Christian Worship

You can buy all the sacrifices you want. You can come with the best church clothes you can buy. But worship, if it's anything less than communion and delight in the living Lord Jesus, is fake and forced. Worship that is built on anything other than the person and the work of Jesus Christ is fake and is forced. It's not worship. It's not about the how, but the who.

And the challenge is when Jesus spoke about the spirit and the truth of worship: is the emotion, our delight, our joy, and the intellect, the changing of our will, changing of our thought patterns when we worship God. Well, today we are continuing on this theme of worship, and we're looking at another very famous, well-known passage in the Bible on worship. And that's Romans 12, verses 1 to 2. So if you have your Bibles, let's open to that verse right now. And we're just going to read those two verses, but keep your Bibles open because we're really going to try and flesh those two verses out this morning.

I'm sure you've probably heard this before. Romans 12, verses 1 and 2. Paul writes to the church in Rome: "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing, and perfect will." So that is our reading this morning. Now, as always, we need to take these verses in context. It's dangerous to just pull these two out and read something into that. So we'll have to understand the immediate passage before and after, and then also the whole context of the letter of Romans.

Now, if you look just before these verses in chapter 11, you'll see that Paul has just finished writing a doxology about God. A doxology, a poem, a beautiful poem about praising God, about His glory. Doxa is the Greek for glory. And so Paul writes this, and it's just the emotional overflow of joy that he has. Why does Paul write this?

Well, we see Paul has just finished talking about how the Gentiles, the majority of the people that Paul was working with, had become a part of God's people. And for a long time, people thought that only the Jews could be God's people. Only the Jews could have access and a relationship with God. But here, Paul was saying that the Gentile population, the majority of the world's population, could be included into God's holy nation of Israel. They are like branches, he says, that have been engrafted or grown into an existing tree trunk.

They're like adopted sons and daughters, he says. And God will use these new sons and these new daughters, this newly engrafted branch, to preach the gospel to the trunk. The irony of that. Paul sees in this mighty act of Christians or Gentiles becoming Christians, a new movement of God. And he is so moved by that, by this mighty act of power, that Paul is just brought to the point of bubbling over with joy and gratitude.

And he writes this doxology. And then he says, "Therefore, in view of this mercy, be living sacrifices. Be living sacrifices." And this is the first point I want us to look at this morning. Worship is always reactive.

Worship is always reactive. It's always a response. Now, that might not sound very comfortable because we should say, "No, no, we should want to do it.

We should do it firstly and foremostly." But I want us to have a bit of a perspective. Let's think about what we have, who we are. Did we choose where we were born? Did we choose into what family we were born?

Did we choose to be born in Australia, or a situation of wealth and comfort? Did you choose to be given your intellect, your musical ability, your business savvy, your people skills? Was there any point where you thought, "I'd like to have that, and I'll select that and have it"? Of course not. But how often do we want to claim credit for that?

How often do we want to say, "It's all me"? The book of James says that God is a giver of all good things. And our worship of God is not out of some obligation, or out of pity towards God, or to be nice to God. We don't give our worship to God like throwing a dog a bone. He doesn't need our worship.

He doesn't even need us, really. Sometimes we can come to the point where we think that God needs our worship. He is some sort of narcissist that needs to build and increase and be comforted by our worship of Him. But God is fully satisfied, the Bible says, in His own glory. In the Trinity, there is plenty of praise between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

He doesn't need our worship. If He was dependent on us giving Him worship, then He would not be God. If He was dependent on us giving Him worship, He would not be God. That's why Paul says, "Whoever has given to God that God should repay him? Nothing, absolutely nothing." We have nothing that has been truly earned by us or deserved by us. And so worship is always reactive because it's a response to what God has given us.

God has moved first. Every single bit of it is mercy. Every single bit of our lives is mercy, is grace, undeserved, unearned, a gift. The very fact that we're sitting here living and breathing, the very fact that our heart is beating, that you can put your hand on your pulse and feel it beat, is a gift of God because we do not even deserve to be alive, given God's glory and our shortcomings. Therefore, in view of God's mercy, offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God.

This is your spiritual act of worship. Worship is reactive to God's mercy. It's not proactive. No one has ever given to God what God hasn't already provided to them in the first place. We don't give worship to God out of pity to Him.

God doesn't need it. Rather, we need His mercy. That's the first point. Worship is reactive. It's a response.

Secondly, our worship is sacrificial. Our worship is sacrificial. Living sacrifices, if you think about it, sounds like an oxymoron, right? If you know what I'm not, I'm not swearing at you.

Oxymoron. In the Old Testament, animals were killed as part of the sin offering. The shedding of their blood was a physical representation that that animal had taken on God's punishment for the sin of the individual or the family. Sacrifice meant death. But now we're told to be living sacrifices.

How does that work? What does that mean? Well, I think the answer is given to us in verse two. Because verse one is sort of the symbolic representation of the realistic truth in verse two. Why do I say this?

