Values 1: Worship

Introduction: No more resolutions.

I actively avoid the gym around this time of the year.

We all know the story, I think I’ve preached it every time the first Sunday of January rolls around.

People make resolutions to get healthier, or read more, or read the Bible.

So our gym gets super crowded and they have to wheel out extra machines and it’s chaos.

And by about January 14th, most folks disappear!

So I’m out on making resolutions.

Instead: Values.

A few months ago, our session adopted these four values.

I mentioned them in a sermon a while back.

But just a passing glance.

These values are way better than resolutions, because instead of a promise to ourselves that’s way to easy to break, these values are a direction to point ourselves.

They’re what we hope to live in to in this next season of our lives together as a church.

Leading to some pretty lofty goals!

I’ll say more about this later, but I’ve got some ideas floating around up here in the old noodle,

And…well, we’re not ready for that yet.

(Come to the congregational meeting in a few weeks, we’ll talk!)

For now, we’re going to start with the first value:

We are committed to authentic, Spirit-filled, Christ-centered worship in all aspects of our lives.

While we are awe struck by our worship on Sunday mornings, we recognize that the vast majority of our worship takes place Monday through Saturday! In the faith community of Beulah Presbyterian Church, we offer our whole selves as a living sacrifice, which is our reasonable act of worship.

Perhaps you’ve noticed, there’s a little scripture verse hiding in there!

A verse so short we should read it again!

This is the kind we can break down word by word almost, so let’s do that.

Appeal- This is something we’re not naturally inclined to do.

There are appeals that are made to me at home on a regular basis.

Sarah appeals to me to clean up my laundry, or do the dishes, or take out the trash.

Such appeals are necessary because even though that’s my chore list, I’m not naturally inclined to do any of it.

I don’t know that anyone is, no one is super excited about taking out the garbage!

So far as I know, there aren’t like conferences or conventions about taking out the trash.

Which, should give us a moment of pause…

Some of us do really love to worship.

Some of us are inclined to worship.

There are conferences and conventions about worship.

So…why then is it that this is something that needs to be an appeal?

Perhaps it’s because Paul isn’t so much talking about the worship that happens in here…

Paul’s talking about a deeper level of worship, one that is outside of our natural inclinations.

But to help with that a little bit…

On the Basis of God’s Mercy.

Order matters.

Ask any nerd what order that we should watch the Star Wars movies in, and you’ll get an earful.

What order things happen is really really important, and so Paul tells us the first step in this process that we’re being appealed to take:

It’s on the basis of God’s mercy.

God loves us first, then we respond.

This is vital, because some people think the order is the other way around.

Maybe if I worship hard enough, I’ll earn God’s favor.

Maybe if I do enough good things, I’ll earn God’s grace.

Maybe if I stop doing the bad things, then God will like me.

Maybe if maybe if maybe it.

No no.

That mercy is already yours, and that’s our starting point.

Honestly, it doesn’t matter what values 2-4 are if we don’t get this right at the start:

In Christ, God has offered us all the mercy we need for this life.

And it has nothing to do with what we do.

It has everything to do with what he’s doing in us.

We have to start there, before we go any further.

Do you know that love?

Is it rooted deep in you?

If not, or even if you’re not sure, please come see me after the service, we’ll talk about that!

Present yourselves

Soma- Body/Self

This isn’t like some kind of weird cult thing where we’re doing body sacrifices or going on a hunger strike or anything like that.

It has a sense of offering up the everyday nature of ourselves.

I actually really like the way Eugene Peterson translates this in his Message paraphrase:

Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going to work, and walking around life—and place it before God as an offering.

It’s the ordinary, basic, simple things of our lives.

The word I keep circling back to in my study on this is “tactile.”

So many of us understand our faith in spiritual terms, like praying or singing hymns or connecting with God.

Fun fact, Jesus didn’t have a word for “spiritual.”

Because, it turns out, everything is spiritual!

Even and especially the tactile things, the sleeping, eating, going to work, and walking around kind of things.

A living sacrifice

We studied this word a few sermons ago, but I think it’s good to come back to it:

Sacrifice- In the Latin, literally to make sacred.

Your work day, that can be sacred.

Your family calendar, that can be sacred.

Your morning cup of coffee, that can be sacred.

That pile of laundry you swear you’ll get to later, that can be sacred.

Your morning commute, that can be sacred.

This is worship.

Worship is not about a style of music.

I sound like a broken record, but I’m really over the worship wars.

As if there were only two styles of worship.

I was just reading a book someone gave me about a denomination that only sings the psalms a capella. That sounds neat!

Worship is not about a denomination.

Worship doesn’t care if you’re Presbyterian or Methodist or Baptist or Catholic.

