2/12/23 True Worship

“True Worship”

Romans 12:1-2

There are some things in life that are difficult to describe or explain.

For instance, if you were on the phone with someone and they asked you to explain or describe the color of your shirt without using the name of the color itself, how would you begin?

Let’s say you have a blue shirt on. How would you describe ‘blue’ to your friend on the phone without using the word ‘blue’?...It’s nearly impossible, right?

There is no way that you could definitively describe the color blue to someone in a way that would confirm they are seeing precisely the same color and shade that you are!

When it comes to colors, words fail us. We have no vocabulary to describe what definitively distinguishes blue from green, or red from orange.

Just for fun, Here are a list of a few other words, questions, or phrases that are very difficult, if not impossible, to define, answer, or explain:

Why are yawns contagious?

Why do you find something funny and someone else does not think it’s humorous at all? (Example: Our oldest daughter (Lindsay) & I appreciate ‘dumb’ humor, while Lisa and Lexy do not appreciate ‘dumb’ humor…I cannot define why that is the case.

The taste of water…Describe that!

Tickling….what does it feel like?

Nothing…what is it? (Illustration: Men have a ‘nothing’ box in our brains - men can literally think about ‘nothing’…women, apparently, do not possess this incredible skill! 😊)

An Emotion…If you want to experience frustration, try to define ‘happy’

Gravity…we see the effects of gravity all around us, but what causes gravity to work?

Time…try to describe time without using the word ‘time….I’ll wait. tic, toc, tic, toc

Sleep…We spend 30% of our lives doing something that we can’t easily describe – or why we need it!

Music…How would you describe music to a deaf person? Or, why do major chords invoke happiness and minor chords invoke sadness?

Another word that we Christians often use that is difficult to define or describe is….. “Worship”

What is the definition of worship?

What does it mean if we say that we are worshipping God?

The sign above the door to this sanctuary says: “Enter to Worship”…what exactly does that look like?

Fortunately, as with most everything in life, the Bible provides an answer to the question of “What is worship?”…..and it might surprise you what true worship consists of!

To many people, including many Christians, when we think of ‘worship’ we immediately think of music, right?

After all, many churches have worship bands, playing worship music, for a group of worshippers congregated in a sanctuary to worship God.

The biblical definition of worship, however, has surprisingly little to do with music.

Don’t get me wrong, I love music. I devoted 20 years of my life to working in the music industry….music has always been an extremely important part of my life.

When it comes to the biblical definition of worship, however, I don’t see music mentioned as a central component.

Music can, and should, be a natural result of worship – but, as we will see this morning, music isn’t what ought to generate or initiate our worship of God. According to scripture, worship originates from another source – let’s see what that is.

Let’s take a look at verse 1 of our passage of scripture for this morning.

Paul has just finished the most thorough analysis of Christian doctrine and theology contained in the Bible in the first 11 chapters of the book of Romans.

Now, in chapter 12, Paul turns to how we are to apply these doctrines of our faith.

The first two verses of Romans chapter 12 are perhaps the most important verses in the entire Bible concerning the application of biblical truth in our lives. These verses are essential to an understanding of the question “How now shall we live?”

The first thing he talks about in verse 1 is worshipping God – and what that ought to resemble in the life of the believer. (Next week we will look at verse 2)

Verse 1 ends with the statement: “This is your true and proper worship”

Let’s break this verse down to see how we arrive at worship that God considers to be true and proper.

The key to how we arrive at true worship lies smack-dab in the middle of this verse: “Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice”

What does this mean? What does it mean to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice?

Let’s look at the term ‘living sacrifice.’

To completely understand this, we need to understand how the sacrificial system worked under the Mosaic law.

Before the time of Christ, an Israelite would regularly bring an animal, the best of his herd, to the temple to be sacrificed. The Priest would take it, slay it, and place it on the altar on behalf of the person who brought it. The blood from this animal would temporarily cover over that individual’s sins.

Since the time of Christ, however, the animal sacrifices required by the law are no longer needed, in fact, they are no longer acceptable to God.

Why? Because through his perfect sacrifice, the shed blood of Jesus eliminates the need for any further sacrifices to be made – Jesus was the perfect sacrifice.

Hebrews 9:12 says it like this: “He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.”

As Jesus said while clinging to his last few breaths on the cross “It is finished.”

No more sacrifices would need to be made on behalf of man – Jesus paid it all.

So, what does Paul mean when he talks about offering our bodies as living sacrifices?

Notice that Paul does not tell us to offer our souls as a living sacrifice.

Why? As a believer in Christ, you have already offered God your soul. Your soul is already His. Spiritually speaking, you are already redeemed, justified, sanctified, set apart for the work of God.