Well, Paul repeats the word pleasing in both verses one and two, which is more accurately probably translated as acceptable. Verse one: "Offer your bodies as living sacrifices holy and pleasing to God, holy and acceptable to God." And verse two: "Use your renewed mind to prove what is the will of God, his good and pleasing and perfect will." So there is probably a close link between the offering of our body to God as a pleasing sacrifice and doing the pleasing and acceptable will of God. So back to the question.

What is the sacrificial act in our worship? First of all, we see that it is more than simply our emotions or our thoughts. Worship is more than coming to church and feeling all gooey inside. It encapsulates our entire bodies. Offer your bodies as living sacrifices.

It means all of us. God wants all of us in worship. Then in verse two, it says, "Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world." Again, a very broad statement. The whole world, not just your little corner of the Gold Coast.

Do not be conformed to the pattern of the entire world. The system of the world, the system of what people say and do and think and reason and discuss, do not be conformed to it. How easy is it for us to use the excuse "Well, everyone is doing it"? Everyone is doing it. You know, this is a very simple example, but everyone is downloading music.

Everyone does it. A more, I don't know, a Christianese one could be to say that everyone believes sex is up for grabs in the context that you choose, whether that be sex between people of the same age, or sex before marriage, outside of the union of marriage, or even within the union of marriage, outside of that with someone else. Everyone does it. Everyone does it. So maybe it's okay.

And you see that everywhere. And the unfortunate thing is, if you were to listen to people today, and I've said this before, everyone has concluded now that men are cheaters. That's just how it is. Men are cheaters. They cannot be faithful.

All men are cheaters. So don't blame them. Just learn to adapt. Just because everyone else is doing it, however, doesn't make it right. And that is the truth of Scripture.

Don't be conformed to that world pattern, but be transformed in the renewing of your mind. And that encapsulates your body. Our worship is an all-of-life worship. Our character, when giving praise and glory to God, is important to Him. Our character, when we sit here and worship God, is important to Him.

So many times in the Old Testament, God wants worship with the integrity of an upright character. So many times you hear God saying or lamenting the fact that people come to Him with empty songs, with empty words, with empty praise, meanwhile the poor are dying in the streets. Worship is sacrificial. It means that stuff has to die. It has to die inside of us, and yet we continue living.

It is the process of dying to self that Jesus talked about. Dying to self and taking up the cross. Worship is sacrificial. It's not just ooey gooey, lovey dovey stuff. But the great thing also is our third point: that while our worship is sacrificial, while it is dying to self, worship is also a renewed way of thinking that produces joy.

Be transformed in the renewing of your mind, Paul writes. Now, the root of Christian living in verse two is a profoundly renewed mind. The root of Christian living is a renewed way of thinking and doing things. This renewed mind is able to test and approve what God's will is, Paul says. To test and approve what God's will is.

It doesn't just think clearly, but it assesses truly. It values accurately what is good, what is pleasing, what is perfect. And this is utterly relevant to our daily lives because ninety per cent of the things we do during the day, we do without logical reflection. Who reflects when they are cursing at their computer for a slow internet connection? We don't.

We might reflect afterwards and say, "Maybe I shouldn't have done that." But ninety per cent of our life is simply doing things. We act spontaneously out of the spirit of the mind that is in us. Ephesians four says, or as Jesus said in Matthew 12:34, "Out of the abundance of our hearts, the mouth speaks."

But with a transformed mind, we can test and approve God's will, what God wants from us, what God's desire for us is. Now, this term "test and approve" needs a bit of fleshing out. What does it mean? Well, Paul could have simply said, "With a renewed mind, we get to test what God's will is, to know what His will is. With a renewed mind, we know that, okay, God wants this.

His law is this, therefore, I should be doing this." To weigh it up and to make a logical decision based on that. But Paul doesn't end with just simply testing God's will. He adds the word "to approve it" as well. Now, they might sound familiar, but they express different things when determining the value of something.

To test and approve of something is to value it. Now, you guys know that I have a shameless little passion or maybe a shameful passion for Antiques Roadshow. Last time I talked about it, there were a few amens, so so maybe you can understand this. But if you know the show, you know that they have experts on the panel or in the show that value family heirlooms or antiques. Now, these experts determine the monetary value based upon supply and demand.

How scarce this item is, or how much demand this item is within the market. Now, you see the item's value is tested by the expert. The value is tested by the expert. Logically, rationally, this Ming vase is worth $10,000. And they may be impressed by this item, but they remain objective, they remain unemotional about this item.

But the family members who own this item, even though it's worth $10,000 and they may be impressed by the value, a lot of these family members would never ever dare to sell it because it's worth far more than $10,000 to them. They fully approve of it. It is worth more to them than that monetary, logical, rational establishment of worth. Both testing that the experts do and approving that the family members do comes down to its value. But approving is a deeper connection one has with a valuable thing.

It is treasuring something. God and His will is, or should be, valuable to Christians. God's will should be valuable to Christians. Not only should we know its value, but we should love it. We should approve of it.

