Title: Life as Worship/Romans 12:1-2
Contents Main text: Romans 12:1-2
“(1) Therefore, brethren, I beseech you by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Be transformed by renewing, that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.”
1. In all the mercy of God I urge:
I go to school to get knowledge. No one will go to an academy to pay the expensive academy fees. It is for the purpose of paying the academy fee and taking the time to go to the academy to gain useful knowledge.
The job goes to get economic resources. I also struggle with personal relationships while at work. It takes effort too. Nevertheless, the purpose of continuing to work is to obtain financial resources.
The pool goes to get a healthy body through swimming. It is not easy to go to the swimming pool regularly. It really takes patience. Nevertheless, going to the pool is to get a healthy body.
I go to the theater to relieve stress and have fun by watching a movie.
The reason we go to school, work, go to the swimming pool, and go to the theater is to get something from them that we think is important.
Success in this world is for us to get more. To gain a lot of knowledge, to get a valuable degree in a good school, to earn more money and to have better health is success.
But there are places where our purpose is to give ourselves. There is a place where a perfect dream is the greatest joy. There are places where a complete dream is true success. That's the church. The church is where we go to give ourselves. At church, we give God the time we valued most. We give to God the material we use preciously. We give you the talents we have. We give our devotion to God, and we give our love to God.
We did not gather for knowledge in worship today. We didn't come together to meet people. We are not here to please the ears through the praises of the choir. We are not here to learn to sing.
The fundamental purpose of our worship service today is to present ourselves to God. Regarding this fact, Romans 12:1 says: “(1) Therefore, brethren, I beseech you by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. spiritual worship.”
First, it is called “brethren.” A title for the closest family member. Wouldn't you recommend something really important to your family, something really good, and something that's really the most precious? We tell our brothers what no one else will tell us. If it's good, precious, or important to you, we tell our families.
Second, he says, “I beseech you in all the mercies of God,” exhorting by mercy. You are not forcing us to sacrifice yourself. It's not bullying. It is exhorting us with the love of God. We are exhorted by God's love. It exhorts us based on God's abundant love for us.
“(1) Therefore, brethren, I beseech you by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”
Jesus exhorts us to do this.
The Holy Spirit exhorts us to do this.
2. The essence of worship is to present ourselves to God: verse 1
“(1) Therefore, brethren, I beseech you by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”
The essence of worship is to present us to God. When it becomes our worship, it becomes spiritual worship.
During worship, there is spiritual worship and there is also intellectual worship. If a lot of knowledge was shared with the preacher and the congregation through worship, the worship would be knowledgeable.
There are also comedic worship services. If you hear a lot of funny sounds during the worship service and laugh out loud, it will be a comedic worship service. “It’s really fun to worship. I think the worship service was fun, but I don't know.” The worship service is a comedy.
There is also a concert service. Worship music is world class. The sermon is very eloquent. If you say “I think I went to a good concert” after the service, it is a concert service.
There is spiritual worship. There is spiritual worship that God is pleased with. There is a spiritual worship where the Holy God and our souls meet. It is worship in which we present ourselves as living sacrifices to God.
“(1) Therefore, brethren, I beseech you by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”
The essence of worship is to present us to God. It is worship by giving us to God. Without giving ourselves to God, there can be no worship. It is simply experiencing the form of worship. It becomes a worship service to God by giving ourselves.
If you look in the Old Testament, there are words about sacrifice. Among the sacrifices, burnt offerings include cattle, sheep, or goats burned to God. It is completely giving. This means giving ourselves completely to God.
It is to become a spiritual worship where we can commune with God by giving ourselves completely to God. Spiritual worship is worship where we communicate with God. It is the worship of glory where our souls meet God.
Conversely, if there is no dream, worship becomes our own gathering. It would be an empty worship service.
It is not empty worship, but in order to become spiritual worship, we give ourselves. To give ourselves is to first give our hearts to God. God wants to receive our hearts above all else.
God is not moved by the sacrifice itself. You are touched by our hearts through the sacrifice. God is not moved by the praise itself. You are touched by our hearts through hymns. God is not moved by the offering itself. We are touched by our hearts through donations.
First, to give our hearts to God means to give our best to God.
1 Samuel 7:9 “Samuel took a suckling lamb and offered a whole burnt offering to the LORD, and he cried out to the LORD for Israel, and the LORD answered him.”
Second, to give our hearts to God is to give our best to God. If we want to give our time to God to the best of our ability, we cannot be late for worship. We should prepare to come to church ahead of time for worship and give God our best time. Giving our hearts to God through our best material. It is to give the best material to God with all our devotion. It is to give our talents with all our heart. We want to give our talents with all our heart, so we mobilize ourselves to give it to God.
There are many volunteers in every service where spiritual worship is held. Worshipers use their characteristics and talents to give anything concretely to God. This kind of worship is spiritual worship.
It is not a worship service where pastors do everything in worship, and lay people remain as an audience. Spiritual worship is a worship service in which pastors and members work together to develop the best talents and give the best to God.
This kind of worship is pleasing to God. God is pleased with this kind of worship. Through such worship, our souls experience joy that cannot be experienced in this world.
4. We must surrender to give ourselves to God.
To sacrifice an animal, you kill it. And then angle. It is self-denial. I'm giving myself my whole heart.
Giving ourselves does not mean kneeling on the pulpit of a chapel and waiting endlessly, “God, receive me.” Giving ourselves to God does not mean raising our hands and praising the cross in front of our necks.
To give ourselves is to surrender. We cannot give to anyone who claims to be our own. To give, we must give up the way of life we claimed to be ours. And we raise our hands to God and declare our surrender.
We cannot give ourselves to God because we think everything is our own. We thought our own thoughts as we wished. It was only natural for us to think our way. Our own feelings felt like ours, so we acted on our feelings. Convinced that our material is ours, we wrote it and claimed it. If we regard everything as our own, we cannot give ourselves completely to God.
First, to declare surrender to what we claimed to be our property. And it is to confess that its owner is our God. This is surrender, the dream.
Second, surrender is going one step further and responding to God's request with "Yes, Lord!" He answers the request, “Yes, Lord!”
Although Peter had cast his net all night and caught no fish, he surrendered and obeyed Jesus' command to go out into the depths and cast his net. Those who surrender obey God's Word even if they do not understand it.
5. Giving means trusting.
Those who surrender are trusted. Those who surrender themselves to God trust God. We give ourselves to God by surrendering to Him and by trusting Him. In other words, it is worship.
Consider Abraham. Abraham lived a life of worship. Not knowing where to go, I trusted and followed God's guidance. His steps themselves became worship to God.
6. We must discern the will of the perfect God: v. 2
We live in a time when spiritual worship is difficult. We live in an era where people strongly insist on their own possessions. We live in an era where individual rights are claimed and emphasized as their own.
Therefore, we must always examine ourselves. You must always be discerning. So that we can surrender and give ourselves to God.
So the Word of God exhorts us to love:
“(2) Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God, which is good and pleasing and perfect.