Worship Comes From a Heart of Gratitude-Romans 12:1-2
Notes
Transcript
Handout
As we begin this morning, please turn in your copies of God’s Word to Romans 12:1-2. We will be reading from there in a few minutes.
Two Sundays ago, we started a brief series on Worship with a message entitled Worship-Begins with A Proper View Of God & A Realistic Assessment of Ourselves. As we looked at getting a Proper View of God, we discussed seeing God for Who He is, in all His majesty and glory. Then we were challenged to have Proper Preparation For Worship, particularly but not limited to preparing for our time of corporate worship. Lastly, we were challenged to have A Realistic Assessment Of Ourselves, like that of Isaiah in Isaiah 6, that of Ezekiel in Ezekiel 1, or the woman in Luke 7, who humbly bowed at Jesus feet as she them with her tears and washed them with her hair, and poured expensive perfume on them as a show of great adoration.
Last Sunday morning, in the message entitled Worship In Spirit & In Truth-from John 4:1-26 and the Biblical account of the Woman at the Well, we learned about Jesus divine appointment in the region of Samaria, and how He worshipped the Father through obedience, and that His worship through obedience brought about a harvest, not only in the life of the woman at the well, but as the Biblical account continued in John 4, it was also in many other lives in Samaria. We found out that true worship had nothing to do with an individuals location, it isn’t tied to set places of worship, it has more to do with the individuals heart than a temple, altar or church building.
This is all a good lead in to this mornings message, because this morning we will be given the reasoning behind our worship, where our worship is birthed, with the hopes that what has been birthed in our time in God’s Word this morning, will grow to maturity, as we live lives of worship to God, that go beyond our time here on Sunday mornings.
With this as an introduction, would you please stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word? Again, we will be reading from:
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1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
May the Lord add His blessing to the reading of His Word, please be seated.
Paul begins with: Next Slide
An Appeal To Believers. Romans 12:1
What we just read is one of the most memorized passaged in Scripture. I believe I was at camp in elementary school when I first memorized these verses, back then in the KJV. It was seated more permanently when I was in Bible College in the NASB version.
Paul begins chapter 12 with the phrase; “I appeal to you therefore, brothers”. There is more to the word “appeal” than what may come to our minds when we think of it in our english language. The picture in the original Greek is Paul is pleading with them. While it is a plea, it is at the same time a command. You could almost translate it “I plead with you to obey my command”. But it goes even a step further, he is also saying that he is willing to come alongside them in any way he can, to assist them. So The Apostle Paul is saying; “I plead with you to obey my command, and I am willing to come alongside you in any way I can to assist you.” He then goes on to name who it is he is writing to in this section of Romans; “brothers”. In other words, the only ones who can really do this are those who have surrendered their lives to the Lord.
Since they are believers, this means they have already presented: Next Slide
Present Your Souls To God.
This is one particular word I want to make sure we don’t miss in this first verse. Look in your copies of God’s Word, in many of your copies, either right before the word “brothers” or “brethren” or, in some of your translations it is the first word in verse 1. What is that word? “Therefore”. One of the things I know took place in the 34 years Pastor Allen was leading here at Liberty Chapel, is what he always taught you to do when you see the word “therefore”, what is it he taught? (To look back at the what was written previously…what is the word therefore, there for?). I love the way the NIV translates this verse. In the NIV we read; “Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God’s mercy”, but where it falls short is the word “mercy”, it would be better translated “mercies”. Because it is written in the plural as there are many.
In other words, Paul builds his argument (for us to present our bodies a living sacrifice-which is what he will go on to write, and we will look at this later), he builds this argument on the foundation of God’s Mercies. The reason he includes the word “therefore”, as we just discussed, is so that you will look back at the first 11 chapters, where he goes to great lengths to highlight the many mercies of God. Let’s look at just a few, keep in mind what I will read is not an exhaustive list, there are many more just in Romans, not included on this list, and even more in the rest of the New Testament. Go back to Romans 1, and let’s work our way through each chapter. Next Slide
Mercy’s of God in Romans.
Romans 1:16; Romans 2:4; Romans 3:23–24; Romans 4:7–8; Romans 5:8; Romans 6:23; Romans 7:24–25; Romans 8:38–39; Romans 9:16; Romans 10:12–13; Romans 11:33; Romans 12:1
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered;
8 blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,
39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.
12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.
13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Paul closes in chapter 11, not only with an addition to his list of the mercies of God, but moving forward past verse 33 and through 36, we see, what appears to be the Apostle Paul overcome as he thinks back over the mercies he has just reviewed in his mind before proceeding to chapter 12.
33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?”
36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
Then he writes in 12:1
1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
As we think about the mercies of God, we need to make sure we keep an important truth in our minds: Next Slide
God’s Mercy is Not Based On Our Merit.
We can do nothing to earn it, it is a gift we have the opportunity to receive but can do nothing to earn.
Now that we have looked at just a few of the mercies of God, what is Paul urging us to do? Next Slide
Present Our Bodies A Living Sacrifice.
As you look at this, I want to give you a picture that would immediately come to the mind of many of his readers, certainly in the minds of all of his Jewish readers. They all understood the Jewish sacrificial system as it was laid out in the Book of Leviticus. To begin with, what was to be the condition of the animal they brought. (Spotless, in other words it had to be an animal of great value, but it was also a picture of the coming spotless Lamb of God).
