365 Worship
Bible Passage:
Romans 12:1-3
Pastor:
Pastor Mike
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Sermon Date:
2009-09-19
What is worship? If we threw that question out to people at the mall, what kind of answers would we get? Some would say worship is going to church—we “worship” at 8:00 and 10:30 on Sunday mornings. Others would mention musical style—do you have contemporary worship or traditional worship? My guess is that most of us think along those lines—Worship is what happens when you’re sitting in a pew singing a Jesus song.
But that definition is drastically wrong. Whether you realize it or not, the last thirty minutes were not the first time you worshiped this week. And your understanding of what worship is, what God will teach us in this lesson, has the potential to change absolutely everything about your life. That’s not a hyped-up pastoral exaggeration. If you get what is said in the next twenty minutes, the next fifty years of your life will be drastically different.
As we talk in this series about the ways of worship, God wants us to start with the why of worship because if you don’t grasp the why, the what, where, and when of worship are worthless. So why do we worship? For too many people, the why is fear—we’re scared. Like the naughty little boy whose mother constantly reminded him, “God is watching, so you better shape up…God knows what you’re doing what I’m not home.” Some believe God is like an angry Santa, making his list, checking it twice, and punishing those who are more naughty than nice. God is like Sauron, the big flaming eye from the Lord of the Rings—always peering into your life, checking every corner, making sure you’re obeying the commandments. That’s why some people come to church and pray and live moral lives—they are scared of not worshiping.
But fear-filled worship is not God’s kind of worship. No, to understand the why of worship you have to have the right view. That’s exactly what God is going to teach us today. Listen to Romans 12:1, “Therefore.” Let’s stop there. Whenever you run across that word in the Bible, you have to ask yourself a question—What’s the “therefore” there for? The Apostle Paul, the man God used to write these words, is about to tell us how to worship well. He starts with the word “therefore” in chapter 12 because he wants us to think about everything he just wrote. The first eleven chapters of the book are all about the right motivation for worship. Here’s a summary—We sinned; God saved. We fell short; God went the distance. We committed the crime; Jesus did the time. We were slaves to sin; God set us free. We were by nature enemies; God made us his friends. We fumbled the ball; God recovered it. We were guilty; God dropped the charges. Everything we didn’t deserve from God—life, love, mercy, grace, forgiveness, blessing, heaven—he gave us through his Son, Jesus. “Therefore,” Paul says, you know why you should worship. Not because you’re scared, but because you know God cares. “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy.” We don’t come to church or keep the commandments out of fear, but out of gratitude, in view of what God has first done for us. That’s the why of worship.
But the why is only half the story; what about the when, the where, and the how? The answer to that is a make-or-break deal for a church like Eastside. I wonder if some of you haven’t been damaged by “believers” who didn’t understand the when and where of worship. A famous Christian song begins, “The biggest single cause of atheism in the world is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyles. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.” What kills a church like Eastside? It’s the 20-something woman who watches her father sing in church every Sunday and then disrespect his wife with the same lips an hour later. It’s the divorced man whose church-going friend listens to a compassionate Jesus on Sunday, but then offers him none of that compassion as he tries to put his life back together. It’s the teenager who sees the hypocrisy in Christian friends who fold hands in prayer and then use those hands to steal, fight, and sin sexually. No, we do not understand worship if we are all Sunday talk and no Monday walk. If worship is limited to 60 minutes of the week, we have done ourselves and others unbelievable damage.
If you’ve felt pushed away from God, from the Bible, from church because of a bad worshiper, you need to know that God’s design is very different. Paul writes, “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.” What does Paul urge us to offer in worship? Offer your Sunday morning? Offer 10% of your income? Offer your Christmas Eve? No, no, no! “Offer your bodies as living sacrifices to God—this is your worship.” God defines worship as giving everything we are at every moment in every way in view of his mercy. Worship is ceaseless. There are no days when you don’t worship. There are no places where you don’t worship. There is no halftime, no offseason, no summer break. Take out your calendar and write under every time slot, “Worship” because that is what you will be doing. As another lesson said, “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.”
It’s like the old woman who lived in a country home at the end of a dirt road. She lived humbly and had little that would attract the attention of the world. One day her niece came to visit and sat at the cracked kitchen table as her aunt kindly cooked a home-made meal. As the girl sat waiting for dinner to be served, she noticed a crooked wooden sign that hung above the kitchen sink. It read, “Worship services held here daily.” That old woman understood the when and where of worship. Worship is always. Worship is everywhere.
Whether you are the most passionate Christian, a curious guest, or a ten year old who just came because mom gave you “the look” this morning, you need to know you are always worshiping. The question is not if you are worshiping; the question is what you are worshiping. Perhaps these blocks can make this stick. These blocks are labeled “work”, “feelings,” “sports”, “family”, “money”, “comfort,” and “God.” A good way to understand what you are worshiping this week is to ask yourself what block sits on top. Who gets the final word in your life? Who wins when you have to make a choice? When God says to love your friend and confront him about his sinful lifestyle and your comfort says that’s not very comfortable, who wins? Who do you worship? When you don’t feel loved by God and God points to the cross and says, “I love you,” who will you worship? When your family wants to pour you another drink and God says, “Stay in control and sober,” who will you worship? How you order will determine if you commit idolatry or worship well. Every moment, at every meeting, on every car ride, at every party, in every church service, with every word and every plan and every thought, we are worshiping.
So, friends, in view of God’s mercy, worship well! Christ ordered his blocks well for his entire life so he could be the perfect Savior we needed. He glorified his Father with every breath so that we could live in glory in heaven as the sons and daughters of God. He has forgiven you for every sin. Therefore, worship well! Paul tells us how, “2Do 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. 3For 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.” We worship well when we stop caring about how the world orders its blocks and start desiring what God wills. We worship well when we humbly let God have the final say on the words we choose, the things we do, and the choices we make.
In other words, let God transform what the world wants to conform. Don’t be a cookie-cutter kid of our culture; be a child of God 24/7. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want to be different? I don’t want to have the average American life. I don’t want my marriage to have a 50/50 shot. I don’t want follow every fad and not have a foundation of faith. I don’t want to approach death with more questions than answers. I don’t want to drag around sacks of guilt and the shame of my past. I don’t want to drift through the next fifty years, holding on to a vague hope of some meaning to life. I don’t want to conform. I want to be transformed. And that happens when we, in view of God’s mercy, put the Lord on top of our tower of priorities and worship well. Transformation happens when you learn God’s Word and develop the ability to test and approve what God wants you to do. That’s good worship for a good reason.
I don’t want you to forget this. When I say, “Amen” and we sing our last song, worship will not end; it will simply continue in the parking lot, on East Washington, and in your home. That’s why we have a gift for today—4 business cards. They all say, “This is my church.” My prayer is that you would tape, staple, magnet, or stick these at the key places where you spend your time—on the steering wheel, on your backpack, in your office, on your computer, in your kitchen, on your fridge—as a reminder that your church, your place of worship is wherever you are. I pray, in view of God’s mercy, you would worship in your kitchen with compassionate words and meals made with love. I pray, in view of God’s mercy, you would worship in your car with forgiveness for teenage drivers and obedience to our state’s laws. I pray, in view of God’s mercy, you would worship at school with faithful work done and respect for your teachers. I pray, in view of God’s mercy, you would worship online by viewing sites Jesus likes. I pray, in view of God’s mercy, you would look at God’s free gift of forgiveness and say, wherever you are, whomever you are with, whatever the time, “This is my church. Now is my time to worship.” Amen.
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