriate hymn I could think of. You may never have sung it at this time of year before, but it is a cracker. It tells of the Joy we have in receiving Christ, the Joy of declaring Him to the nations and the Joy of seeing people coming to know him. Joy to the world