A Living, Acceptable 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. 2 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 encourages us to imagine that we bring our bodies to God each day. Lay them on the altar before His presence, and have Him use this sacrifice for His glory and the good of His people.
 
Short Story:
 
A tearful distraught young woman approached a pastor who had been speaking on worship at a conference and told him that she could not live the Christian life the way she should. She said, "I'm frustrated. My worship experience is not meaningful and fulfilling as I know it should be. I don't have spiritual victory or a sense of accomplishment in my daily life either. I struggle with everyday obedience and am constantly defeated. Can you help me?"
 
He asked her how she had attempted to solve the problem. She responded, "I've tried everything. I've attended churches where they speak in tongues and have healings. I've tried speaking in tongues, been slain in the spirit, been prophesied over, but nothing helps. I'm not satisfied, I need God to do more for me."
 
The pastor replied that he thought he could see the problem. The key to true worship, spiritual victory and true happiness is not in trying to get all that we can from God, but in giving all that we are and what we have to God. So many people come to God, come to worship, praying, hoping for personal benefit. But the proper focus is not only what we want to receive but on what we should give.
 
The Christian is called to serve God with his whole being. This sacrificial service occurs in and becomes worship. True worship includes many things such as prayer, praise, thanksgiving, and serving God and by serving others. But above all else, our supreme act of worship is to offer ourselves wholly and continually to the Lord as a living sacrifice. Till we give our body, mind and will as a living sacrifice to God, our worship will not satisfy as it should, because we have not given as we should. Remember, it is in giving that we receive. It is in giving of ourselves where we will feel God’s presence more. And the more our worship to God will be more accepted, and fulfilled.
 
 
The first act is the basis of surrender and the act of surrender. The grace of obedience is urged upon us by God's mercy in the begin of verse 1. “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”.
 
Paul begins to convey by the verb “urge” a mixture of request and authority. The meaning of urge is "calling alongside," here in a context of exhorting, admonishing or encouraging. The people he was loving are those who have received a new heart and a new inner desire. The gentle command, conveyed by urge can only be obeyed by believers… by those who already belong to God's family. The unbeliever cannot and will not, dedicate themselves without reservation to the Lord.
 
That is why a few verses before this one Paul mentions…
 
Romans 11:34-36
“Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?”
“Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?”
For from Him and through Him and for Him are all things.
    To Him be the glory forever! Amen.
 
The motivation and reason we can do what God is urging us to do is because of and by His mercies. What are some of those mercies Paul mentions on Romans? We have received grace, Jesus died in our place, we have been forgiven, justified freely by faith, been reconciled by Christ, given eternal life, given His life- giving Spirit, being conformed to the image of His dear Son, have Christ interceding for us, have His love poured out into our hearts, have all things working for good, and possess His love that cannot be separated from us. We have received faith, peace, hope, share in Christ's righteousness and His glory, and can call God Father because we are His children. What great mercies the child of God has received!
 
The most compelling motivation for faithful obedient living should not be the threat of discipline or the receiving of rewards… but overflowing and unceasing gratitude for the marvelous mercies of God. Such mercies should motivate and empower believers to complete surrender and commitment to the Lord.
 
Last Sunday, I just lost it during the last song our hymnal. “count your blessings, name them one by one”.  I just lost it church, this overflow of emotions, I could not control. Have we forgotten what God has done? Have we forgotten His blessings, His mercies? Have we fallen off so far, to the point where we cannot offer, “A Living, Acceptable Worship” to the One who deserves it.
 
 
Verse 1 also commands an act of surrender for the mercies of God that urge and empower us to fully surrender our life to God. “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”.
 
Believers are called upon to present…to surrender their body as a living and holy sacrifice. This is the only proper, logical and appropriate response for one who has received God's fathomless mercies. Again, an unbeliever will not and cannot obey this command.
 
Here, the term carries the idea of surrendering or yielding up. The believer is called upon to yield or surrender his or her body as an act of sacrificial worship. Not forced!!! But willingly!
This indicates that we are to present our body once for all times. The gift which was brought to the altar became consecrated to God and no longer belonged to the one who offered it, but to God. Christians no longer belongs to themselves but to God who has redeemed or purchased us with the price of His Son. Once we have given the offering of ourselves, we can no longer take it back. We’re not ours anymore. We belong to God.
 
When someone asked WILLIAM BOOTH, founder of the Salvation Army, the secret of his success, Booth remained silent for several moments. Finally, with tear-filled eyes, he said, "There have been men with greater brains or opportunities than I, but I made up my mind that God would have all of William Booth there was."
 
Several years later when General Booth's daughter heard about her father's comment regarding his full surrender to God, she said, "That wasn't really his secret - his secret was that he never took it back."
 
You see, at times that could be the problem with a living sacrifice. It can get off the altar. Yet, like William Booth, we can respond to God's grace and mercy in saving us, by giving Him our all and never taking it back.
 
Since we are, what we say we are, a “living sacrifice”, we must daily lay down our own desires and put our energy and resources at God's disposal.  It’s hard, yes…I know. But it’s doable by the power of the Holy Spirit. For Christ showed His love by dying for us, we show ours by living for Him.
 
Before we were drawn to Christ, we used or presented our body for sinful pleasures and purposes, but now that we belong to God, we want to use our body for His glory. Just as Jesus Christ took upon Himself a body in order to accomplish God's will on earth, so we must yield our body to Christ that He might continue God's work through us.
 
Therefore, we offer our bodies, ourselves as instruments of righteousness to God…
Romans 6:13-19
13 Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to Him as an instrument of righteousness. 14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace. 15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! 16 Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. 18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. 19 I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness.
 
