“Live it Up!”
Romans 12:1“Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, {which is} your spiritual service of worship. (NASB)
There are many skewed pictures of living it up; High-society images of wealth, extravagance, parties and possessions; beach-side mansions with Porsche or Lamborghini sitting in the driveway. Private jets, custom shoes, or designer clothes where most of us couldn’t afford a sleeve! These inaccurate perceptions of “living it up” are guarantees to live defeated and empty lives since most of us can never reach that goal and none of us are ever really in control of anything.
There is good news for us today! We can “live it up” while grinding it out in our realities. We can “live it up” at home with laundry loads, high needs children and barking dogs; while serving coffee behind the counter or closing a business deal; from the hospital bed facing surgical uncertainty or sunbathing on the beach! So let’s take a stroll down the laneway of new discovery and experience fresh winds of opportunity.
If we really want to “live it up” we must discover the art of WORSHIP. Living it up, truly so, is not discovered in things, position or pizzazz. It is found only in The Person of Jesus Christ! This is not empty rhetoric or speech-making. This is true for you whether you’re rich and famous or poor and unknown. It is an invitation to truly discover life where materialism, status and power are not the bottom line or the top of the heap; where these are not the central theme or the predominant pursuit.
In addressing the theme of WORSHIP we instantly face the challenge of what it is versus what it is not. Even as I researched the themes of worship for this talk, they largely focused on the perception that worship is an activity played out in the company of other people with like interest. It involves, in generic definitions, liturgical activities and practices of one sort or another – singing hymns, quiet reflections, prayers, readings and a Bible talk. While all of these have a place in what we call ‘corporate worship’ or ‘faith community worship’, these do not capture the essence of worship in its deepest context. Actually, these are impacted by our sense of God and connection in WORSHIP from Monday to Saturday. We’ll explore that in a moment. Author Douglas J. Moo: “Worship is not merely, or even mainly, what we do on Sunday morning. Worship is a “24/7” matter. We worship God when we give ourselves to him in service. We worship God when we show love to others, when we do our jobs faithfully and with integrity, when we play with our kids and nurture our families. God wants us always to be bringing glory to him by the way we live.”
This leads me to our text for this morning; a text that teaches about WORSHIP as a way of life. Romans 12:1…
“Bodies” comes from the Greek Soma and originally refers to the physical body. Commentator Coffman wrote, “The body is the chief instrument of the person and is to be presented to God through service to humanity, by preaching, teaching, ministering, and helping people, and not merely for some space of time, but throughout life.” Going further, we learn that ‘body’ encompasses more than the physical body. It reaches to the depths of being like God in character, in capacity to think, govern and rule; to create and order. It is the process of offering to God everything that characterises who you are, everything that defines you. It is giving God your intellect, your feelings and your will and allowing God to use these through the physical you to accomplish his purposes. I remember my first real experience with surrendering my body to Christ. I was 19 and in a relationship that meant a lot to me. I was accepted to enter Training College to become a Salvation Army officer. Only one week from leaving for St. John’s Newfoundland, I wasn’t packed, either physically or in my spirit and heart. One night when I came home in the late hours past midnight I was surprised to see my parents sitting in the family room waiting for me. Dad challenged me as I stood in the middle of the room; he challenged me to decide – the relationship with ‘Patty’ or the road to being an officer – and decide before you turn in! They went off to bed and there I sat; in the dark, at the crossroads. The end of this episode was ending the relationship with Patty and with broken heart on my knees with my mom and dad flanking me in prayer on either side, I surrendered to God. That was the best decision of my life because in that surrender I discovered WORSHIP; not to mention that Patty passed away when she was thirty-something. The road would have been very different.
Just before we dive into three lessons that lead to a life of WORSHIP, I want to touch on another theme that accompanies WORSHIP.
Worship is not always a holy activity. Radical Islamists give no thought about taking innocent lives through terrorism and suicide bombings, all in the name of Allah, an act of worship. There is nothing holy in these acts of worship.
Worship is a given response to something or someone we value as the most important object of our affection. It becomes holy when God is that object of affection. We are charged in Exodus 20:3 that we must have no other gods but Yahweh. The implication of course is we can have other gods, other affections that take Creator’s place.
The object of our WORSHIP should be GOD. Matt 4:10 Jesus instructs, “You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.” We serve what we worship. People worship their ministry; some worship career advancement; others worship their family. The Bible calls it idolatry. Worship may not be holy but in fact, unholy. We must keep this lesson before us.
For our purposes, our focus will be Jesus’ command to worship God only and how Paul the apostle gives that lesson arms and legs when he challenges us “to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, {which is} your spiritual service of worship.” (NASB) Paul paints a picture of what worship of God means – it becomes a way of life.