Nor does it care about the plethora of styles represented in any or all of those denominations.

Worship is not about what you get out of it.

Francis Chan tells the story of one time a congregant came up to complain to him

He said “I’m sorry pastor, I just didn’t get anything out of worship today!”

And Francis Chan, who is super quick witted, said “Good! We weren’t worshipping you!”

So often worship becomes about what we take away from it. That’s not right.

Worship is when we make our everyday, Monday through Saturday lives, sacred.

It’s taking that pile of laundry, giving thanks to God, and worshiping.

It’s that sip of coffee after giving thanks to God, and worshipping.

It’s that busy calendar, after giving thanks to God, worshipping.

Worship transforms you.

Metamorpho- Metamorphosis.

Worship according to Paul should be as drastic as a cocoon to a butterfly!

This kind of making our regular days sacred will do something to us.

If you are the same person in Christ next Sunday as you are today, something is off.

Did you find sacred moments?

Did you make sacred moments out of the ordinary?

Did you encounter the risen Christ, and Christ’s mercy, anywhere beside this building?

If you are indistinguishable from the culture around us, something is off.

And there’s a lot to dislike about the culture around us that we should be transformed above, shouldn’t we?

Anger

Pride

Virtiol

Focused entirely on entertainment

Hedonistic.

This kind of worship, the living sacrifice, according to Paul should give us the ability to be no so much conformed to this world’s patters, but to rise above them with renewed minds.

This kind of worship can change us.

Get the oxygen masks out…

Now, I know I just said that worship was going to change us…

So Presbyterians, fear not. The ushers are coming around now with oxygen masks for everyone…

Change is hard.

No one, Presbyterian or otherwise, once they’ve built a rather comfortable life for themselves, is all that interested in change.

That’s why our lives are comfortable!

But this kind of change is better called growth.

Whether your 1 or 100, we’re still capable of growth in the Lord.

We can be closer to God tomorrow than we are today.

We can make those ordinary, simple, life things more worshipful than they were before.

We can be transformed above the culture around us, and God willing, it will help to lift the culture up with us.

We can, little by little as we offer these living sacrifices, make earth just a wee bit more like heaven, can’t we?

What will you make sacred?

Notecards to write it down.

You may have noticed when you came in that there was a notecard on your seat.

If there’s not, we’re Presbyterians, just check the rows up front…

But I want to challenge us to do something in a bit of a tactile way here as a response to this message:

What is something normal that can become a regular act of worship this week?

Zero percent surprise: My answer is coffee!

Liturgy for a morning cup.

There’s a series of books called Every Moment Holy that I’ve really come to appreciate.

And they offer this prayer, which I try to remember to recite every morning as I’m pouring my cup:

Meet me O Christ, in the stillness of morning.

Move me, O Spirit, to quiet my heart.

Mend me, O Father, from yesterday’s harms.

From the discords of yesterday, resurrect my peace.

From the discouragements of yesterday, resurrect my hope.

From the weariness of yesterday, resurrect my strength.

From the doubts of yesterday, resurrect my faith.

From the wounds of yesterday, resurrect my love.

Let me enter this new day, aware of my need, and awake to your grace O Lord.

Amen.

That takes what I think was an already pretty sacred cup of coffee, and makes it even more sacred, doesn’t it?

Maybe yours won’t come with it’s own liturgy, but still, what could you make sacred this week?

Maybe yours is a walk around the neighborhood?

Or maybe it’s a family get together?

Or maybe it’s that first couple of minutes in your work day, before you open up the emails?

Or maybe it’s that really great novel you’re in to.

Make it sacred.

Remember the grace that God has given you to have this moment.

Everything, everything, everything we have is a gift from God, whether we recognize it or not.

A big part of this living sacrifice is to recognize it.

It’s to remember that God’s mercy is the starting point.

And that every piece of our lives is a reflection of that mercy, both the great and the less so.

Say thank you.

This is one of the best places to get creative.

Anyone can utter the two words “Thank you.”

But we can thank God by paying attention to those who gather with us at our meals, and treasuring them.

We can thank God by looking out for the needs of others, perhaps those we see begging on the side of the highway these days.

We can thank God just by soaking in the goodness of the mercy he’s given us, doing the dishes, putting away the laundry, watching our kids soccer games.

Bring them back next week to place in the offering plate.

And in the meantime…

We gather around this celebration where Jesus showed us the way.

Jesus took such ordinary elements, bread and cup.

Stuff that his disciples would have seen a million times a day.

And Jesus makes them sacred.

Jesus shares the mercy of God as a starting point.

Jesus uses this as a reminder of God’s goodness.

And Jesus shares it with you, and with me.

May we worship God this day, and always.