We must feel it in our bones. That is what Paul is talking about here. Verse two says that a deep renewal of the way we approve and assess and value reality leads us to a transformed living, a life that is not conformed to this world. And this nonconformity is not just external and forced and objective, it is internal. It is natural.

It is free. And that is integrity because in any different situation that you face, you'll be consistent about God's will. It flows from our new values and our assessment of what our treasure is. Going back to the internet connection, if our treasure is our comfort or our immediate gratification, then we will be upset when that is slowed. But if our treasure is in God or the higher things in life, then who cares?

That sort of does pale in comparison. You can understand. Now, that's just a very obvious, simple example. But treasuring God's will does change us externally, and it puts us out of conformity to the world. We find ourselves doing what Paul calls the will of God, and God has a pattern for life.

I think this week I posted up, "If God has created a world that is full of order and full of physical laws and chemical laws that hold the whole universe together, why do we proclaim and confess and believe that morals are grey and subjective? If everything is black and white, why can we be grey? It doesn't make sense." There is a pattern that God has created. There is a way of living that is God's way.

There are good things. There are acceptable things. There are perfect things, even if the world thinks differently. Verse two describes a living sacrifice as being the renewal of our minds, a whole new way of tasting and assessing and approving what is good. We are, as Paul says, crucified to the world, and the world is crucified to us.

So the renewal is a dying of old values and a coming to life of new values. It is the dying of old ways of treasuring television and food and money, and the awakening of new spiritual taste buds. So our spiritual act of worship is to come to God each day and say, "Oh God, in view of your great mercy to me, there is nothing that I want more than to approve what is most worthy, what is most valuable, to treasure what is most precious, and to admire what is most beautiful, to hate what is most evil, to abhor what is most ugly. I consider myself dead to all that is unspiritual and unloving and deadening to my soul. Renew me, oh my God.

Awaken the spiritual capacities of right assessment. And then we say, and take me, body and soul, and make me the instrument of your glory in the world. Let the renewal you are working from within show on the outside. This is my spiritual worship, to show the world that you are my all-satisfying treasure. There it is.

The essence of worship is not being satisfied in God, is being satisfied in God and cherishing Christ as the centre of our lives. Being satisfied in God completely and cherishing Christ as the centre of our lives. Romans 12, verses 1 to 2 are not saying anything different from what we learnt last week in John 3 and 4. This is what it means to worship in spirit and in truth. It is to worship with a renewed mind.

The renewed mind perceives and approves and treasures the will of God, and thus transforms our lives because it first and foremostly treasures and cherishes God. And doing the will of God is a reflection of His glory in us. All of life, all of life is the outshining of God's glory. All of life is a reflection of His mercy that He has first given to us and we respond back to Him. And therefore, all of life can be worshipped.

But the question is: is it worship of God or something else? Therefore, be transformed in the renewing of your mind. Cherish God in all His works and in all His ways. Consider the old mind, the old way of doing things dead, and offer yourself to God as a living sacrifice that He may put you up as a display of His power, of His grace, of His mercy. And that at the end of the day, we can declare with that doxology of Paul that from Him, through Him, and to Him are all things, and to Him be the glory forever and ever.

Amen. God, we want to worship you rightly. We want to worship you in the way that you deserve. Forgive us of our pride in thinking that worship and our affections of you is something that you need, that you crave, that you desire in order to fulfill some hole or some lacking in your character and who you are. Forgive us for being so self-centred to even dare to think that.

But at the same time, remind us and humble us to realise that you have extended us into this worship that you already have. The glory that you already received from the Trinity, the fellowship that you have within the Godhead of who you are, and the legion of angels that praise you. It is a magnificent invitation to enter into that. And we long, Lord, for the day where we will be able to do that fully with you in paradise. At the same time, we want to come before you again.

And we want to confess that there's stuff in our lives that we have tried to hide away in the darkness. Stuff that we don't want anyone to know about, but that we fail to realise you already see. Lord, we thank you that that light does expose it, but not only exposes it, helps to kill it in us. That that spiritual act that the Holy Spirit begins in us, that sanctification that you begin in us to renew our ways of thinking, our ways of doing things is already happening in us, for we want that to become more and more part of our lives.

And Father, we ask that you accept the humble sacrifices that we can offer you in who we are, and the gifts and the talents and the abilities, the place of prominence that you have placed us in, the country that you have given us. But we just simply give back to you. And, Lord, we want to confess that from here on out, we want to be changed so that we can come to you with integrity because you care about our character in our worship. Help us, Lord, to be creative, to understand how our work life, how our family life, how our recreational life can be to the glory of your name. Help us to have the perspective of thanking you for everything that we have, for humbling us ourselves and realising just what a magnificent gift this life is.

But at the same time, not just to stop with thankfulness, but to start with a sacrifice as well. Giving back to you. So Lord, we come before you. We ask that you will make us acceptable because we're not. And at the same time, we ask for that power that you promised us. In the power of the Holy Spirit and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we conquered both sin and death once and for all.

We stand in that power and that assurance again this morning. In Jesus' name. Amen.