Text: Romans 12: 1-8
How’s your worship life? How would you respond to that question? What do you mean pastor? Are you talking about my worship attendance? Are you asking if I’m getting fed with Word and Sacrament? I imagine most of us are thinking about the time we spend here on Sunday mornings. How’s your worship life?
But today the apostle Paul gives us a much needed reminder. Our time of worship is much more than those times we come away from the world to this place to bask in the warm glow of God’s love in Christ. It’s more than those times we gather here to pray, praise and give thanks.
You see, every day, every hour, every thought, every interaction with one another is an opportunity to worship our great God and Savior. So this morning, we say:
IN VIEW OF GOD’S MERCY, WORSHIP THE LORD
I. Offer a living sacrifice
II. Be changed in your thinking
III. Put your gifts into service.
It’s easy to go right past the first few words of our text, but let’s not. Therefore I urge you in view of God’s mercy. In view of God’s mercy. We are in chapter 12. For the last eleven chapters Paul has been painting a wonderful picture of God’s mercy. And now he finally begins to speak about how we should then live as people so blessed by God’s mercy. That reminds us of something so important about this Christian faith. Before anything else, it’s about what God has done for us in Christ, and what God has promised us in his Word. It about his grace for dying sinners. It’s about God’s mercy.
And think about that word, mercy. It means to take pity on someone, to have compassion on someone in desperate need. We might think of the people in Africa living under the growing shadow of the Ebola virus. We might think of that young person whose father and mother die in a tragic car accident. But also think of you and me. Think of our once desperate need. Paul writes of it in this letter. There is no one righteous, not even one. Not any of us could stand before God and survive his all knowing, all revealing judgment. We know that. Our conscience tells us that even now. We need God’s mercy, his forgiveness.
The Christian faith is about that mercy. It’s about his mercy poured out on us through the person of his Son, Jesus Christ. It’s a mercy we can only begin to appreciate. A mercy that moved our God and Father to send and then watch his beloved Son suffer our guilt and our punishment. Do you think that was easy? Do you think it was easy for God to treat his Son as we deserve? But God wanted to have mercy on us. And he did so through Jesus, his Son. For in Jesus, our guilt is paid for and God forgives. In Jesus, we have peace with God, the promise that he is always active in our lives working for our good. And in Jesus, we have a hope that a dying woman once described to me as beautiful. It’s beautiful pastor.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. When an Old Testament believer thought of a sacrifice, he would picture a lamb or bull offered and put to death. But here the Holy Spirit calls on us to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice. Not offering your body to die, but to live, to live for God.
For some reason I always think back to this story. A little girl is sitting with her family in church. The offering plate comes her way and what does she do. To everyone’s surprise, she puts it on the floor and then stands in it. Her father asks, why did you do that? Daddy, my Sunday School teacher said, we are supposed to give ourselves to God. That little girl might have gotten it a little confused but she had the right idea. Offer your bodies as living sacrifices….this is your spiritual act of worship.
You see, everything we do with these bodies is an offering. We either make them an offering to God or to sin. When I open my mouth to speak, that’s an offering. When I talk about others, that’s an offering. What do I offer? Good things or gossip. When faced with someone in real need, maybe my elderly parents or a stranger, what do I offer? Excuses or a helping hand. In view of God’s mercy offer your body to live for God. For in this way, we worship Him.
But there’s more to this worship. Think about a time when you were here. This happens to all of us. You were speaking the words, but then you realized that your heart and mind were far away. Do you think that God was honored in the moment? Of course not. For we worship not just with our actions, but with our hearts and minds. Our thoughts, our attitudes say something to the Lord. And not just in this place. But throughout the day. And everyone of us has some built in bad attitudes that so easily take over. But it doesn’t have to be. So in view of God’s mercy, worship the Lord. Be changed in your thinking.
Down in New Mexico, the wind blows in the Spring. I mean it really blows. Well after a time I noticed that the trees we planted bent with the wind. You might say, they conformed to their surroundings. Well you and I live in a society that blows against us like that wind. And we can easily take on that lean.
What am I talking about? Here’s one example. It seems that the business world is often a place where material success is important. But not all important. For what then can happen? Truth is twisted. People are used and abused in the interest of profit.
Or what about the value and dignity of human life? We’ve come to a place where the nest egg of an eagle is given more value than an unborn child. Then think about San Francisco. They are moving to ok abortion if someone doesn’t want a boy or a girl.
And those are just a few examples of that wind that keeps blowing against us. I haven’t even mentioned the wrong and shameful ways God’s gift of sex and marriage is treated. I haven’t even mentioned how the beauty of a woman is turned into something cheap and dirty. I haven’t even mentioned how our society equates happiness with having lots of money and stuff. How so many of us are self absorbed with our faces buried in our iPhones while ignoring our neighbor. So Paul writes, 2 Do not conform any longer 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.
Well how does that happen? How are we changed and renewed? How do Christ-like values take root in our hearts and lives? How are those values bolstered against the prevailing winds of this dying world? How are we changed? God’s Word. The Holy Spirit uses God’s Word. Maybe not all at once, but little by little like a sculptor slowly making a thing of beauty.
That’s why I can’t underscore this enough—the need for Bible study. For in a sermon, we can barely scratch the surface. We need more than that. So in view of God’s mercy worship the Lord. Be changed in your thinking as you dig into God’s Word.
And here is one change we cannot do without. Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought…It’s an ugly thing to behold especially when I look in the mirror and see it in myself. Members of a congregation puffed up with their own importance. And where does it lead? It leads to people insisting on my wants, my ways, insisting that my ideas are better than yours. And worse yet, it leads us away from Jesus who calls on us to serve one another as he has served us.
But don’t get the wrong idea. Paul doesn’t say that you are not important, that you have nothing to offer. Rather he says, think of yourself with sober judgment. For each of us is important in our own way, a way in which God has blessed us. And that gives each of us a special opportunity to worship our Savior. In view of God’s mercy, worship Him. Put your gifts into service.
Think of our body. Eyes, ears, feet, hands, nose. Many different parts, yet one. One body. A Christian congregation is like our body. God has brought us together as one. We are the body of Christ. We share one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one Holy Spirit who lives in our hearts and one hope.
Yet just like our body, we each are different. We come from different homes, different families. We have different DNA. We are different and as God’s people one important difference is this. We have different gifts, different talents and abilities given us by God.
And here you can see the Spirit’s wisdom. For the church has different needs. We need people to teach and preach and share God’s saving word. We need people who will encourage, counsel and console. We need people to make sure the roof doesn’t fall in. We need people willing to serve in quiet unassuming ways without a lot of recognition.
Well each of us has a gift that can go towards meeting those needs. We have different gifts according to the grace given us. And here God’s Word calls on you and me to put our gifts into service. You can almost fill the blank, if a person’s gift ________let him do it. Let us do it. For when we do, people are served, and in so doing, we worship the Lord.
So how’s your worship life? It’s not just an hour, is it? It’s our life. And you know something. That’s the very least we can offer to our God. For after all the Son of God came down from heaven to live his life for you. He became your brother to give his life for you. So in view of God’s mercy, worship the Lord. Amen.