The Believer's Spiritual Worship (Romans 12:1-2)
INTRODUCTION:
As we begin chapter 12 this morning we move into a new section of Romans. Paul devoted the first 11 chapters of this book to doctrine, some of it easy to understand, some of it difficult, some possibly challenged some of your preconceived ideas, I hope and pray that more than anything that as we looked at the first 11 chapters any confusion or doubts that you had about salvation have been cleared away. Paul used those first eleven chapters to teach us what God has given believers through His mercy and grace poured out on us through the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul began in chapters 1-3 sharing with us the bad news showing us that we are all condemned sinners. Then in the middle of chapter 3 and all of chapter 4, Paul showed us that our sins can be forgiven, and we can be declared righteous before God through faith in Jesus Christ. In chapter 5, Paul showed us that we have peace with God and that we have been reconciled to God through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Chapters 6-7 showed us that we are dead to sin but alive to God, that we died with Christ in His death and were raised with Him in His resurrection. In chapter 8 we learned that there is now no more condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus and nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. In chapters 9-11 we learned that the nation of Israel has a future in God’s eternal plan of redemption, right now God has shown His mercy through His grace to the Gentiles because of Israel’s unbelief, but God will again show His mercy to the nation of Israel and all Israel will be saved. Paul clearly showed that Jew and Gentile are saved and justified by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and this salvation is an act of God’s mercy towards us.
Chapter 12 through the end of the book is where Paul’s doctrine become practical, Paul shows us in these remaining chapters how we are to live as redeemed children of God and how our lives are to give glory to God in all that we think, say, and do. As we begin this chapter this morning, we will find that we are called to live a life of sacrifice and surrender. This is where the believers spiritual worship begins. Let’s pray and then get into our passage for this morning.
--PRAY--
SCRIPTURE:
Turn in your Bibles to Romans 12:1-2, our text for this morning. Remember as we read these words that this is God’s Word written to you. Please stand if you are able in honor of the reading of God’s Word.
Romans 12:1-2,
“Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:1–2, NASB95)[1]
SPIRITUAL SERVICE OF WORSHIP (Romans 12:1)
In the middle of these two verses, at the end of verse 1 is this phrase, “your spiritual service of worship,” this is the key phrase of these two verses. What does this phrase mean? Throughout the history of the church there has been much interest and discussion about worship, what it is, what constitutes genuine worship. For many, worship is synonymous with music or some other aspect of a church service, which I believe is in part the fault of the church. Paul nowhere in these two verses says that worship is music or singing or preaching or praying or any other aspect of a church service. Understand that a church service is not the origin of worship and it does not induce worship. We will learn from this passage of Scripture the origin of genuine worship.
Instead of beginning with the first word of this chapter, let’s start by pulling apart this key phrase “your spiritual service of worship.” Then we will go back to the beginning and look at these two verses in the context of this key phrase. The word translated “spiritual” is a Greek word that can also mean “reasonable” which it is in some translations. It is a word in Greek that means “in the realm of the soul” so Paul is saying that worship is something that originates in the soul, it is something that is done according to reason, it is intelligent, in other words, it is not just done out of ritual or by rote, but genuine worship is to be thoughtful, carried out according to the spiritual intelligence of those who are new creatures in Christ. We will learn this worship is motivated by the mercies of God. The phrase “service of worship” is one word in Greek, it refers to religious worship, it is the Greek word in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament that is used for the service of a priest in performing his priestly duties. Our worship of God, the service we render to God in worship is spiritual. It is internal, and it originates in the soul, it is not something external. Genuine worship is spiritual, reasonable, and intelligent and this is the worship that Paul says in acceptable to God, that pleases or satisfies God because it gives all glory to Him. This is the worship that God desires. How do we get there, what is it that causes this to erupt from our souls?
When we worship, we are offering praise to God, we are glorifying Him. Worship has nothing to do with mood, or setting, it does not depend on what we see or hear. Worship is our spiritual service offered to God. He is the audience; He is the recipient of our worship. This genuine worship is spiritual, not physical and it comes from the soul, it rises up from the heart. We will find in these two verses that true, genuine worship has to do with surrender and devotion, which is the result of knowing God and thanking Him for His Person, acknowledging who He is, thanking Him for His works and offering Him praise. The more your soul understands and grasps the wonder and glory of the Lord the more you will worship.
