Worship as a lifestyle

Worship as a lifestyle

Romans 12:1-21

With Peter Veysie

George Methodist Church

20th February 2022

8am and 10am

• Worship is all about a lifestyle as opposed to a singing of songs although we sing as an outward expression of what is going on within. I often find that we can so easily have a comment about the worship as to whether it was good or bad, but in actual fact it is so much more about our own attitude and reflection on the Lord.Paul uses the word urge you knowing that it was critical for God’s people to do this but also knowing how difficult it would be for them living in a very worldly environment !!!!

2. Worship moves us from conforming -Conform a metal press pushes it into a form that it wasn’t before.

Not the world’s press but God’s pottery hand.

Make me mould me fill me.

It’s so easy to become what we are not by conforming to others or the standards of the world. As an act of worship we find ourselves drawn to the one who did not conform, who changed the narrative of the story to be inclusive loving kind and embracing of all that we are and yet enabling us to move out of the grip of the mould of the world. It’s a thin line but we are always drawn to the question as to whether the thing that we are doing is bring a smile to God’s face or not.

What is squeezing me into a mould that is more about the world than about the Lord ?

Paul tells us to abandon the chase for pleasure, possessions, and status—to stop living like everyone else. Instead, he urges us to be transformed from the inside out. Specifically, he writes that we must be changed in how we think, to have our minds renewed so that we can begin to understand God’s will for our lives. 

God may continue to provide us with pleasure, possessions, and status in various forms, but he urges us to learn how to look at life with a new question: What does God want for me? What is truly a good, acceptable, and perfect use of my life for His purposes and not just for my own?

3. Worship is about a total transformation.Transformed metamorpho – metamorphosis – caterpillar to butterfly. A deliberate choice.

I wonder if you remember yourself in a worm like state. It was necessary to move out of it but you had th choice nd the option all the time and that shif was for many us not very comfortable. We had to make a choice which began by the renewing of our minds to begin the process of metamorphosis. We had to allow the Lord to do the miraculous work of changing our hearts and our souls from being worms to butterfly’s and literally at the end of the process we bcame freed up to fly, to worship to experience liberty and truth and to see others as Jesus sees them too. Worship then becomes a lifestyle and an opportunity to bring people hope in this beautiful invitation of transformation.

4. Worship enables us to hear and test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will.

I have often wondered why Paul says good,pleasing and perfect will ?Often we focus on the “will of God” as if it were something we “discover” in a secret compartment, hidden away by God, separated from the rest of our lives. So we search and we worry and we fret and we pray and we struggle and we discuss and we read books (including a couple I have written on the topic) and we start and stop and halt and fidget and fumble and we make our lists and we stay up late at night worrying about things we can’t control anyway. These things are not wrong in themselves, and some of them may be quite helpful, but it is a mistake to think about “knowing God’s will” as if it is somehow separated from our ongoing walk with the Lord. Knowing God’s will is really just a subset of knowing God. That’s the whole message of Proverbs 3:5-6 in one sentence. The more you pursue knowing God deeply, the more likely you are to end up exactly where God wants you to end up.

Said another way, as long as you refuse to present your body as a living sacrifice, and as long as you insist on following the ways of the world, you can forget about knowing God’s will for your life. It’s not going to happen. 

Paul uses three words that describe the “will of God.” 

First, God’s will is good. That means that doing things God’s way will always prove to be for our ultimate benefit. Consider the Ten Commandments. It is good that we have no other gods before God, it is good that we do not worship idols, it is good that we honor our parents, it is good that we do not murder, it is good that we do not commit adultery, it is good that we do not lie, it is good that we do not cover, and so on. But there are times when the world pulls us in the direction of idolatry, disobedience, hatred and sexual immorality. There are times when lying seems like fun and when stealing seems okay. Remember that sin does bring pleasure for a short time. If sin were always immediately unpleasant, we’d all sin a lot less than we do. Sin often brings short-term pleasure. When Eve saw the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, she saw that “the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise” (Genesis 3:6). All those things were true. So she took the fruit and ate it, and gave it to Adam and he ate it, with disastrous consequences that continue to this very day. Sin always looks good at first. It seems fun and alluring and exciting. “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death”

Second, God’s will is pleasing or acceptable. The word means that which is well pleasing to God. It means to live in such a way that God says at the end, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” But it also means that living God’s way will also be pleasing to us personally. Not easy, because carrying a cross is not an easy thing to do. But in the end, those who live for Christ will be happier than those who don’t. It’s really as simple as that. 

Third, God’s will is perfect. The word means something that is complete or whole, something that has reached its intended destination. If you live for God, you will come to the end of your life satisfied. We can summarize it this way:If you live for the world, you will have the world’s reward, which will satisfy you for only a short time.If you live for God, you will demonstrate to yourself and those who know you that that God’s way is always good, pleasing and ultimately perfect.

Worship enables us to experience this even in the toughest of times !!!

Worship moves us to the second part of Romans 12 and this is in a sense also about spiritual discipline. Worship leads us to love more to care to not think of ourselves more highly than others,to associate with people of a lowly position and all of these are disciplines coming out of our worship of the Lord who is constantly directing and ordering our steps.Devote yourself to spiritual disciplines – act of worship and I want to say that this incorporates the other 6 words the Lord has given us for this year- prayer creativity, justice, hospitality, mission creativity and teaching.