Worship as a Way of Life – Sermon for CATM
April 20, 2008
[Introduction involved powerpoint images of people engaged in acts of worship and then engaged in everyday things. The congregation was asked which images they thought represented worship and which didn’t]
Our Scripture today is from Romans chapter 12. As the Scripture is read, consider that this chapter is really all about worship.
Reader: _______________
12:1 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. 2 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. 3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. 4 Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
So the conversation here is really about worship, which is of course a spiritual thing, but which impacts everything in our lives.
Commonly, we think that worship is something we do on Sundays. What happens in this place once its converted from a gym to a sanctuary is worship. Hearts and minds focussed on God. Hands raised to the Almighty. Prayers said. Songs sung. Sermon preached.
The problem with that understanding is that a) it suggests that there’s one day in the week where we really tend to the things of the spirit and b) it suggests that other days are for living life ways that can be and often are pretty detached from worship. Other days are not for spiritual things.
12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, 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.
You know, there’s a problem with the word ‘spiritual’. When we say that this and this and that are spiritual, we’re saying, in our language, that other things are not spiritual.
It’s interesting to note that in the language and culture of God’s chosen people, in the Hebrew language, there is no word for spiritual.
Is that because they were unspiritual? If you know anything about the Jews of biblical times or modern times, you know that there’s nothing unspiritual about God’s people. There is just NO WORD for spiritual in the Hebrew language. That’s because EVERYTHING IS SPIRITUAL. Life as intended by God is an integrated whole.
Even when the New Testament in the Greek seems to refer to separate aspects of our being; for instance when Jesus says in Matthew: “"’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”, it’s only to call us to NOT segment ourselves. Your whole self…heart, soul and mind work together as one. And our bodies too.
That’s why this passage says that we are to offer our bodies to God AS A SPIRITUAL ACT OF WORSHIP. Every part of you is intended for God, to honour God, to worship Him.
That’s why the Scriptures call us to holiness of body…to take care of our bodies as holy things; to not give our bodies over to unholy things that defile us.
That’s why Hebrews 13: 4 says that “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral”.
God doesn’t say this because He’s a kill joy. He calls us to holiness of body because he knows that we are only truly free when ALL OF US is free. And of course our sexuality impacts our spiritual life most profoundly. That’s because EVERYTHING IS SPIRITUAL.
2 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.
Paul starts to unpack what it means to understand our whole selves and our whole lives as worship. The main thing he says here is this: You can’t honour God, you can’t worship God and at the same time walk in lock-step with what the world views as normal.
Living for God is not normal. Sorry to disappoint you if you thought it was. Living with the intention of pleasing God on HIS terms is not normal.
Stretching definitions of right living, redefining things like marriage to suit the spirit of the age, compromising God’s standards of holiness…that’s normal.
That’s what we expect from the world. But we’re called to not waste our energies on such things.
We’re called to “NOT CONFORM ANY LONGER TO THE PATTERN OF THIS WORLD”.
You know I’m glad Paul doesn’t stop their, because it doesn’t help when someone tells me what not to do. It doesn’t help, frankly if God were to tell me what not to do. I need to know WHAT to do.
And the Word of God doesn’t disappoint. We’re called to BE TRANSFORMED. That suggests that I have a ways to travel in life. I NEED to change. God loves me too much to let me stay as I am. How. How am I to be transformed? “BY THE RENEWING OF MY MIND”.
OK. That’s helpful, sort of. But…what’s gotta happen to my mind?
2 Corinthians 10:3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
Paul uses some strong language to convey more of the seriousness of what it means to worship God with a transformed and renewed mind. Every thought taken captive and made obedient to Christ. Jesus said in John 14: 15 "If you love me, you will obey what I command.
Does that sound normal to you? Does that sound like the pattern of the world to you? I tell you, the gospel and the Christian life are not for the faint of heart.
3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.
Humility is absolutely key to worship and to living in good and healthy relationship with other people. Our relationships are spiritual things, my friends. They are sacred. If we want strong and healthy friendships, we must practice humility.
You might recall this passage from Philippians: 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
4 Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
The pattern of this world tends to be that we are islands unto ourselves. In Canada and in North America there’s always been a certain pride in fierce individualism.
God’s reality that He invites us to enter into is that WE ARE CONNECTED in the most profoundly spiritual way imaginable: In Christ.
We must be willing to be connected to one another. To be friends. We must dare to make those connections, to take the initiative to begin friendships. We must dare to love and in doing so risk BEING LOVED. Is that so hard?
God’s call to each other is a call to unity. Our unity in Christ is the Kingdom life that reflects God’s own nature as Trinity. Jesus said in John 17: 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one:
We are called to love, called to share. We are called to be God’s community,
His body, here on earth. This too is worship…it is worship as a way of living, worship as a way of life.
We continue in our reading:
6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. 7 If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; 8 if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.
