https://www.bible.com/events/49398704
Church of the Nazarene – East Rockingham Campus
Beyond The Song: A life of worship Part 1
Take your everyday, ordinary life, and place it before the Lord as an offering.
Today we are starting a 4-part teaching series called Beyond the Song: A life of worship.
Throughout this series, we want to be challenged to re-frame our thinking on worship. That we would not only think of worship as somewhere we go on Sunday mornings, or a certain song we sing, but that we would see all of our lives as an opportunity to worship the Lord.
Worship- if you look it up in the dictionary, you will find definitions like:
-to honor or show reverence for a divine being or supernatural power
-to regard with great or extravagant respect, honor, or devotion
Worship is action or response ascribing value to someone or something.
For us, that someone and something is the Lord.
When we worship, we are expressing how much God means to us, how much we value and honor him.
That’s worship.
Romans 12:1-2
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.
Paul addresses the WHY of worship. He says “In view of God’s MERCY”…
The reason we are called to worship is because of who God is, and all that he has done.
We worship God because he is Holy, Righteous, and perfect in all of his ways.
We worship him first for who he is. Sovereign creator and sustainer of all the earth.
Paul said earlier in Romans “While we were yet sinners Christ died for us”. God’s mercy is on perhaps its fullest display in the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross.
It’s a love that demands a response, that’s what worship is. An expression our thanks and gratitude, our great debt as sinful people for salvation and life in Christ.
Paul calls us to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to him.
The word here in Romans 12 for worship is closely related to the idea of service.
Actions directed at or motivated by a love or reverence for another. In this case, the Lord.
In it’s most basic form you could say worship is worth-ship. We are ascribing, giving, expressing worth and value to God.
When we commit to doing life God’s way, that’s living worship.
When we love our enemies, when we turn the other cheek. When we love our neighbors and help the poor. When we say NO to the desires of our flesh or of our temper, and YES to the will of God for our lives. When we use the talents and gifts that God has given us to meet the needs of others, to help provide a service, to make a living for our family.
That’s worship.
When we make prepare a meal and take it to someone who is recovering from surgery or lost a loved one. That’s worship.
When we serve in Kids City or Nursery neighborhood, teaching future generations about Jesus- That’s worship. That’s offering your life to the Lord. That’s worship.
That’s your true and proper response to who God is. Worship beyond the song.
Romans 12:1
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.