Worship-Alifestyle
WORSHIP AS A LIFESTYLE ROMANS12:1-2
I would like you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn to the letter that Paul wrote to the Romans, particularly the twelfth chapter. Let us concentrate on the first two verses of this chapter. Paul in these verses deals with the subject that we began to discuss last week, which is worship. In fact, the last phrase at the end of verse one which states “which is your spiritual worship” (your rational service; your spiritual service of worship).
I want us to meditate on this phrase for a minute or two, so that we can better understand these two verses. The word spiritual comes from the Greek word logikos, which means in the realm of the soul. Therefore, what Paul is saying is that worship comes from the inside. It is a part of the inner man. This is why he calls it spiritual.
There are many who confuse worship with songs that are being sung. They associate worship with a certain style of music. Music is an outward expression of worship, just like prayer and giving. But true worship comes from the heart. There are many who worship outwardly, but there inner man is never engaged in the activity. I can sing songs all day long and never worship God because I am going through the motions. So, we need to understand that worship comes from the heart.
This word is translated in some versions of the Bible as reasonable (logical). Therefore, we can say that worship is only reasonable and logical to give to God. It is only right for believers to offer God wholehearted devotion.
The other word that I want us to meditate on this morning is the word worship. The Greek word here is defined as religious worship and not just any kind of worship. Remember there are people who worship their stock portfolios, jobs, hobbies, and things. This is not religious worship, even though some of them might do it religiously. No, the worship that Paul is talking about here is that of a priestly activity. The priests in the Old Testament were active in the worship of the Lord from the prayers offered and the sacrifices made. So worship is an action that involves the heart, mind and soul. It is wholehearted devotion to the Lord. Nothing less! Therefore it is an action that comes from the heart, spiritual. This is the kind of worship that God desires and is acceptable to Him.
Christian worship is not a one or a two or a three hour a week activity. It’s a twenty-four hour a day, seven day a week activity; it’s a whole life activity. In other words, the kind of worship God wants from us is whole life worship; it’s all of life worship. Worship isn’t an activity confined to Sunday morning or evening. I don’t mean by saying this to downplay the importance of corporate worship at all. It’s just that God wants His worship in all of our lives, in the priorities that we choose; He wants us to be worshiping Him. In the restraint of our own sinful habits, He wants us to be worshipping Him.
Derek Thomas just shared with me a letter this afternoon that was incredible convicting because it told a story of a friend of ours who is a minister, he’s been over preaching in Latvia. He was robbed and he wasn’t robbed on the sidewalk. As he went into his house, a man burst through his door, held a knife to his head, blindfolded him, stuffed a rag down his throat, and put him on the floor. The man thought he was going to die right there. As he was on the floor, he tells us he thought, "You know, I had this knife and it was poking at my back in my spine and I thought I could die at any moment and it’s always been my practice that when I experience pain in life, to think of the pain that Christ experienced for me. So, I began meditating." He was on the floor for forty-five minutes experiencing this thing, he’s meditating on the pain of Christ, the suffering of Christ on his behalf, the sovereignty of God, the mercies of God to him, while he’s being robbed. What was he doing? He was worshipping God. There was no corporate worship service call for that hour, but he was worshipping God with his mind, with his heart while he was being robbed.
The Apostle Paul is saying, that’s what I want from you, Christian. I want a Christians who is a twenty-four hour, seven-day a week worship machine. You are always thinking about glorifying God, you’re always thinking about adoring God and in every mundane event of life, or every extraordinary event of life your agenda is to be a person who is worshipping God.
As we walk through this passage, I want you to see several elements that are important for our worship. They are the motivation, the mandate, the manner and the method of worship. First, let us look at the motivation for worship.
MOTIVATION FOR WORSHIP
Let me ask you a question, “Why do you worship?” What is your motivation for worship? Do you worship because you want to be seen as a worshipper of the Lord. Do you worship because you think it is the right thing to do. Or do you worship because this is what you have always done. Here, Paul gives us the motivation for worship.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. Paul says here that the reason, the motivation behind our worship should be God’s mercies.
What Paul is saying is that in light of God’s mercies already given you, and then you have reason to worship the Lord? Ligon Duncan said, “If you think that what Paul is saying is, "That if you’ll just obey, and if you’ll just obey well enough, God will love you," you’ll probably either end up rejecting Christianity, or you’ll end up clinging on to some kind of Christianity, but you’ll be angry with God all the time. That’s not what Paul is asking you. He’s not saying, just obey well enough and God will show you His mercy. He’s saying, God’s already shown you His mercy in Jesus Christ. In light of that, give yourself as a living sacrifice. Love God and obey God and love His law and live the Christian life because of His mercy to you.