The biggest mistake I made when I was a young Christian and the biggest mistake I see a lot of people making is thinking, believing that we have nothing to give.
We feel like we’re just here to live and breathe.
But you know, I was also one of those people who wasn’t content to sit in a pew.
I would always like to move around. I would want to be involved. Let me serve coffee. Let me shovel the sidewalk outside the church. Let me read the scripture. Let me take out the garbage.
Let me play in the band or help the sound guys. Let me talk to the guy off the street who’s come in and is really hurting.
Let me take my tiny little offering of myself and give it to God. The God who feeds thousands with a few loaves and fishes. God who says the least are the greatest and the last shall be first.
People…you have gifts to give the body of Christ as an act of worship to the living God. You know, when I figured out that my ancy-ness, my discontent to be a passive observer of worship…When I figured out that my annoyance at a lack of focus on social justice issues in my church at the time…all this was because God had given me gifts He intended me to use, and that I wasn’t just hyper-active…that was the most liberating thing.
That’s when church became so much fun for me. When I began to see myself as truly part of the body of Christ…a connected person.
Sitting here today are present and FUTURE teachers, leaders, worship musicians, community advocates, lay-pastors, politicians, ushers, listeners, greeters, care-givers, mentors, justice workers, community developers…servants one and all of the most high God who express their worship to Jesus by serving one another and by serving a world that is just starving for meaning and love and purpose.
Please, please, please…if this at all resonates with you, let go of the lie that you have nothing to give.
Embrace the truth that you were made and redeemed (in part) to serve, to give of yourself to the body of Christ and to the mission of the church, which is to reach a needy world with the love of God and the life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ.
And just…serve. Have the heart of a servant. You know, a number of months back when we were early on in the search process for our new associate pastor, I was on the phone trying to co-ordinate with Ronda to have her come to CATM and do some liturgical dance with us and perhaps teach a course in dance.
We were having a hard time coming up with a date that would work because she was busy most Sundays doing her internship at another church.
So it became evident that the dates we were looking at to have her come just weren’t going to work.
At one point Ronda left me a voice message saying that she was disappointed that the timing didn’t work out.
But she also said this: “I hope that some day I might be able to come and SERVE the mission”.
Honestly, that’s when God got my attention about Ronda regarding the role of associate pastor. She had no idea that we had a position open here, so I told her about it and asked her if she might consider applying.
And the rest is history. A servant’s heart is a beautiful thing.
9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.
Clearly, a call to something that real, eh? There’s no room for insincerity, no room for pretence. Remember, this is about what it means to live a lifestyle of love.
There’s a commitment to one another, a devotion to one another in brotherly and sisterly love; a sibling affection.
Again…this cannot happen unless we learn to trust and learn to know one another more and more. I like the way the Message paraphrase of this passage puts it: “9-10Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle”.
Worshipping God entails embracing what he loves and turning from what he hates; therefore we do good and not evil; we do not call what God calls evil good.
We are bold in the face of worldly norms to stand for biblical values, and, very importantly, we do so in sincere love for those who think differently. Always, at all points we are to love.
11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.
Passion is a necessary ingredient to worship. Passion is a necessary ingredient to life. Without passion existence can be pretty flat.
A marriage without passion is a marriage in trouble. A musician without passion for music is…well such a thing just doesn’t exist. Likewise and artists without passion for art is no artist. A Christian without passion for God… you can see my point.
The Message paraphrase says this: 11-13Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame”
All of this paints a picture of worship that I think we can just begin to see is larger than we commonly imagine. We’re not off base when we think that what we do on Sundays is worship.
We are off base if we think that what we do on Sundays is near enough worship. Increasingly we as a church family will be connecting among ourselves AS a family and connecting with PURPOSE to our community.
God invites us to live, together as God’s people who meet in this place and who are sent out weekly from this place to bless the community.
God invites us to live the worship that we profess, the worship that we long to enter when we gather here.
What we do on Sundays as worship is important because Jesus promises His presence to those who gather in his name and because the Bible calls us to not forsake the assembling of ourselves together.
What we do here is together encounter the living God in real time so that He can pour into the body of Christ that is us. What we do tomorrow morning, Monday morning.
What we do the rest of the week…the way we chose to worship as a way of life…that’s critically important because a worshipful life is a life of love, it is a life submitted to God in love and obedience.
It is a life full to the brim with possibility, pregnant, if you will, with the promise of God’s blessing and instrumental, useful beyond imagining to the harvest that God wants to bring in within this community.
The earliest church lived this way and they preached the gospel and in one day 3000 were saved. Could it be that God intends a harvest for His Kingdom in this community that approaches this?
Do we have the audacity and the faith and the confidence in God and the compassion to live this out, church? Each of us needs to think about that and decide, “Will I enter that vision?”
Will I take myself seriously and my life seriously as an offering to Jesus Christ…will I wake up tomorrow morning and live the worship I do today, the faith I profess this Sunday?