We offer our feet to walk in His paths, our lips to speak His truth and spread the gospel, our tongues to bring healing, our hands to lift-up the fallen and perform service as He directs, our arms to embrace the lonely and unloved, our ears to listen to His word and the cries of distress and our eyes to humbly and obediently look toward God. The Lord created our body for Himself and in this life, He cannot work through us without in some way working through our body. It is because our body remains unredeemed that it must be yielded continually to the Lord, otherwise sin will reign in our mortal body and we will obey its lusts.
 
The Lord Jesus is the other illustration of a living sacrifice. He actually… died as a sacrifice in our place in obedience to the Father's will. But He rose again. Today He is in heaven as a living sacrifice, bearing in His body the wounds of Calvary. The living sacrifice we are to offer to the Lord who died for us is the willingness to surrender to Him all our hopes, plans, everything that is primarily precious to us. As we die daily to our old self, the world, the flesh and the devil we become a living and holy sacrifice.
 
The Lord doesn't expect from us any more than we have to offer, but He does want us to be faithful and to give Him our very best effort. May we say willingly and gladly, "Lord, I give You my life and everything I have is now Yours." WE may try to serve God without loving Him, but We… cannot love God without serving Him.
 
The second part of our text also requires, a transformation of surrender… Verse 2 begins by stating two indications of believers who have offered their life to God's service.
 
 
 
 
Romans 12:2
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.
 
Offering or surrendering of our life to God causes a new direction in life or a new lifestyle. This direction is not simply a goal of a new manner of living, we are shown what we must do to obtain the goal. There is something that should be shun and something that should be done.
 
Be conformed is a passive verb indicating that conforming, or being put into a pattern or, is something we allow to be done to us. The world seeks to pressure us into its mold. The world or age which seeks to conform us to its thoughts, opinions, standards, speculations, hopes, impulses, aims and aspirations which pressure us from all sides. The world wants to control us. It wants to make the rules, in which we should live.
 
So, How…does God renew our minds? God transforms our mind and makes us spiritually minded by His Word. As you listen to God's Word, meditate on it, memorize it, God's Spirit renews the mind and the lifestyle is not conformed but transformed. This renewed mind allows us to see ourselves, others, and the world from the eyes of our Lord Jesus. We will start to see, what Jesus see’s. Love…the way Jesus loves. Comfort others, the Jesus gave comfort. These are the transformation. And this will go on for as long as we live here on this earth.
 
There will also be the proof of surrender. “Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will”. Those whose mind the Holy Spirit has renewed, reeducated and redirected, results in a life that can prove what the will of God is. This renewed mind means we can not only know God's will, we can live out or prove what the will of God is.
 
We can live out Gods' will and prove the following three qualities of God's will. We can prove that, God's will is good, well-pleasing and perfect.
 
As the Christian is transformed in his mind and is made more like Christ, he or she comes to not only to approve of God's will instead of his own… for the Christians life will prove it. Then the Christian will discover, that God's will is what is good for him or her, and that it pleases God and that it is complete and as it should be in every way.
 
But how does this occur? Your mind controls your body and your will controls your mind. You may think that you can control your will by will-power but that your will power… will fail sooner or later. It is only when we yield ourselves to the will of God that His power [Spirit] can take over and He can give us the His power that we will worship in Spirit and truth and live the victorious Christian life, which is good, acceptable and perfect.
 
We can surrender to God through disciplined prayer. As we spend time in prayer we learn to know & trust God and surrender to Him by praying "Not my will but Thy will be done."
 
An ARCHITECT said that many of his clients who asked him to design a house, had ALREADY MADE THE PLANS in their mind. What they really wanted was approval of their plans. What they really wanted was approval of their own ideas and the satisfaction of seeing the architect draw what they thought would suit their needs.
 
Sadly… Some Christians proceed in the same way, when they ask the Divine Architect (God) to plan their lives. They pray for wisdom and guidance, but in their heart’s they have already decided how they will attain certain goals or what goals they should be pursuing. They have missed the message of (Romans 12:1-2). While they gladly trust Christ for salvation, they hold back from making the full surrender that is necessary to "prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."
 
A young girl attended a meeting in which she was challenged to yield completely to Christ. She wanted to do God's will but feared God might lead her into something she wouldn't like. After the service, the speaker talked with her and said, "Read Romans 12:2 carefully, and you will see that it is the ‘good will of God' that will be your portion. While it may not be an easy road, it will be acceptable to God and bring the true joy you are seeking." Quoting George Matheson's hymn "Make Me a Captive, Lord, "My will is not my own, till Thou hast made it Thine." Suddenly it all made sense to her. With tears she prayed, "Thank you, God. I'm all Yours!"
 
So… a question remains for you and I. Have we fully surrendered to Him?
 
In Conclusion:
 
Paul's appeal is addressed to the people of God, based on the mercies of God and concerned with the will of God. Only a clear vision of His mercies will inspire us to present our body to Him and allow Him to transform us according to His will.
 
As a Christian is transformed in his mind & is made more like Christ, he comes to approve & desire God's will, not his own will for his life. Then the believer, discovers that God's will is what is good for him or her, and that it pleases God, and is complete in every way. God has good, pleasing and perfect plans for His children. But only by being renewed spiritually can a believer  do, & enjoy the will of God.
 
 
 
God wants the eternal best for us, and because of His demonstrated mercies in Jesus we should joyfully give ourselves as a living sacrifice. God has good, pleasing & perfect plans for His children. He wants to transform people by renewing minds so that they live to honor & obey Him.
 
Take a moment for REFLECTION. Look again at Romans 12:1-2.
 
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. 2 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.
 
What is your motivation for giving yourself over to God as a living sacrifice? What are some things you can do this week that indicate you are giving yourself to God. Then and only then, can we have “A Living, Acceptable Worship”, to our God.