In fact, the first eleven chapters of the book of Romans deal with the mercies of God through His Son Christ Jesus. If you read the first eleven chapters of Romans, Paul communicates the great wonders of God’s salvation. In chapter one, Paul says that God’s salvation is for all who believe. In chapter two, Paul says it is God’s kindness that leads us to repentance. In other words, God does not destroy us in His wrath. In chapter three, Paul says this salvation comes by faith and not by works or the law. In chapter four, Paul illustrates this righteousness by faith in the life of Abraham. In chapter five, Paul states that death came to all through one man’s sin, Adam; also God’s salvation comes to all through one man, Jesus Christ. In chapter 6, Paul said, “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal in Christ Jesus our Lord. In chapter seven, salvation in Christ releases us from the law. In chapter 8, as a result of salvation there is no condemnation for those in Christ and our salvation is eternal. In chapter 9-11, salvation includes Jews and Gentiles.
Here are things of which Paul has written that can be included in the category the mercies of God...eternal love, eternal grace, the Holy Spirit, everlasting peace, eternal joy, saving faith, comfort, strength, wisdom, hope, patience, kindness, honor, glory, righteousness, security, eternal life, forgiveness, reconciliation, justification, sanctification, freedom, resurrection, sonship and on going intercession...and more.
Our response to these great truths of mercies is worship. That is why when Paul comes to the end of listing the mercies of God, he’s about to burst. And so in verse 33 of chapter 11 of Romans, he bursts forth with these words, “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways, for who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor, or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to Him again? It is all inscrutable, it is all undeserved. For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to Him be the glory forever, amen.”
Paul goes on in chapters 12, 13, 14, 15 and in the last chapter, chapter 16, but he can’t contain himself. At the end of chapter 16 and again it comes out. Verse 25, “Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but is now manifest, and by the Scripture of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God has been made known to all the nations leading to obedience of faith to the only wise God through Jesus Christ be the glory forever. Amen.” It’s all to Him. He starts in verse 25, “To Him who establishes us according to the gospel through the preaching of the cross, to Him who has given us the revelation of the mystery, meaning the New Testament, the scriptures, to Him who has brought all nations to salvation, leading to the obedience of faith, to Him be all the glory through Jesus Christ.”
The Apostle Paul has these doxological outbursts all through his writing in some of the most amazing places. They appear again and again. One that I love is at the end of chapter 3 in Ephesians, “Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, He has given us mercies that are unimaginable. To Him who is able to do this according to the power that works in us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.” Bottom line, the more scripture you know, the more doctrine you know, the more worship you give.
It is motivated by, spawned by, originated by knowledge...knowledge...knowledge. Philippians, it’s a simple doxology, Paul has been talking in Philippians about the things that God gives us. Verse 19, Philippians 4, “My God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” Just pull that statement apart. God will give you in Christ everything you need according to His infinite riches. Having said that, he can’t contain worship and he bursts out with, “Now to our God and Father be the glory forever and ever. Amen.” These kinds of things always comes in response to a contemplation of the glories of salvation.
In writing to Timothy, Paul rehearses his own testimony at the end of 1 Timothy 1, he says, “I was formerly...verse 13...a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. And then this...and yet I was shown mercy...I was shown mercy.” And then he comes to the doxology, “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” That’s worship. It comes from a heart overwhelmed with the mercies of God associated with the cross.
MANDATE FOR WORSHIP
Now, that we know the motivation for worship, Paul moves us to the mandate. Since you know the mercies of the Lord, familiarize yourself with these mercies. Get thoroughly acquainted with them. As a result of God’s mercies, I beg you, plead with you, I urge you to worship the Lord. So Paul exhorts these believers to worship. In fact, this phrase is in the form of a command. Therefore, we who belong to Christ must worship him.
MANNER OF WORSHIP
The manner in which we worship God is to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable. In other words, Paul is saying offer your whole life to God. This is why worship is not just an activity done on Sunday morning for an hour or two, no worship is a lifestyle.
Several years ago I read an article about Queen Mary, who made it her practice to visit Scotland every year. She was so loved by the people there that she often mingled with them freely without a protective escort. One afternoon while walking with some children, she went out farther than she’d planned. Dark clouds came up unexpectedly, so she stopped at a nearby house to borrow an umbrella. “If you will lend me one,” she said to the lady who answered the door, “I will send it back to you tomorrow.” The woman didn’t recognize the Queen and was reluctant to give this stranger her best umbrella. So she handed her one that she intended to throw away. The fabric was torn in several places and one of the ribs was broken.
The next day another knock was heard at the door. When the lady opened it, she was greeted by a royal guard, who was holding in her hand her old, tattered umbrella. “The Queen sent me,” he said. “She asked me to thank you for loaning her this.” For a moment the woman was stunned, then, she burst into tears. “Oh, what an opportunity I missed,” she cried. “I didn’t give the Queen my very best!”
Paul says we are to present our bodies on the altar. This word present means to place on the altar for death. What Paul means is that we are to die to our own agendas. The Bible says we have been bought with a price, therefore we are not our own. Christians now belong to Christ. Therefore, the Lord wants us to give him our all. He doesn’t just want part of us, he desires all of us. There are many who are willing to give God a portion or an allotted amount of time, but he is interested in all of us. I beat my body to bring it into subjection, he says to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 9. He means by that all that is human about him.