Let’s return to the beginning of this verse. Paul begins this chapter with “therefore” which is always a reference back to what was previously written. In other words, based on what I have already written, Paul is saying, this is the result or the outcome. I believe this “therefore” refers back to the first 11 chapters and all that Paul has said concerning salvation. Paul is writing that in view of what I have said, I now urge you, I encourage you, I admonish you. This word translated “urge” is a word that means to come alongside, to help or encourage someone to do something. Paul is about to encourage us to worship. He gives us the motivation of true worship and it is the mercies of God. He writes, “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God…” (Romans 12:1a, NASB95)[2] We are to be motivated to worship by the mercies of God. Why does Paul use the plural, mercies of God and not just mercy of God? Because Paul is referring to everything that God has given us as an act of His mercy. Everything that He has poured out on us that we do not deserve. This would include everything that we have received in this life because we do not deserve anything from God except condemnation and judgment.
Paul used chapters 1-11 to sum up everything that we have because of the mercies of God, I already gave you some of this list in my introduction, but let me compile that list again, because of God’s mercy we have: His eternal love for us, His eternal grace on our behalf, we have the Holy Spirit as our Helper and Counselor and Comforter, we have everlasting peace and eternal joy, saving faith, strength, wisdom, hope, patience, kindness, honor, glory, righteousness, security, eternal life, forgiveness, reconciliation, justification, sanctification, freedom, resurrection, sonship, and ongoing intercession and the list could go on. Paul has been teaching what is ours in salvation in chapters 1-11 and these and many other things are the mercies of God.
Paul urges us based on these mercies of God, “… to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.” (Romans 12:1b, NASB95)[3] As a result of the mighty work of Jesus Christ on the cross, as a result of the great salvation that has come to us through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, we should be moved, motivated, compelled by the staggering mercies of God given to us in Jesus Christ to worship Him. Our motivation, what generates genuine worship is grasping salvation’s richness, grasping what we have been saved from and what we are saved to, understanding the saving grace that is ours by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We see this soul response in Paul at the end of Romans 11, after expounding on the mercies of God shown to both Jew and Gentile Paul’s soul is overflowing with gratitude and praise and in verses 33-36, he bursts forth in spontaneous worship. “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor? Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.” (Romans 11:33–36, NASB95)[4] This is pure worship, produced in the soul because of an understanding of the mercies of God.
True worship, genuine spiritual service of worship is produced by knowledge. First, we must have a knowledge of who God is and then a knowledge of the mercies of God that are seen through the salvation that is ours by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is these unfathomable riches of God’s mercy that Paul urges us, begs us, pleads with us to worship God in the acceptable way. Paul says acceptable worship is “…to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice…” (Romans 12:1b, NASB95)[5] Paul is telling us to offer our whole life in worship. Worship becomes a way of life, this term “body” means all our human faculties, all our humanness, everything we are we are to present it, offer it. This word “present” is an Old Testament term, a temple term, a Levitical term. It means to place a sacrifice on the altar. In other words, die to self, die to your own agenda, surrender completely to God as a living and holy sacrifice. This type of sacrifice speaks of holding nothing back from God, giving it all to Him in total abandon and worship becomes a lifestyle, everything we think, do, and say will be worshipful. John MacArthur wrote, “The language here is Old Testament language. An Old Testament offerer would bring his sacrifice to God outside the Holy Place and he would hand it to the priest. The priest would take it and offer it to God on the altar. When someone brought an offering, it symbolized a worshipping heart [be]cause that’s what God really wanted, even in the Old Testament, God was not pleased with only external offerings. He wanted the heart. He has always wanted the heart. God wants true worshippers who worship Him in spirit and truth. But now there are no more dead offerings, only living ones. The sacrificial system has been set aside and God wants living sacrifices. He wants us to follow the Lord Jesus Christ and deny ourselves.”[6] When you present your body as a living and holy sacrifice you are putting your life on the line. You are saying not my will but Yours be done, whatever your will is, that is what I want to do. Surrender, abandonment, Lordship are words that come to mind as I think of this kind of sacrifice of self. Verse two gets us to this point.
TRANSFORMED LIVES (Romans 12:2)
How do you get to the point where you really understand the mercies of God and understand them in such a way that you are overwhelmed by them and in gratitude you are willing from the heart as a spiritual service of worship to give up your entire self in a single expression of worship in which you abandon your own life to the divine purposes of God? Verse 2 tells us how to get to this point. It comes in two parts, the first negative and the second positive.
First, the negative, Paul writes, “And do not be conformed to this world…” (Romans 12:2a, NASB95)[7] The Greek word that is translated “conformed” is a word that means to be molded or fashioned into the form of something or someone else. To take on their likeness and personality. Paul is saying not to let our minds be molded or fashioned after the world, in other words do not take on the world’s ideas, philosophies, and ways. When Paul speaks of the world here, he is referring to the fallen thinking, the fallen ways, the fallen ideas that belong to the kingdom of darkness. Don’t be conformed to them, to the mass of ungodly ideas and behaviors. Everything the world has to offer is separated from and hostile to the will of God. You will never worship the way you should worship if you are molded or fashioned into the image of the world. If you love the world and the ways of the world and are devoted to them, then you are not a believer. But even as believers we must be careful not to allow ourselves to be influenced by the world, its influence is subtle, and we must beware that we do not allow it to begin shaping and molding our thinking. Do not be conformed to this world, do not act, and think as it does.