Our bodies, however, are a different story. The biblical definition of ‘body’ encompasses more than just our physical anatomy, it also involves the longings of our mind, our emotions, our will, and our passions – all of which are capable of being either holy or unholy.

We’ve all seen the old cartoons where Bugs Bunny (Or some other character) would face a moral dilemma and suddenly there would appear a tiny Angel on one shoulder and a tiny devil on the other. Each of these spiritual representatives would try to persuade the character to do what their “boss” wanted them to do.

Kind of a cheesy depiction of spiritual reality, right? And yet, not too far from the truth. We have free will and God desires that we make decisions in our life that honor him – while Satan desires that we choose the opposite of God’s Will and fall into sin.

In other words, when we offer our bodies as a living sacrifice to God, we are choosing to continually put the “old self” to death. When tempted, we are choosing to throw our old sinful nature up on the alter and slay it!

Essentially, this act of continually putting the old self to death is the biblical definition of worship!

Did you catch that? Worship is not an emotion, it’s not a feeling, it’s not singing the chorus of a praise song 10 times in a row, it’s not something that happens only for an hour on Sunday morning.

In fact, biblical worship has very little to do with other people. Worship, according to scripture, is an individual act of surrendering our will to God and putting our sinful desires to death.

Don’t misunderstand me -it’s good you are here. In fact, the Bible tells us in Hebrews 10:25 that the church needs to come together on a regular basis for edification, encouragement, education in the Word, and prayer.

When an Israelite under the law would bring a sacrifice, it was always the best of his herd – as close to unblemished as possible.

In the same way, God wants the best of you as well. He wants ALL of you. He wants ALL of your time, ALL of your talents, ALL of your dreams, ALL of your desires, ALL of your mind, ALL of your strength.

The part of you that is susceptible to falling into sin, in other words, “Your body” – God wants it!...and when you give it to him – THAT is Worship.

There’s a character in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings stories by the name of Smeagol. In these stories, Smeagol acquires the “One Ring” – a ring that held evil powers and eventually led to Smeagol’s physical deformation and ruin. The “One Ring” was Smeagol’s prized possession that he referred to as “My Precious” He couldn’t bear to part with the one thing that was killing him.

If we’re not careful, we can also be a lot like Smeagol. There are idols of sin in our lives that are literally killing us and yet we hang on to them with all of our strength.

Giving up these “precious” things to God is what the Bible calls….Worship.

Why should we worship?

Paul tells us in the first part of verse 1: “In view of God’s Mercy”

Folks, God’s mercy is literally beyond the scope of our understanding. Listen, none of us completely understands the destructiveness of sin. If we understood it completely, we would never engage in it.

The amazing thing about God’s mercy is that He bestows it upon us in spite of our sinful behavior.

What are some of the mercies of God, you ask?

Well, here’s a list of just a few of them: Love, Grace, Salvation through Jesus Christ, Kindness, Forgiveness, Reconciliation, Justification, Eventual Glorification, Eternal Life, The eventual Resurrection of our Bodies, Divine Sonship, The Holy Spirit who dwells in us, Faith, Peace, and Hope.

It is because God has bestowed upon us all of these things that we ought to continually worship him in everything that we do and say.

Our thankfulness ought to be the fuel that powers our vehicle of worship!

Our gratitude ought to be the sunlight that causes the seed of worship to grow!

We worship God because of His great love and mercy shown to us through the redemptive sacrifice of His Son Jesus Christ.

This is why the genuine believer gladly sacrifices the “precious” things in life in exchange for being obedient to the will of God – This is why we worship!

In the Gospel of John, Jesus is speaking with the woman at the well. The woman attempts to describe the proper act of worship to Jesus. She has the idea that worship takes place at a specific place at a specific time – sort of like thinking that worship today just takes place for an hour on Sunday morning.

Jesus tells her in John 4:21-24 “Woman, Jesus replied, believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and the Truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks.”

God gave himself for us in order that we might continually give ourselves to Him.

Worship can, and should, happen everywhere.

Worship can, and should, happen all the time.

Worship can, and should, lead to an outpouring of praise in our lives that manifests itself in a variety of ways including through service to others, benevolence, evangelism, obedience, studying God’s Word, prayer, and, yes, Music!

Music, then, is a beautiful effect resulting from the cause of worship that is already happening within us. Remember when we studied Mary’s song in the gospel of Luke? she couldn’t keep her joy contained. It exploded out from her through song.

Let that be true of us as well. Let’s individually worship our heavenly Father to the extent that what is happening on the inside has no option but to burst out from within us!

The outside sign above the door to the sanctuary is true – we do enter this place to worship God – soon we will be worshipping him through the ordinance of Communion.

However, we also exit this place to worship God.

Perhaps we should put a sign on the inside of the door that says “Exit to Worship” as well.

True worship happens continually in the life of a believer because of what God has done for us.

Let’s Pray.