Spiritual Service

COMMUNION… WORSHIP, BODY, UNITY.

If there is anyone who didn’t yet receive the elements and needs them this morning, just slip up your hand and we will bring those to you right now.

Communion is a place to sit in unity not just with God but with each other. My 9 year old Ben prays for us at night. And in one particular prayer I remember Ben praying Jesus, I love you, and Jesus I love your whole body and I love your heart. I’m slow to correct my kids when they pray, but I almost did the other night when he prayed this, but we always want to be careful to interrupt how people see God just because it doesn’t match the way we see Him, right? The other night when He was saying this prayer, I heard God speak to me, and say Jonathan, do you love my body? When Jesus said, “this is my body” there was a physical reference to the pain that would be inflicted on Him on our behalf. But the more I study the scripture, the more I see deeper meaning that we too often miss. Jesus said THIS IS MY BODY. Do you love His body? Not just the body that was broken for you, but all those in the church. If you don’t love His body, the body of believers, then you don’t love Him. And if we are the body, are you willing to be broken on HIS behalf so that we can be in fellowship with Him? As we take the bread this morning, focus on the unity that He died for, the fellowship of His suffering, and that all who call on His name would be one.

LET’S TAKE THE BREAD AS ONE TODAY.

In 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 Paul writes “For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed Took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way he also took the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”

Until he comes… In the battle for our souls, in the temptations that we face, do we recognize that whether symbolic through the taking of the bread and the cup, or in the way that we live out our lives, that proclaiming the story of Jesus is our business until He returns?

Jesus took the cup and said: ‘this cup is the new covenant sealed by my blood. Whenever you drink it, do this in memory of me.’ Remember… Jesus… this morning. Remember His sacrifice. Let’s take the cup.

PRAY, continue to worship

SING GREAT ARE YOU LORD

Romans 12

Intro: Our new series is just two weeks in length, and it’s focused on service. We titled it beyond Sunday to bring emphasis to the fact that service extends beyond Sunday. Next week we will talk about how we move beyond Sunday in our service, but this week I’m going to go a little after the idea of “service” within Sunday mornings. After all, don’t we come to a Sunday morning worship service? Why do we call it a service? Why not a gathering? Or preaching time? Where did this idea come from, of naming our time together on Sunday morning, a “service”? From there we discuss a little further about how our service can serve as worship, and our worship can serve as service.

Quit simply in case we have forgotten, or this is news to us this morning, when we come to a Sunday morning service, the word service is not there to indicate how we might be served but how we serve God. We call it a worship service because when we worship God when we study the word of God together we are accomplishing a service that God requests of us within scripture. Let’s look at our texts to understand a little better.

Romans 12:1–2 “Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” (PRAY)

In the New Testament we are given examples of how the early church worshiped. There are specific elements of Biblical Worship. Some ways we see worship in the New Testament are through the proclamation of God’s Word, we study it, read it out loud, teach it, and preach it. We see worship in the ordinances of baptism and partaking in Communion like we did a few minutes ago. We see worship in singing, prayer, adoration, intercessions, supplications, and praise. We also see worship taking place by offerings of giving and generosity, good works, and considering the needs of others.

In our text today in Romans, The Apostle Paul is making it clear that worship or true service can’t take place on the outside of us, if worship isn’t taking place on the inside of us. A church that knows HOW to worship God in spirit and truth is made up of individual people, who worship God in all areas of their life. They are true worshippers of God. They know Who they worship, they know Where, and When they can worship, and they know WHY they worship.

This passage describes the importance of having a heart focused on service not self.

Look at verse 1 again… We see…

WE WORSHIP GOD THROUGH SERVICE (v.1)

“Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”

Our initial action in worship is found here in verse 1…

Presenting Our Bodies As A Living Sacrifice. Everything else flows out of this.

The Apostle Paul is begging us to present our entire beings as a living, loving, sacrifices to God.

Clear back in the Garden of Eden we see God placing Adam and Eve in the Garden to serve and take care of what God had blessed them with. They were established keepers of the garden. The Garden of Eden was the spot where Heaven and Earth met, Creation and Creator dwelt together, Heaven was God’s dwelling place, and so was the Garden. God would come down and meet with His people in the Garden, so there we see God’s presence. Mankind was created to serve God in His presence; mankind was given dominion over all of creation. Paul teaches us that we are a living moving carriers of his presence. Our bodies are temples where the Spirit dwells. So when we use our bodies, our minds, our living and being to serve, we do so in His presence, and we are worshipping Him.

Transition: Verse 1 makes it clear that the presentation of our bodies for service in so many ways is the initiation of our worship. Moving forward in our text, Verse 2 makes it clear that our service must be focused on God.

OUR SERVICE MUST BE FOCUSED ON GOD (v.2)… (Service + Focus=Worship)

Verse 2 says And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. The first word of verse 2 is the word AND which means that our service, from verse 1 must be done not out of a Spirit that has conformed to this world but it has to be done with a mind that is consistently focused on God. The word used here is renew which helps us understand that it is something that needs to be done over and over again. When it comes to our focus, we are always either conforming or transforming. And the world is constantly fighting for our focus. That’s why worship has to come with great intentionality.

Worship is having a focus on God. With a focus on expecting Him to move, to speak, and to draw others to Him. Our worship always has to be centered on giving our undivided attention to God.

