To the Jewish mind, a sacrifice is something you give to the Lord as a way to serve and obey him well. And every sacrifice has one thing in common: they’re all dead. So what could “a living sacrifice” possibly mean? How could something possibly be simultaneously dead and alive?
As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what transformation means. To be transformed is to put to death the person who lives by default according to the ways of the world—not just to push them aside a little and leave them a little time to roam free, but to utterly put them to death. That life, complete with its natural ways of making decisions and pursuing shallow goods, is not just minimized; it is no more. But a new person has taken that person’s place, one in whom there is radiant, eternal life—one whose desires, purposes, joy, identity, passions, and love are directed wholeheartedly toward God who reigns forever. Transformation truly is that drastic.
Every one of us, so long as we live in mortal bodies, still resist being totally transformed in this way. There are some things that belonged to our dead self that we don’t want to let go of. But that’s why it’s called a sacrifice! To give those things up really is to die to ourselves. But out of all the sacrificial lambs that were slaughtered to atone for sin, only one had life afterward: Christ himself. We are in Christ, and in Christ there is resurrection and new life. So to die to our natural, worldly ways is to take on a life that is richer, more fulfilling, and more eternal by an infinite degree. Hence the incredible paradox of being able to call ourselves living sacrifices.
So now what do living sacrifices do? What sort of good do sacrificed people pursue? The only true kind; the good that God declares good. No longer do we trust our corrupted eyes that tell us power and pleasure are the greatest goods; rather, we surrender ourselves in humble, selfless love to the wonderful will of God from whom all good things flow. No longer is our faith merely a secondary fact about us; rather, it is our foundational, highly zealous intent to discern what it is that God declare holy and good, and then to do it. We are transformed beings; our old self is dead, our renewed self is alive! So let us joyfully strive to discern the will of God, and then let us obediently strive to do the will of God. That, in simple terms, is worship.
