Purpose Driven Life: Worship

And when you see therefore in the text, you have to ask what has come before the therefore. For 11 chapters in Romans, Paul has been telling us about the mercies of God.

We were sinners. The wages of sin was death, but God commended His love toward us. And while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither the present nor the future, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.

And then he talks about the nation of Israel and says God is still going to do something with the nation of Israel someday.

are recounted for 11 chapters therefore Paul says in view of God's mercies in the NIV text it's singular mercy but literally it's mercies plural it's a plural intensive God's mercy is so magnificent and great you can't talk of it in the singular you got to talk of it in the plural of those mercies, Paul says, I urge you, I urge you, I urge you to do something. And when he urges, he's imploring and he is exhorting. You remember what an exhortation is, don't you? It's an encouragement with a kick in the seat of the pants. It says you cannot stand still in light of what you have just heard for 11 chapters.

I exhort you to do something. So how do we best worship God? We remember His great mercies toward us, but it is not enough to remember. We must, we must, we must respond. We must respond.

And we must respond with what our text calls, and look at the last phrase in the memory verse for today, we must respond with what is called our spiritual act of worship. Do you see that phrase? The spiritual act of worship. The word that is translated spiritual is the Greek word logikos. This is an important word.

It's a word from which we get an English word. Logikos. English word do we get from that logical something logikos something that is logikos is of the mind or the spirit and what Paul I think is saying to us here it is a spiritual act but it's the NIV maybe misses it just a little what the Greek text is teaching the Greek text is teaching that in light of what God has done for us the only logical thing we can do is worship it is a logical rational reasonable act that we worship God in light of what he has done do you understand the point the King James translate translates it this is your reasonable service or your reasonable worship it is the only logical thing to do if you saw the passion of the Christ and see what saw what Christ has suffered for us you cannot logically sit there and do nothing you've got to respond And you respond in worship. But what is the best way we worship God? How do we best worship God?

We've had a lot of debate in this church about worship, haven't we? I'm going to tell you it has a lot more to do with something than music. Music is very secondary when we talk about the best way to worship God. How do we best worship God? We best worship God by making first an offering to God.

How do we best engage in the logical act of worship? We first begin by making an offering to God. We present something to Him. We give something to Him. And what is it that we give to Him?

We give to Him ourselves. Do you hear me? You want to worship the Lord Jesus Christ for what He has done for you? There's only one way to give Him the best offering. to give him yourself and to be a living and holy sacrifice for him.

Do you hear me? He doesn't just want lips that give praise. He wants all of us as a living and holy sacrifice. What does it mean to be a living and holy sacrifice? It means that we give ourselves completely to God.

You remember the Old Testament sacrificial system? They offered the animals as sacrifices as part of the worship. The animal was given completely in the offering and in the sacrifice. So if we're going to be living in holy sacrifices, folks, it means we give ourselves completely to God. Not halfway, not partway, not lukewarmly.

We give ourselves completely to Him. It secondly means we die to ourselves in order to live for Him. Sacrifices were typically killed in the Jewish worship, right? Paul says I want you to be a living sacrifice. And what he means by that is he wants us to die to ourselves but then to live for Christ.

Christ in your service of him may have you die for him but he first wants you to live for him. And if in the living for him you ultimately die so be it. But he wants you to live for him. He wants you to live for him but you must first die to self. Thirdly, to be a living and holy sacrifice means we seek to please Him by obeying Him and avoiding sin.

We are a holy sacrifice set apart for God's service. So we want to avoid anything that is unholy so that we can better serve Him as a holy sacrifice. And lastly, if we are going to be living in holy sacrifices, we dedicate ourselves to be consumed in and for his service. We literally give ourselves to him so that we can be burned up in his service. Spent in his service.

Do you hear? Do you hear? We're in the season of Lent. is the season when we give up things. Some people give up Coca-Cola.

Some people give up chocolate. The season of Lent was not designed for the giving up of those things. It was designed for giving up two things, primarily. Giving up sin in our lives and giving up ourselves in the service of our Lord. That's what Lent was designed for.

Whose life is it, anyway?

Isn't that what Wilson asked this morning in the sermon?

Oh, the wonderful cross, oh, the wonderful cross bids me come and die and find that I shall truly live. What a great hymn about being a living sacrifice. The cross bids us come and die and find that we shall truly live.

that's how we best worship when we die to self so that we can live for him. It's the kind of passion and sacrifice that the Apostle Paul made when at the end of his third missionary journey the people said, Paul, it's too dangerous for you to go to Jerusalem. Don't go. You're going to be imprisoned in all likelihood and you may lose your life. And the Apostle Paul says, I consider my life worth nothing.

If only I may testify to the gospel of God's grace. And finish the task that he has given to me. He was a living and holy sacrifice for our Lord. It's the kind of sacrifice a Bill Bright made. In your reading for this week, if you paid attention, Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, when he was just a young man, made a contract with God.

Do you remember his contract? He wrote this out and he signed it. And it said, from this day forward, I am a slave of Jesus Christ. and he signed it. That's the idea of being a living sacrifice.

And it's the story of Adoniram Judson and his wife, Anne. Adoniram Judson was the first overseas missionary from the United States. On February 17 of 1812, he left the United States with his wife, Anne, to go to Burma. He and his wife had been married for 12 days. She was 23.

Adoniram Judson, before he married his wife Ann, wrote a letter to her father asking permission for the marriage.

He knew what his life was going to be like as a missionary to Burma. So before he asked his wife Ann to marry him and before they went off to get married and then go be missionaries, he wrote to her father. And this is what he wrote. I have to ask you whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring to see her no more in this world. Whether you can consent to her departure and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of missionary life.

Whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean, to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India, to every kind of want and distress, to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death. May I marry your daughter.

how would you like to be in the parent and get that letter?

Will you let me marry your daughter? Take her to Burma and suffer. You know what Ann's father said? I'll let Ann decide.

And do you know what Ann decided? She said, I'll go and I will marry this man in the service of Christ. They did not come back to this country for 33 years.

They got to make one trip back after 33 years in Burma. Then they went back and they both died serving the Lord in Burma. How do I best worship God by becoming a living and holy sacrifice for Him?

Here are my lessons for life. How is our gratitude indexed toward God? Are we indeed grateful for what He has done for us?

Let's ask ourselves, number two, what am I doing with my life to demonstrate that I am a living and holy sacrifice for Jesus Christ?

Well, I got to church this morning by 8.50.

Our sacrifices these days often pale in comparison to the sacrifices of some of the saints that have gone before us. Third, let's be willing to venture more for Christ. Risk is right in the service of Jesus Christ. Let's not shrink back. Fourthly, let's build safeguards into our lives to avoid sin.

We're to be holy sacrifices. Folks, we each know our weak points, don't we? We need to build safeguards into our lives to avoid the weak points where we might besmirch or dishonor the name of Christ.

Fifthly, forget the past and begin now to serve Christ. It is easy to beat ourselves up because of what we have failed to do in the past. You know what Jesus Christ says? Let the past be in the past. Today is a new day.

Serve me from this day forward. Wherever you are, begin there to serve Christ. You don't have to wait to go to Burma.