Not only has God been generous with us by giving us stuff. He has also given us time and talents. He has given us these spiritual “gifts” in order to use them to make a difference in the lives of others. Why? To reflect his light and love in the world around us. We offer our bodies and lives as “living sacrifices” to thank God for his grace and mercy to us! All of our gifts work together for the common good of all. When we are using our gifts generously for each other, the whole community benefits. So let’s use them! Let’s be generous with our gifts! Because He was generous with his gifts to us!
Not only has God been generous with us by giving us stuff. He has also given us time and talents. He has given us these spiritual “gifts” in order to use them to make a difference in the lives of others. Why? To reflect his light and love in the world around us. We offer our bodies and lives as “living sacrifices” to thank God for his grace and mercy to us! All of our gifts work together for the common good of all. When we are using our gifts generously for each other, the whole community benefits. So let’s use them! Let’s be generous with our gifts! Because He was generous with his gifts to us!
I don’t know about you, but I get lots of random articles on my Google Newsfeed. A few weeks back, I was scrolling through different stories when an article entitled, “How to Spot Narcissistic Behaviors” popped up. According to the StrengthsFinders test, “learner” is my number one strength, which I use as my excuse to click on time-wasting articles. So, I read the article and they noted the following characteristics of narcissists: An overblown sense of self-importance, a need to be admired, someone who exploits others to achieve their goals and being envious. Can you think of someone who checks those boxes? If there is one thing we can learn from the story of Narcissus in Greek mythology, it’s how it is easy for narcissists to drown in self-love. You may not be struggling with a diagnosed narcissistic personality disorder or NPD, but as the broken sinners we are, we all have spiritual NPD in us. We see the social media influencers, the attention-seekers, and we find in our own hearts this desire to use God's gifts to our own glory. We struggle with conformity instead of leading the “living sacrifice-type” life Jesus has given to us. The world’s pattern is self-promotion, but God has a far different life pattern for us, but to experience that facet of God’s generosity, we need to be transformed. We need transfiguration. But how?
The disciples, just like us, needed to know the answer to that question. The day began like any other for them, except for one huge detail: the disciples couldn’t get out of their heads what Jesus had told them just 8 days before: “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?” “Jesus was going to die on a cross? We’re going to have to carry a cross too?” We can relate to the fear and confusion they had. Jesus was talking about the life of a “living sacrifice” and for the disciples, this seemed like nothing but death. “How does it make sense to lose yourself to save yourself?” For people like them so focused on self-preservation and self-promotion, it didn’t seem right. But we’re people “like them” too, aren’t we?
How do this self-preservation and self-promotion come up in our hearts? Take a minute and think about the abilities and skills you have. Do you find that you wish more people knew about them, appreciated them, or honored you for what you can do? Does your mind then lead you to think of people in your life who are constantly broadcasting the highlights of their lives on social media? Do you wish you could taste recognition and admiration? You and I suffer from spiritual NPD and self-love. This is what Paul is talking about when he writes in Romans 12:2, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world.” The pattern of this world is nothing other than the singular goal of making everyone see that I am somebody. It’s a never-ending, exhausting habit of trying to convince the world you are special, better, or more gifted. So often, we see this pattern play out in how we view and use the God-given abilities God in his grace has given you and me.
Last week, we talked in-depth about how everything we have is God’s alone, and that doesn’t just include our money and possessions. It also consists of the things we can do that we are so quick to take ownership of. This is a deep struggle I’ve had for as long as I can remember, and I think you’ll be able to relate. It’s the struggle of choosing to use my gifts the way I want and not the way God has intended for me to use them. I set up specific criteria when it’s advantageous for me to use them and if the situation doesn’t match those criteria, I hide my gifts, often when they’re the most needed. I so often look to my gifts to prove my value to myself, instead of looking to the God who gave the ultimate sacrifice so he could put his name on me. I conform to the pattern of the world, not to live as a living sacrifice, but to live as a sacrifice-avoider, a self-promoter, and a gift-hoarder. Have you been there too? That’s where the disciples were as they tried to keep their footing on a mountain climb with Jesus.
These three guys, Peter, James, and John had gotten into heated arguments with the other nine disciples about who was better, who should sit at Jesus’ right hand in glory, and who was more gifted. Here these men are, falling asleep praying at the side of the Son of God (a problem they had in the Garden of Gethsemane too!) when the unthinkable happens. They look at Jesus and his face changes to a blinding-lightning white. They stumble back, trying to regain their composure. They finally plant their feet in the rock and they see not only the lightning-white face of Jesus but two other people too. Somehow knowing deep down who these men are even though they’ve never seen them before: Moses and Elijah. These two men capture the message of the Old Testament. They represent the entirety of the Scriptures these disciples had heard from infancy on. This was a mountaintop moment, and Peter sensed that so he says, “Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” Peter didn’t even care to make a shelter for himself, just being there was enough. Then the three of them hear a thunderous voice from heaven saying, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.” Then in an instant, the light was gone. Moses and Elijah departed. It was them and Jesus. Alone. There was so much on their minds, the transfiguration they had seen, but they needed to keep it to themselves. But the question kept coming around, “Why couldn’t we have just stayed here, Lord? Why do we need to go down the mountain? Why do you need to march toward a cross? It’s way better to be here!”