We WORSHIP
1. When the knowledge of Christ is a fragrant encounter
2 Corinthians 2:14…
This is a powerful picture of a triumphal king leading his captives behind him. Christ our King is the triumphal leader and we are his captives; not negatively so but love-slaves who desire more than anything else to draw attention to him. We want more than all else that our lives point people to Him! Our knowledge of Christ and our relationship to Him and with Him is attractive, so much so that others are drawn to the mysterious, they are drawn to that “something about you” which haunts their thoughts and wets their appetite for what you possess. As we go about our daily lives with its demands and challenges and in the process of life demonstrate joy and peace; when we respond to humanities pain and needs around us, a fragrance is released. People wonder, “What was that? Why did you do that? Why do you care what happens to me?” The fragrance of the knowledge of Christ is released and lives are touched and changed.
It is in these moments we become living and holy sacrifices; in these moments, we WORSHIP. I may have told the story about Gary. No matter, I’ll tell it again because not all of you were here when I may have told it before. When Gary knocked on my door I opened it to see a man in his early fifties wearing paint-smeared jeans that also seemed to be covered in drywall dust. His calloused hand reached for mine as he introduced himself and he slipped a business card toward me. Immediately the warmth of his smile and the attraction of his spirit released the fragrant knowledge of Christ. I knew God was there! After our conversation about construction needs I commented, “You’re a Christian aren’t you?” to which he admitted and the bond of brotherhood was born.
It is learning the lesson of Richard Foster in Celebration of Discipline where he speaks of wondering, “Is he {God} addressing me through those singing birds or that sad face?”
We WORSHIP
2. When our activity is an AROMA to God
2 Corinthians 2:15-16…
I wish sometimes I could appreciate things from God’s point of view. I’ve wished I could for a moment see Sin the way He sees Sin; to feel his separation from humanity as only He can feel. I try to imagine God browsing through the days of our lives and trying to keep company with us surrounded by putrid and wretched filth. Holiness rubbing shoulders with sin-rot; like walking through a manure covered field and hoping for the scent of a flower above the scent of dung.
We’ve all had the experience; you’re running around doing errands. It’s a cold winter day and you’re “chilled to the bone”. You’re tired, the gas tank is empty and it’s been a long day. As you’re heading to the next task and prioritizing the final list of outstanding jobs your senses are awakened by the most amazing aroma! It could have been KFC! Or Tims! Suddenly you’re changing course and walking out with the party pack or large double-double or however you like it! If you’ve not had these experiences, these explosions of joy in the middle of your mundane routine, you need to pay more attention to your senses! God didn’t give those to you to be ignored!!
God walks the earth with the reality of corruption’s cold and the dampness of Sin ever a reality. But His heart rejoices at the aroma that captures his senses and floods his heart; it is the aroma of Christ in us! It is captured beautifully in 2 Corinthians 2:15 as written by Eugene Peterson in The Message: “Because of Christ, we give off a sweet scent rising to God, – an aroma redolent with life.” The word “Redolent” means scented or evocative; perfumed or sweet-smelling; what pictures of pure pleasure!
There can be no higher expression of WORSHIP toward God than to know he considers us a rich aroma amongst a people of sin and death. To those perishing we are the smell of death but to those being saved we are the fragrance of life (2 Corinthians 2:16) To God there’s nothing as powerful and attracting as the aroma of Christ wafting through the heavens!
We WORSHIP
3. When we grow and increasingly RADIANT Christ
2 Corinthians 3:18…
Hear this verse from The Message: “Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.”
Sometimes the analogy of the caterpillar turned butterfly is over-used. But we can’t help it because it’s a powerful image of the metamorphosis we undergo in our relational development toward God. Our caterpillar state is one of restriction. We are bound by realities of time and space that restrain us to a very small here and now. We can easily be rushing everywhere while actually never moving anywhere. Through the continual process of awareness of God – adjustment here, change there, deepening more, reshaping and readjusting, dying to self and becoming more awakened to God – the metamorphosis evolves to deeper glory and radiance. The day is coming when we’ll be translated from this world and break out of the cocoon of physical bondage to the glorious, final completion of transformation in Christlikeness! 1 John 3:2 paints the picture: “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.”
We can move closer to that reality by learning to WORSHIP through life. As Foster says, “While living out the demands of our day, we are filled with inward worship and adoration. We work and play and eat and sleep, yet we are listening, ever listening, to our Teacher.” It is to experience the Shekinah glory of God. Shekinah means the settling or dwelling as in the dwelling presence of God or the settling presence of God.
WRAP
God calls us to WORSHIP. He calls us to:
• Spread the fragrance of Christ
• Be an aroma to Him
• Grow and radiant Christ
• Experience in worship His settling presence