Too many of us do acts of service within the church, and need to check our motivation. Pastor Wendell Brown who led our prayer service this past Wednesday reminded us of why we do acts of service. They are for God. It’s not for a pat on the back from others, for certain recognition or position. It is to please God, all that we do should be for the audience of one. If this is not the case we must re-focus, re-new, re-consider our motives for the work that we do. When we do acts of service for any other reason but to please God and serve others, we are simply serving ourselves.

Transition: We worship God through service that is focused on Him. Now let’s go back Romans 12 and look at verses 4-8

Romans 12:4–8 “For just as we have many parts in one body and all the body’s parts do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually parts of one another. However, since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to use them properly: if prophecy, in proportion to one’s faith; if service, in the act of serving; or the one who teaches, in the act of teaching; or the one who exhorts, in the work of exhortation; the one who gives, with generosity; the one who is in leadership, with diligence; the one who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.”

SERVICE WILL ALWAYS LOOK DIFFERENT.

SERVICE WILL ALWAYS LOOK DIFFERENT…WORSHIP WILL SOMETIMES LOOK DIFFERENT.

We don’t serve in the garden of eden, we’re not in the church of Rome, Antioch, or Ephesus. We are right here, right now, serving the same God that they served in those places and those times.

That’s why even though we rely on the Bible as God’s word, we must rely on the Spirit for specific direction within our context. So many turn on the news, or scroll social media and talk about helping with disasters throughout the world, which of course has it’s place. But most won’t answer the call to minister to those they encounter on a daily basis, on their street, at their office, in their neighborhood. God put EXACTLY you, EXACTLY where you are to serve, EXACTLY how only you can. We cannot underestimate the value of how God might use us, and we must not underestimate how He might be using other. Service will always look different.

WORSHIP WILL SOMETIMES LOOK DIFFERENT…

We don't build altars anymore. We don’t sacrifice animals anymore. Some people shout with joy. Some sit in awe. Some lift their hands in praise. Some clap their hands in praise. But we must know that God knows the spirit of the person that brings the offering. 1 Corinthians 13, the LOOOVE chapter that we have to read at every wedding lists what love is and is not, and within it says that though I become as a loud and charismatic as a percussion section, without the love of God it means nothing. This does not excuse as sitting quietly because a form of worship might make us uncomfortable, instead it reminds us that without being properly motivated by love for God and love for people, all service, and all worship is empty.

Service and worship will look different but …

True service and worship will ALWAYS COMES FROM A PLACE OF UNITY.

Worship is our expression to God, and the world around us, that God is the most important thing in our lives; not our selfish desires, not the voices of the world, or the voices of the Enemy. Before Jesus went to the cross, He prayed fervently in John 17 that we would be unified because He knew that that the enemy’s greatest goal would be to have us at odds with each other. Every time you are at odds with another Christian you are most likely putting a grin on the face of the enemy. But we can be sure that every time we are making efforts to get along and be unified with one another we are bringing joy to the Father. Worship is not meant to be done in a closet, or by yourself. The end game is all of us who are saved worshipping together around the throne of God. If we struggle to do it here on earth, then our expectations of what we are going to be doing in heaven might need to be adjusted a little.

There’s so many ways to serve and worship Him, but at the end of the day, the true HOW of Worship ultimately depends on How your relationship is between you and God, and your relationship with others. Looking back again at our text again Romans 12 starting in verse 9, Here we see that all of us have the capability to live worship out in our lives in Spirit and Truth regardless of how different that looks for each of us. Run your relationships through the following filters found in Romans 12:9.

Romans 12:9:13 as below but put text on slide, as we read this text today, I’m just going to pose a few questions about the statements that are made here, and I wonder if you might allow the Holy Spirit to check that area of your life.

9 Love must be free of hypocrisy. Is there any hypocrisy in your life? Detest what is evil; cling to what is good. Are you truly against evil or just the evils that aren’t in your own life? Are you truly clinging to what is good? Verse 10 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor… Are you not just tolerating one another but honoring one another with selfless love? Verse 11 not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; What priority does service to the Lord in your life? Verse 12 rejoicing in hope, Are you hopeful? persevering in tribulation, Do you struggle to worship in difficult circumstances? devoted to prayer, ARE YOU REALLY PRAYING? VERSE 13 contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality. Are you consistently making sure others needs are met? I don’t know about you but there is a lot to consider there that I had to ask God to help me grow in. Are you growing in all of these areas, so that you can be a true worshipper that worships Him in Spirit and in Truth? Those are the ones the Father seeks to worship Him. I want God seeking me as a true worshipper who worships Him in spirit and in truth.

As we close today would you bow your heads and just respond quietly before the Lord to these questions that we just posed?

Are you truly against evil or just the evils that aren’t in your own life? Are you truly clinging to what is good? 10 seconds

Are you not just tolerating one another but honoring one another with selfless love? 10 seconds

What priority does service to the Lord in your life? 10 seconds

Are you hopeful? persevering in tribulation, Do you struggle to worship in difficult circumstances? 10 seconds

Are you consistently making sure others needs are met? 10 seconds

PRAY

Next week you will hear Part 2 of our teaching on service next week will give you an opportunity to respond in tangible ways of service to the Lord here at Cap City. But as you leave this place today, will you just commit to the Lord that you are going to go out into the world you live in and intentionally serve someone in Jesus name. Let’s show those around us that there is a better way, and fellowship of people that they can join themselves to, who are authentic people who have a faith in Jesus Christ.

on your way out though you can stop and grab an operation Christmas

Child box and make the difference of a child this season. We will tell you more about that in the upcoming weeks.

Go in JESUS NAME, Amen.