Friday, November 14, 2008
Romans 12:1 (ESV)
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.
I freaking love this verse. I have probably thought on this verse more than any other verse in the Bible. First of all, I am a worship leader and have been for quite a few years, so this verse that says the word "worship" has caught my eye as I tried to figure out what it is like to lead worship. Secondly it is a really often quoted scripture. I mean, you can find it on bumper stickers, coffee mugs, and t-shirts. Christians love this verse. So it's been a verse that I've seen a lot, heard a lot, read a lot and as a worship leader, I felt like it had something important for me to hear.
First let's just read the verse. I appeal to you therefore... One thing I learned about in SBS is whenever you see a therefore or other connecting word, you should always ask what the therefore is there for. (Corny I know, but it is true). Therefore usually connects a phrase to another phrase. For example, I woke up early in the morning, therefore I am tired at work. The last phrase is connected to the first phrase by the therefore. This may sound boring and like your first period english class, but bear with me. In the Bible, the connecting words are important because they connect two spiritual ideas. In this verse, Paul is connecting the first twelve chapters of Romans to this verse. Throughout the first 12 chapters, Paul has walked through the "Romans road" explaining that everyone is sinful, everyone rejects God, and God died on the cross so that people could be saved. He is basically laying out the whole story of salvation and how and why Jesus died for Christians. Now he moves on to chapter 12 and he says "I appeal to you therefore". So because Christ died for you, because he has forgiven your sins, because you have been saved by faith, do this.
"by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." So because of all the story of Romans, how God died, forgave, saved us, we are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. Now a few things. First of all, the people that Paul is writing to, they understand sacrifices. They have grown up around sacrifice. If they were Jewish, they did sacrifices in the temple in Jerusalem and grew up around sacrifices every year. The first five books of the Bible spend large portions about how to make sacrifices properly. If they were pagans/Gentiles, then their cultures made sacrifices to random gods. Their form of sacrifice ALWAYS involved death, blood, pain. In order for a sacrifice to be made, something had to die. It usually involved furry woodland creatures. Imagine Bambi. So they would kill these animals and the blood would be thrown around the altar or the worship area and that is how sacrifices were made.
The reason I say this is because Paul throws this idea on its head in Christianity. We are not a group of people who make dead sacrifices to appease our God, rather we are people who are the sacrifices, and not only are we the sacrifices, but we are LIVING sacrifices. We worship God as living sacrifices meaning that our life is not ours anymore, but it is alive in Christ.
So what exactly is worsip? Paul has told us how we should worship as Christians, but not what worship is. By this I mean what are the reasonings and longings behind worship. Well, worship is about giving Glory to God. The word can literally mean "worth-ship" or giving worth to something. We do this by giving our time, money, energy, attention to something. People can worship anything and do worship anything. We see this in Romans 1:24-25 when Paul says "Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is forever blessed! Amen." Worship is when we give glory or worth to something, whether it's God the Creator or the things he creates, like sex, money, girlfriends, boyfriends, political parties, sexual preferences, or religion. When we worship these things above Jesus, it is idolatry. So worship is giving something worth or value or glory.
So essentially, Paul here is saying that because Jesus saved us, our highest goal is to offer our bodies as living sacrifices to him, that this is worship. Because Jesus saved us, we need to live intentionally to give him glory. Ephesians 2:10 says "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." So Jesus has picked us out, saved us, elected us, and he did it so that we could live intentionally to give him glory. What that means is that Jesus has put you exactly where you are for a reason. Whatever school you go to, God put you there for a reason, to reach the people who are there. The gifts he gave you, he did it so that you could use them to give him glory. The parents you have, God gave you them for a reason.
What if we lived like this was true? What if we actually believed this? What would change for us? When we realize that God put us where we are for a reason, it gets sort of scary. Suddenly we are on this roller coaster ride and in an adventure. God wants us to view every moment as a planned thing where we can either choose to worship God or worship creation. So let's do it. Let's live like this. When we see the people at school, let's realize that we are put into their path to be the "aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing" (2 Corinthians 2:15). When school gets boring and mundane, think of it as an opportunity to live on purpose.
I love to tavel. I love to go to other countries and see other cultures. I spent two years in YWAM (Youth With A Mission) and heard countless stories of people doing amazing ministry in other countries; Europe, Asia, Africa, South America. I wanted to be like them. Obviously God was to be found in third world countries and other languages but not in my suburban lifestyle. I yearned to be somewhere else, anywhere. But then God really got a hold of me and showed me how he has put me here for a reason. What once used to be a ball and chain became a place where God gave me a huge heart for. Instead of only caring about AIDS orphans (and I do, I do care about them as well), I also see the suicidal and the broken families, and the girls deciding whether to abort their babies or not. Jesus put me here to preach the gospel and show the Glory of God in the suburbs and so I hope that you take up Jesus call. I pray that God changes your heart for this place. Maybe God has called you to be a foreign missionary to Uganda, praise God, that is so awesome. But don't pine away for years and years it will take to get there, begin to see that God has a purpose for you here and live that way.
So my question; how does God want to use you where you are at? What gifts has he given you? What people are in your lives and how does God want to use you to be an aroma of life for them? Wrestle with these questions and find your answers, because it will change your life.