Once they brought the spotless lamb. They would then, likely, straddle the lamb in the presence of the priest of God. The Law then required they lay their hand on the top of the head. This signified that they were laying their sins on this lamb who had done nothing wrong. Then, they were to move one hand under the chin of the animal and with the other hand they would take a sharp knife and slit the throat of the lamb. What do you think happened to that lamb when all of it’s life blood flowed out from it? (It immediately went limp in their hands.) This was designed to give them a vivid picture of the cost of their sins.
But Paul’s readers also understood that, based on what Christ did on the cross, the Old Testament Sacrificial system was no longer required. So this is kind of new to them.
With that in mind, Paul here is asking them to present their own “bodies as a living sacrifice”. A “living sacrifice”? What exactly is a living sacrifice? In offering ourselves as a living sacrifice, this means we are offering to God all our hopes, our dreams, all our plans, everything that is precious to us, everything in our life that is of value, all that we love, all that we have, our time, our energy, our money, our families....it means we hold nothing back from Him, Who held nothing back for us.
Paul doesn’t end with our living sacrifice, he adds to it:
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Present Our Bodies As A Holy Sacrifice.
Paul here points out that offering our bodies a “living sacrifice” falls short of what God requires. He goes on to add the word “holy”. As we have seen many times, our English our words don’t properly convey the true meaning of words from Scripture. The word for holy literally means “something set apart for a special purpose”. We can trace this back to the Old Testament sacrificial system. The Israelites were commanded to give their best, they were commanded to give spotless lambs for the sacrifice, they were commanded to give the first fruit of their grain offerings to God. They were to take these things, these best things, and set them apart for God. We are to do the same thing, we are to set apart our very best for the Lord. In doing so, we fulfill the last thing Paul writes about this living sacrifice.
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Present Our Bodies As an Acceptable Sacrifice.
The fact that we are giving our everything, our hopes, dreams, plans, all that is precious, everything of value, all that we love, our time, energy, money, families....our very best....is what makes our living sacrifice Acceptable to God.
From here Paul moves in to tie all of this together with the current topic of this sermon series, that of worship, but not just any worship, Paul adds: Next Slide
Spiritual Worship.
Here, Paul goes right back to the mercies of God we talked about a few minutes ago. He is stating that based on all of the mercies of God that he spent 11 chapters pointing out to his readers, there is only one logical response. That response is worship. In fact the word we see translated “spiritual” is the Greek word “logikos”. Any ideas what English word we get from that word? Let me pronounce it slightly different, “Logic---cos”. This is where we get our word logic. Paul is making a very clear point that, based on all of the mercies of God, there is only one logical thing left for us to do, give God everything as a part of our worship to Him.
At this point in time many of his readers may have been thinking; “How do I do that?” Inspired by God Himself, Paul anticipates their question and answers it in verse 2.
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2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
The first step Paul lays out for us is: Next Slide
Don’t Be Conformed To This World.
The word for conformed literally means “to be stamped like metal”. In my first year and a half of college I worked for a factory in Denver Colorado. One of my many jobs was running a 100 ton press that was used to take metal and change its current shape, the 100 ton press would form the metal into something completely different. Paul here is saying, that we are not to let the world shape us into something other than what God has designed for us. Don’t forget, when we surrendered our lives to God, we became new creations, the old was gone, behold all things became new. Paul here is warning us that the world would like to take this new creation, and mold us into something other than what God has designed us to be as new creations. I love the way JB Philipps translates this phrase. He writes; “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold.”
The question we each need to ask ourselves at this point is: Next Slide
What is there in my life that “squeezing” me into the mold of the world?
It could be what we view on our televisions, where we go when online, what we do on our electronic devices, what we do for entertainment, the friends we spend most of our time with, where we spend our free time.......you can answer this question better than me, take these notes home with you and pray through them this week, asking God to reveal to you anything that the enemy may be using to “squeeze you into its mold.”
From the negative (of not being conformed to the world)Paul moves to the positive:
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Be Transformed By the Renewing of Your Mind.
The word that we get our English word “transformed” from is the Greek word “Metamorphoo”. Any ideas what English word we get from this? (Metamorphosis). Of course we all know that this is what takes place in the life of a caterpillar. One day, the caterpillar stops eating, hangs upside down from a twig or leaf and spins itself a silky cocoon or molts into a shiny chrysalis. Within its protective casing, the caterpillar radically transforms its body, eventually emerging as a butterfly. When we think of the caterpillar, we need to remember that the caterpillar had to make a deliberative choice before it is transformed. If it never stops eating, hangs upside down and spins itself into a silky cocoon, it never transforms into a beautiful butterfly. We have to do the same thing, we have to make deliberate choices. God does not force transformation on us, we make the choice. And Paul points out, this comes By the Renewing of our minds. This is one of the reasons we ended 2018 and began 2019 with a study of the Spiritual Disciplines. Transformation take place when we devote ourselves to the Spiritual Disciplines.
So, how does all of this fit with worship?
To begin with, worship is the logical expression of our gratitude for the mercies of God. In other words, as we see in the title morning’s message; Worship Comes from a Heart of Gratitude.
Secondly, devoting ourselves to the Spiritual Disciplines is a significant part of worship.
My prayer for all of us this morning is that we would think deeply of the sacrifice Jesus made on our behalf, His blood spilt for our sins as our guilt was laid upon Him, the spotless Lamb of God. That we would meditate on His mercies and present ourselves to Him as a living sacrifice, that we would worship Him with every fiber of our being, and as a result, we would be transformed into His image.
Let’s close our time this morning in prayer.