"God answers my prayers everywhere except on the golf-course."

Billy Graham

Transformed

The first eleven chapters of Romans explain the wonder of what God has done for us in Christ. In 12:1-2 Paul exhorts the Romans to live in the light of God's mercy "Therefore, in view of God's mercy" implies that Christian ethics are the Christian's grateful obedience in response to what God has done for him in Christ.

Paul is saying that God in Christ has saved us and restored His image within us. We now have the power of God to begin to restore the use of our sporting talents for his pleasure alone and our relationships for the sake of our sporting neighbours.

What does this process look like? Paul, the writer of the letter to the Romans says: I urge you to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship. A living sacrifice! When Paul writes about a living sacrifice, that's an oxymoron. Sacrifices are not alive. You chop their heads off, or stick a stake in them. Paul on purpose uses a seemingly ridiculous phrase.

Now if you are a sportsperson the idea of offering your body as a living sacrifice, has extra meaning. Having a body is essential if you are going to play. But we are asked to offer that body as a living sacrifice, a sacrifice that wriggles on the altar! This doesn't mean that we are not to play but rather that we must play as people who have given our bodies to Jesus Christ.

It's going to be hard. You've got to be really battling at this all the time. Sin will never give up on us. We think we nailed it! We think "Oh good, I haven't given in to that temptation for a month - class!" And before you know it you've done it again. Where did that come from?

When you're playing really well and you know everyone will say how great you are, how hard is it not to get arrogant and just take your foot off the peddle for the last five minutes because no one will notice? God will, and he wants you to give all to him all the time, including the last five minutes.

When somebody is trying to put you off and psych you out, actually breaking the rules, going beyond what is acceptable in the confines of the sport, how are you going to react? How are you going to deal with it? How sanctified are you going to be? How are you going to love them? How are you going to pray with all your heart and keep it together and represent Jesus and show them respect when they're not respecting you?

Paul calls it your spiritual act of worship. Now let us clear from our minds any idea that worship is restricted to singing songs or that worship is an hour every Sunday. We have seen in this book that we are called to give our bodies to God to please him, as an act of worship, a 24/7 lifestyle activity!

To offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, this is your spiritual act of worship. That's when you worship God - when you give every piece of your mind, body, time, everything to God, that's worship. Paul also says "be transformed". This transformation is not the Christian's own doing, but the work of the Holy Spirit. However, we have a responsibility to let ourselves be transformed, to respond to the leading of God's Spirit. We are to be transformed by God, not conforming to the world.

Now that means representing Christ on the pitch. You play to God's standards, not the etiquette of the game around you. You cannot pull someone's shirt because everyone does it. That attitude is conforming to the world, not being transformed by God.

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