Again, the life of the “living sacrifice” was the last thing they wanted. The urge to conform to the world’s self-promoting pattern was strong. I think you and I get that too. What we’re doing right here in this sanctuary is our weekly mountaintop moment. We gather as a family and hear through word and song what the generous grace of our God has done! We bow at the foot of the cross and see the only hope this world has ever known. We forget ourselves in this brief time, and process deeply the love our God has for us, his purpose for us, and more than anything his forgiveness for our spiritual NPD and self-love. But it’s not just here that God wants you to think deeply about his love for you. He wants you to experience his grace not just on Sunday for 1-3 hours. He has given you a life where you get to experience it 168 hours a week, every week. Through the cross, he seeks to transfigure you, to transform you from the inside out. To go from spiritual NPD to complete AAJ, a life All About Jesus. That’s what Paul is talking about when he writes, “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.” God has a reason why he’s given you gifts. Your gifts and abilities have nothing to do with you, but everything to do with him, and trust God, it is the most freeing life you will ever experience!
Because Jesus went down that mountain, taking every painful step to the cross, a journey we’re going to walk with him once again during Lent, we know what life is all about. Jesus lived the “living sacrifice” life pattern. To the world, it doesn’t make sense. How can a sacrifice live? A sacrifice means there must be death, but this kind of death is where we find life. It’s the power of the resurrection! It’s losing ourselves because we have gained Jesus. You’ve experienced the deepest generosity of God. By faith, you are lost in the goodness given to you by the blood of Jesus. You thank God that Jesus didn’t stay on that mountain, but made his way to Mount Calvary, where your and my sins of self-love were banished and now a new love was kindled in you. A love so bold for Jesus that you want more than anything to give all you are back to him, to worship him with every breath and step, to do what Paul masterfully describes, “To test and approve what God’s will is - his good, pleasing, and perfect will.” You experience God’s grace by giving all you are to him. You long more than anything to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” You and I know this renewal can’t come by our own strength. So how will the Lord renew you, transform you, and give you the “living sacrifice” life mentality?
He began this transformation at your baptism, or the day he brought you to faith through his Word. You were once tied into the pattern of the world, but on that day, your heavenly Father declared, “This is my child, whom I have chosen.” That begins your transfiguration, but how does it continue? It continues by pouring God’s Word into your mind, seeking accountability with other Christians to compassionately and bolding point one another again and again to God’s grace found at the cross. Your transformation that won’t be complete until Jesus bear-hugs you at heaven’s door. It happens when you open your Bible with believers at your side, and you pray for one another that you sacrifice self and cling to Jesus. Your transfiguration is entirely empowered by God’s Word and sacraments and its impact can’t help but bleed into how you use the gifts of abilities and time God has hard-wired into you.
Paul talks about the results of your and my ongoing Holy Spirit-empowered transfiguration or sanctification when he writes, “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” In other words, by grace you and I get to enjoy the God-given gift of self-forgetfulness, celebrating the abilities he’s given but not even stopping there! We experience God’s generosity by celebrating the gifts of others too! We have the gift of being on God’s team together! Here’s another cool component of having the “living sacrifice” life of God. We not only belong to him, but we belong to our brothers and sisters in Christ too. By faith, we get to work together, not to get what we want, not to advance what we think is right, but to humbly approach each other and joyfully seek to serve the other. This is what Christian community is all about. It’s a family of living sacrifices, living every moment in worship, sacrificing all to the praise of God’s glorious, generous, and gracious will.
Take a minute to reflect on the abilities God has given you one more time. As you do so, does a different picture appear? A picture of a life where you are constantly worshipping God as you eat, sleep, work, and play? A picture of a life where the pressure to prove is gone, and the joy of serving as God wills can’t help but fill you up? Can you see a picture of a church family who listens to one another, serves together, and changes lives with the word of God? Do you see how God’s generosity, found at the cross, makes you want to forget anything that would take that joy of forgiveness and hope away from you? By faith, you do and motivated by grace, you bring your gifts before Jesus each day and ask him the boldest prayer you could ever speak. Two words: “Use me!”
As we leave our weekly mountaintop moment with Jesus again today, let’s keep the cross before us, rejoicing even through the pain we endure as living sacrifices, because we know our life of constant worship is never in vain. It’s experiencing God’s generosity, and there’s no better life than that, and all God’s people said: Amen!”