The language here is Old Testament language. An Old Testament offerer would bring his sacrifice to God outside the Holy Place and he would hand it to the priest. The priest would take it in and offer it to God on the altar. When someone brought the offering, it symbolized a worshiping heart cause that’s what God really wanted, even in the Old Testament, God was not pleased with only external offerings. He wanted the heart. He’s always wanted the heart. God wants true worshipers who worship Him in spirit and in truth.
But now there are no more dead offerings, only living ones. The sacrificial system has been set aside and God wants living sacrifices. He wants us to follow the Lord Jesus Christ and deny ourselves. And in so doing, end of verse 2, we will indicate, prove what the will of God is that which is good and acceptable and perfect. In other words, when you put your life on the line, you are saying not my will but Yours be done. From now on whatever is Your will, whatever according to You is good and acceptable and perfect, that I desire to do. This is the living sacrifice.
The story is told of a Chinese Christian who was moved with compassion when many of his countrymen were taken to work as coolies in South African mines. In order to be able to witness to his fellow Chinese, this prominent man sold himself to the mining company to work as a coolie for five years. He died there, still a slave, but not until he had won more than 200 men to Christ. He was a living sacrifice in the fullest sense.
In the mid-seventeenth century, a somewhat well-known
Englishman was captured by Algerian pirates and made a slave. While a slave, he founded a church. When his brother arranged his release, he refused freedom, having vowed to remain a slave until he died in order to continue serving the church he had founded. Today a plaque in an Algerian church bears his name.
David Livingstone, the renowned and noble missionary to Africa, wrote in his journal, People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of the great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own reward of healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter?
“Will you please tell me in a word,” said a Christian woman to a minister, “what your idea of consecration is?” Holding out a blank sheet of paper the pastor replied, “It is to sign your name at the bottom of this blank sheet, and to let God fill it in as He will.”
METHOD FOR WORSHIP
In verse 2, Paul’s says the way we learn to appreciate the mercies of God and to be grateful for the mercies of God is to have a mind which understands these mercies. So here he focuses on a negative and positive aspect of this method. Let us first look at the negative aspect.
“Do not be conformed to this world.” The word conformed literally means to be stamped like metal, or to be molded. New Testament scholar Kenneth Wuest paraphrased this clause: “Stop assuming an outward expression which is patterned after this world, an expression which does not come from, nor is representative of what you are in your inner being as a regenerated child of God” In other words, Paul says stop being fashioned to the pattern of this world. Do not allow the world to squeeze you into its mold. Yet, this is easier said than done because we are surrounded by bad examples and bad company. Paul said, “Bad company corrupts good character” (1 Cor. 15:33).
The word here for world is literally “age.” It represents the demonic-human philosophy that is dominated in this life.
But Christians should be transformed by the renewing of their mind. I think it is interesting that Paul does not state, “substitute one outward fashion for another.” That would be no solution, for the trouble with those who allow themselves to be fashioned after the pattern of this present (evil) age is deep-seated. What is needed is transformation, inner change, the renewing of the mind, that is, not only of the organ of thinking and reasoning but of the inner disposition; better still, of the heart, the inner being. You know, Paul is always talking about the inner man. He’s always talking about the mind or the heart. He knows that true religion flows from a renewed inner life. When he speaks of the mind, he’s talking about our believing faculty, our thinking faculty, our willing faculty, and our desiring faculty, especially those things. Feelings are probably thrown in there somewhere, but they are not as important as those things, the faculty in which we believe and think and will and desire. He says, that has to be transformed in order to live the Christian life. Well how is it transformed? Through its renewal. Well how is it renewed? Through being brought captive to the word of God. You know one of those beautiful things and one of those brave things that Martin Luther said when he stood before that Diet of Worms was "My conscience is captive to the word of God" and that’s what the apostle wants for every Christian. He wants Christians whose consciences, their minds, their inner man is captive to the word of God because the Christian life flows from a renewed inner man. Yet, this transformation is not an on again, off again impulse. No, it is ongoing, continuous. Also, this transformation is a work of the Holy Spirit. We cannot do it ourselves; we must have the help of God. But we are commanded to co-operate with the Holy Spirit. One last thing, Here in verse 2, Paul says, why is all this? "So that you might prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect." Paul knows that minds which have been transformed by the renewing work of God’s Holy Spirit in accordance with the word of God will be able to discern what they ought to do. You can’t do the will of God if you don’t know the will of God, and you can’t make a discerning choice if you don’t know the truth of God. And so the renewed mind ,according to God’s word, is a mind that is able to be discerning in a world that needs discernment. Sin never makes things easier friends, it always complicates things. We live in a fallen world. That means to live as Christians in a fallen world can be a complicated thing and you need discernment and the Apostle Paul says that transformed mind that is captive to the word of God becomes a discerning mind.