Now the positive, Paul writes, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2, NASB95)[8] Paul says we are not to be conformed but transformed. The Greek word translated transformed is the word metamorphoo from which we get our English word “metamorphosis” which means to change from one form to another. Not just shaped or molded, but completely changed into another form. Like a caterpillar changing into a butterfly or moth. The grammatical tense in Greek is a passive imperative which means to allow yourself to be constantly being transformed, it is an ongoing process. This metamorphosis is being done by the Spirit of God and we are being transformed into the image of Christ. Paul said it this way to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17, NASB95)[9]
Do you want to truly worship? Do not look towards external or physical things, instead be overwhelmed, and captivated by the mercies of God. Be obedient to the command to worship to the degree that you are willing to give yourself up in total abandonment to God and to the lordship of Jesus Christ. When you give yourself up totally to them you are giving up your will for their will which Paul says is good, pleasing, and perfect.
Paul writes that this is accomplished, this transformation takes place through the renewing of your mind. This word translated “renewing” means a complete renovation of thought, a complete change for the better. This is not about emotions, this is about the mind, the intellect. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 2:15 that we have the mind of Christ, that speaks of a complete renewal, a complete change for the better, a complete renovation of our mind and thought.
If you want this “renewing of the mind” so that you think the way that God wants you to think, then you must go to the source of God’s thoughts. You have to be reading God’s Word, this is where you obtain the mind of Christ, this is what the Holy Spirit uses to renew our minds and transform us to be like Jesus Christ. We must be reading the Words that God has written to us, we must be allowing the Word and the Spirit to renew us. In Ephesians 5 where Paul was speaking to husbands, he makes reference to Christ and the church, the bride of Christ and how Christ is preparing them for heaven and Paul writes, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.” (Ephesians 5:25–27, NASB95)[10] That is complete transformation into another form, and it is done by the Spirit of God with the washing of water with the Word.
If you want to worship the Lord truly and genuinely, then it must begin with spiritual wisdom and understanding that is found in the Word of God and applied by the Spirit of God. True worship comes from a person who has abandoned themselves completely to God as a living and holy sacrifice, the transformation that comes from your surrender and the washing of water with the Word is that you will be able to prove (test, approve) what the will of God is for you, that which is good, acceptable and pleasing.
These last three words are not adjectives describing God’s will, when this total abandonment and transformation begins to take place you will find that God’s will is good for you, it is the right thing. You will find that it is pleasing, acceptable, utterly satisfying to be in God’s will. And you will find it to be complete, it will be perfect in the sense that it is all you need, not lacking anything. There is no better place to be then in the will of God abandoned to Him as your spiritual service of worship.
CONCLUSION:
This morning we have transitioned into the practical section of the book of Romans. In chapters 1-11 Paul gave us the doctrine of salvation, what salvation is and what it means to us who have come in faith to Jesus Christ. Paul writes that all that we have in Christ, the mercies of God that have been poured out on us should produce in our soul a desire to worship. Paul then went on to teach us what kind of worship is pleasing to God, what is acceptable to God. He said our spiritual service of worship was to present our bodies as living and holy sacrifices to God. To surrender all of who we are to God, so that we might be transformed, completely changed to be like our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This transformation takes place through the renewal of the mind, the Spirit of God applies the Word of God to our minds completely renovating our minds so that we have the mind of Christ, then we can know God’s will for our life. As I consider what Paul has urged us to do in this passage this morning, my prayer for each of us is a prayer that Paul prayed for the Colossian believers in Colossians 1:9-12, “For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.” (Colossians 1:9–12, NASB95)[11] God desires our genuine worship brought on by the staggering mercies of God that we have experienced in our salvation and come to understand and be overwhelmed through spiritual wisdom and understanding. Are you willing to surrender your body as a living and holy sacrifice that is utterly pleasing to God? I cannot begin to tell you how sweet that is, often this is something that must be done again and again because living sacrifices have the tendency to crawl down off of the altar. If you have not been to the altar in a while or ever, go and you will never regret it. As I studied this week and wrote and rewrote this message I was reminded that I too need to make sure that I am totally abandoned to God, that I am the living and holy sacrifice that is pleasing to Him. I desire my life to be my spiritual service of worship, what about you?
[1]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[2]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[3]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[4]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[5]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[6]MacArthur, John, The Critical Elements of True Worship. Grace to You, 2013.
[7]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[8]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[9]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[10]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[11]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.