Our Best Response to God's Gift

Romans 12:1-2

What is worship? When you ask people to define worship most would probably think of going to church on Sunday, singing and praying and listening to the Word of God. Some would add that their personal quiet time is also worship. These things are true. But the Bible’s definition of worship is much broader even than that. We just read it. “Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.” 

Now that raises a question. What does that kind of worship look like? Let’s start with this. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” If you do those things obediently and joyfully because of all that God has already done for you, that’s worship! 

But it’s still kind of abstract, what does it look like to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength? Well, it starts in the heart. Scripture says that we love him because he first loved us. When we see and understand that Christ on the cross is God demonstrating his great love for us, by dying there so that we get to escape the death penalty for our sins, we should be deeply moved with gratitude, love and adoration for the God who would do such a thing. Yes, this is emotional. How can your heart refuse to be moved by such love? 

Try to imagine this. You are standing on the gallows, the noose is around your neck. Further, you know that this sentence is justified, you are undeniably guilty and ought to die for your crimes. The executioner is standing by the lever that will open the trap door. Suddenly Jesus runs up the steps of the platform and offers to take your place. How do you react as he removes the noose from around your neck and places it around his own, gently hugs you and uses that embrace to move you off the trap door, swinging you around so that now he is standing there, in your place? 

Are you just glad to get away from the gallows as fast as you can, or would you stand there and argue something like this, “No, not you Jesus! You are innocent! I am guilty. I should die for my sins.” 

Jesus would say back to you. “It’s okay. Let me do this for you because I love you. You can’t survive this death. But trust me, I can. All I ask is that you live the rest of the life I am giving you in a way that honors me.” Have you received the life that Jesus gives through his death in your place? Are you truly grateful for so great a salvation? Then you must feel that you love God with all your heart, for He saved you from death, forgave your sins, and gave you eternal life! 

But again, what will living that life of gratitude look like? You may feel that love with all your heart, and then, how are you going to act on it? What does a life that honors God look like? First of all, whatever it looks like, a life that honors God is a life that is a picture of worship. To worship is to honor with devotion. So once again we are back to church services in which you can share your gifts that express your love and devotion to God. But that’s not all. Jesus clearly tells us in his word about other things that worship and honor him. 

Surely you will remember this passage in Luke 7:41-48. Jesus is speaking to a self-righteous Pharisee named Simon and he says, "Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other only fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?" 

Simon replied, "I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled." 

"You have judged correctly," Jesus said. Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven--for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little." 

But even if we acknowledge that our debt was huge and Jesus paid it all so that we now love Jesus enough to bow before him and kiss his feet, we do not have his body here for us to serve and love in that way, so what do we do to show our love? Surely you have also heard these verses in Matt. 25:34-35, 40 

"Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me…. I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." 

That’s how we show our love for Jesus, by devoting our lives to loving and serving His people. And the emphasis there would be on his people, not just the ones we like. I take you to Luke 6:32-36. “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ lend to ‘sinners,’ expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” 

Even in Isaiah in the Old Testament this kind of loving God was being taught. Isa. 58:6-7 says, "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter--when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?" 

Do you see how obeying Jesus’ teaching and giving and loving the way Jesus gives and loves honors Him? It is because it is being like Him! It is not just doing what he tells us to do. It is being like Him! Are you beginning to see what offering your bodies as living sacrifices looks like? 

Now take a moment and examine your own life. How much of that kind of loving service and embodied worship is characteristic of the way you live? If you would give yourself a low grade, don’t despair. God still loves you! I just pray that he is using this message to produce in you a longing to love him more or better, so that you begin to pray like this, “Lord, I really do love you because you love me and forgave my sins. Show me Lord what I can do to express my gratitude.” 

God understands that the kind of life to which he calls us is not natural. We are by nature selfish. God calls us to express his otherish love. But that can only happen supernaturally, as we are filled by the Spirit and transformed into creatures who are in this world but not of it any longer. That is why we have verse two of our passage. God knows that we can not worship him truly in our own strength or in our merely human nature. Indeed, don’t you remember that Jesus told the woman at the well that the true worshipers will worship Him in spirit and in truth? 

So here is our hope. We are commanded, “Do not conform 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.” How is that going to happen? You can’t transform yourself. You can only be transformed by God’s power at work in your soul to renew your mind. There is much that God may do without our bidding, as he poured out his Spirit on the day of Pentecost and the disciples were surprised to find themselves speaking in other languages, a thing they never expected or asked for. God just gave them that gift and power for that moment. 

But what did they do before the Spirit came? They made themselves available. They obeyed Jesus’ command to pray and wait in the city until the power came. Jesus didn’t tell them what would happen when that power came. He didn’t tell them what to do after that power came. Jesus knew that all they had to do was worship God, wait in prayer, earnestly seek his face with joyful expectation that he would come and do something. Then when the Spirit came the disciples were just moved by that Spirit to do something they had never done before! And would never have been able to do without the Spirit. 

It is the same with us today. We will be transformed into true worshippers of God, who offer our whole bodies as living sacrifices, when we seek God’s face, wait and pray with joyful expectation that when God is ready he will come and change us into people who worship him with our entire lives! I know I want that! I long for God’s power to move me more fully than I have yet known. I long for God’s power to move us more fully than we have yet known. The only way the ministry of this congregation can even hope to survive is if we are God’s people, fully relying in God, fully committed to making ourselves available for his Spirit to do his work in us in his time. 

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform 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. That is our best response to God’s gift to us! 

On this Palm Sunday, let us pray that Jesus will renew his triumphal entry into our hearts and come with power so that we can be his servants who worship him in Spirit and in truth, who see the gospel proclaimed, and confirmed with signs and wonders so that many lost persons are saved as they come to faith in Jesus, and in everything we do may he receive all the glory and honor! Amen!