A Life of Quality

Romans 12:1

Good morning, church!

I’m so thankful to be with you this morning! Thank you for joining us in worship and church together!

Thank you worship team for leading us to the throne room to worship our Lord together!

My name is Brian McDowell if you haven’t met me before. I am blessed to be the pastor of CCMP.

If this is your first time with us, I’ll ask you to fill our the connection card in your seat back and take it over to connection corner.

Since Easter, we have been focusing on the life that Jesus came to bring to us but also the life that we are to live in response to all that He accomplished in the Easter story through His life, death and resurrection from the dead. This series is really about our response to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

When we received Christ as our Lord and Savior, He breathed into us His spiritual breath of life! We were dead in our trespasses but in Christ, we have been made alive with Him!

So, how are we to respond to this gift, this life that Jesus died to give to us as a free gift?

A couple of weeks ago, Caleb, preached a message about worship. He went to Romans 12:1. In fact, let’s turn there because it is our starting point for the message this morning.

You know, worship music is a hot button topic these days in the Christian world? People have a lot of opinions about worship music. Traditional hymns. Contemporary. Mix of both. Drums and instruments. Accapella. Do you sing from this church’s music or not?

We in America are very picky about the quality of our worship music aren’t we?!

If you have ever invited someone to church, what is typically one of the first questions they ask? What kind of music you got?

I have seen people’s face completely change towards me when I say we sing contemporary worship music with hymns sometimes. It can trigger some interesting responses! If fact, one person once responded and said, well, do you worship the same Jesus as I do?

We care a lot about the quality of worship music! But everyone’s definition of “quality” is different, isn’t it?

Caleb read Romans 12 with us

Romans 12:1 ESV

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

and the main takeaway from his message is the worship is sacrifice. Its not music. Its when we lay down our lives to Him it is our spiritual worship to God!

I completely agree with Caleb’s message! Worship is what you are willing to give to God and He desires not your 10% but your whole life! Jesus wants all of you laid down on that alter in worship to Him. Holding nothing back.

Look, throughout the history of the Bible, killing an animal and placing it on the alter has been an offering to God in worship and for the remission of sins.

We now know that Jesus is the sacrificial Lamb that has died once for all sins! We no longer have to sacrifice animals on an alter for the forgiveness of our sins! That may sound amazing and get an amen. But Romans and many other places shows us that our new sacrifice, our new worship, our new spiritual act of worship is placing ourselves and our lives down on that alter daily and dying to ourselves, our desires and our goals in life!

Caleb did a great job though of reminding us that music is not worship. Our lives sacrificed on the alter of praise is true spiritual worship!

Which stirred up the question in my heart.

Does God care about the quality of our worship to Him?

Does the quality of our worship matter to God? Not the quality or style of our music (we can save that for another time) but the quality of our lives that we offer to Him in worship.

Does the quality of we lay on the alter matter to God?

The quick answer this question is absolutely, He does. Let me briefly mention a few examples for scripture.

Genesis 4, we see the first offerings of praise offered to the Lord. Abel offers to God the firstborn of his flock of sheep to the Lord. Cain brought some of his excess harvest of the field. God accepts Abels offering and rejects Cains.

In Exodus at the institution of the first Passover. Isreal is instructed to sacrifice a lamb to cover their sins. And He tells them, Exodus 12:5 “Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats,”. Your sacrifice must be without blemish. Highest quality and the angel of death will passover you!

Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy all talk about the sacrifices and offerings offered to God in praise in the tabernacle and eventually in temple. All of them must be without blemish, without spot.

The priest stop following these commands multiple times throughout history. And two of those time God sends Isaiah and Malachi to tell them things like, Isaiah 1:11–13 ““What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. “When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations— I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.”

Malachi 1:8 “When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not evil? And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil? Present that to your governor; will he accept you or show you favor? says the Lord of hosts.”

God cares about the quality of the offerings!

Even in the NT, Jesus talks about rejecting the sacrifices of the Pharisee’s while accepting the offering of a widow.

In Acts, the Holy Spirit strikes dead a couple that lied about their offering to the church.

I have barely scratched the surface, but I think we can all agree that God ABSOLUTELY cares about the quality of our sacrifices and offerings of praise to Him!

What we lay down on the alter, matters to Him!

Our main passage even makes that clear that it is no longer goats or lambs but ourselves that is laid down on the alter and the quality of our sacrifice still matters to God!

Romans 12:1 ESV

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Those words are not an accident. They are intentional! He is talking to Christians by the way. He said, make sure your bodies that you present to God as a sacrifice of praise is holy and acceptable to God!

Do you know what that means? It means that we can make sacrifices with our lives that are not holy and therefore unacceptable to God.

I think we have seen that God does not shy away from rejecting unacceptable worship.

Quick example of that, when talking about fasting, Jesus says that if you do it so that others see you do it, you have already recieved your reward. Meaning, “you’re not going to get anything from me for that.”

God still absolutely cares about the quality of your sacrificial worship to Him! Romans tells us that our sacrifices need to be holy and acceptable to God!

So, the question is no longer does God care about the quality of our worship to Him. The question is now, do we care about the quality of our worship to Him?

Do we care as much as God does about the quality of our lives that we are laying down on the alter in worship to Him?

If God cares about it, I would suggest that we should absolutely care about it as well!

Last week, we talked about do you desire to know God more? Do you desire to be with Him more deeply, more intimately?

Well, do you desire to offer God a holy and acceptable sacrifice of praise to Him?

Before we talk about how, its just as important to understand why we must desire to offer Him the highest quality of worship to Him!

Why?! Why should we desire to offer God the highest quality of worship possible?

1. First and foremost, because He is absolutely worth the highest quality of worship!

The quality of which we view God will directly determine the quality of the offering that we bring Him.

If we have a small view of God, we will only view Him as worthy of a small portion of our lives. A small view or worth of God leads to a life that tries to figure out how to get Jesus to be apart of our lives. Jesus becomes an addition to OUR lives. If you struggle to desire offering Him more of your life, then might I suggest increasing your view of how great and amazing God is! And your desire to please Him will follow!

Because a high view, high value, high opinion of God will in turn cause to be willing to make every sacrifice, every offering that He asks of us! We will strive to live holy lives because God absolutely deserves that highest quality offering!

We see this in people don’t we? We would willingly sacrifice something for our children of spouse that we would not necessarily sacrifice for a stranger, right? Because how much we love and value someone directly effects how much we are willing to sacrifice for them.

God is no exception to that.

We don’t strive to live holy lives because He tells us to. We strive to live holy lives because He is worthy of holy and pure offerings!

He cares! And so should we!

the 2nd reason we should desire to bring Him quality worship is

2. Because of the sacrifice that He made for us!

Jesus’ death on the cross paid the penalty for our sins! He made the ultimate sacrifice for our sins and has placed on us His righteousness! All of your debts are paid in full! His holiness has been given to us! And in Him we have access to God!

His grace covers a multitude of sins!

He has made us holy in God’s sight therefore we should strive to make our lives, our sacrifices, our worship to match who we are in Him!

Sanctification is the process of what Jesus has given us in our spirit working itself out in our minds, souls and bodies.

1 Thessalonians 5:23 “Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

We should all be striving to be sanctified in our complete beings, in response to what Jesus has already done for us, so that we can offer to Him the holiest, highest quality of worship and offerings to Him!

Unfortunately, many of us have been taught that because of His sacrifice, because of His grace, the ways that we live our lives really doesn’t matter.

Bonhoffer calls that cheap grace.

We use grace as an excuse to offer God mediocre, half-hearted, unholy sacrifices in our worship.

The Christian life is not about trying to figure out how much sin you can allow in your life and still get the benefits of a relationship with Jesus.

God cares about the quality of your life. God cares about the quality of your spiritual acts of worship. God cares about the way you live Monday through Saturday.

My fear is how many of our worship on Sunday morning is not acceptable because of how we live the rest of our lives.

God cares deeply about the quality of our sacrifices to Him.

And we should care more about the quality of our lives than we care about the quality, style or type of worship music that is played on Sunday morning.

We have to desire Him more deeply. And we have to care about the quality of worship that God deserves because of who He is and what He has done for us.

So, how do we do that?

How do we offer higher quality worship personally?

Turn with me to Hebrews 11. We are going to work our way through the last 3 chapters of Hebrews and see what kinds of worship is acceptable to God.

And we are going to see three things that the writer of Hebrews tells us that is sacrifices or offerings to God that are acceptable and pleasing to Him.

Number 1

Surrender in faith

Hebrews 11 is known as the hall of faith. It is story after story about people from scripture that the Lord asked to make sacrifices in their lives and to take steps of faith in their lives.

Hebrews 11:1–6 ESV

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

The Lord wants all of our lives and it takes faith in Him to take those steps!

God desires that we trust Him with all of the things that hold back from Him because we are afraid to lose them.

God desires that we trust His provision, His mercy, His goodness and to be willing to lay down everything to Him!

Faith pleases God because it is recognition of who He is and that IS worship!

When we talk about laying down our lives to Him, that includes everything!

Look, we are all holding on to somethings. Things we think we deserve. Things we are afraid to loose. Things that we are afraid to live our lives without.

The sacrifice that pleases God, the offering that pleases God, the worship that pleases Him is a life that is walking in faith to Him!

A faithfilled life that holds on to the things of this world loosely because of your faith in the goodness of God!

Your faith and willingness to surrender to Him forces you to draw near to Him and He says that He will draw near to you and will reward those who seek Him!

You don’t have to be afraid to surrender your life to Him because He is absolutely faithful and your faith is a sacrifice that is pleasing to Him!

We should care about that!

Number 2 of how do we make our sacrifices acceptable to Him is one we briefly talked about.

2. By sharing in His holiness

Hebrews 12:1–4 ESV

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

If we desire to step out in faith and trust Him with our lives. If we desire to have more of Him, lay aside the sins that cling to us and weigh us down! There is a race set before us and it is a race that we must endure!

We MUST lay aside the sins that we know will consistently trip us up or slow us down in our pursuit to offer holy sacrifices to God!

We do this by keeping out eyes fixed on Jesus! Do all that you can do to think about Him! He is the founder, the foundation of your faith and He is also the one working it out into perfection!

His life serves as an example for how we should live! In faith, He endured the cross! He struggled against sin beyond the shedding of His own blood!

We should also strive to live our lives like Him. Walking in faith to God, striving to not sin because sin slows us down and trips us up in our pursuit of Him! We must resist!

But this passage also teaches us that Jesus helps us!

Hebrews 12:10–11 ESV

For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Look, we don’t like this word disciple because it makes us feel like children but we are His children and a loving father disciplines His kids!

It is not loving to let your child run out in the road! It is loving to discipline them to know that it is not safe!

It is not loving to let your child live THEIR truth! Whatever, THEY think is true and right. It is loving to show them that there is right and wrong and the Word of God is where you can find that truth!

Discipline in not fun in the moment but it is an expression of love because He disciplines us for our good that we could share in His holiness. And therefore live lives that are holy and acceptable to God!

How much more loving is that?! He says, I want to help you be a holy and acceptable sacrifice to God! And therefore you will see God move in your life!

Hebrews 12:14 ESV

Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

We must submit to Him in faith and strive for holiness if we desire to see the Lord!

Lastly, in Hebrews 13, is another way that we can offer quality worship to God.

3. Doing good and sharing with others

Hebrews 13:15–16 ESV

Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

How we treat others can be a sacrifice that is pleasing to God!

It is no wonder that the two greatest commands are to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, mind and soul and to love your neighbor as yourself!

God desires that our sacrifices are not just between Him and me but that my sacrifices are between me and others!

We can not neglect to do good for other and share out of the blessing that God has given us!

Ananias and Sephira proves that!

Church, God cares about the quality of your life.

He cares about the quality of the sacrifices that you lay down on that alter to Him.

And we should equally care about the quality of the offerings, sacrifices and worship that we offer to Him,

BECAUSE a holy God deserves a holy sacrifice!

Because He made us holy therefore we must strive to live holy lives.

And we do that practically by surrendering in faith, striving for holiness, and doing good and sharing with others.

Let’s pray.

Pray against guilt and shame from keeping us from pursuing Christ and holiness.

Confess and repent. Admit and turn from sin.