The Obedience of Worship

Well, good morning to everybody. So glad to see you this morning. I'm grateful that you're here. We're going to be in just a moment in the 12th chapter of the book of Romans, so if you have a copy of God's Word, I would encourage you to find your place there in Romans chapter 12. It's in the New Testament. If you need help, look in a table of contents. That's perfectly fine. We're gonna be looking at and unpacking the first two verses in Romans chapter 12 in just a moment. But before doing that, I don't know where this fable originated from. I really have no idea, but like it. It's the fable of the chicken and the pig. You may have heard the story of the chicken and the pig walking down the street, and they passed a grocery store, and inside the window of the grocery store, there was a sign that said, "Bacon and eggs desperately needed." And the chicken looked at the pig and said, "I'll give them some eggs if you'll give them the bacon." The pig said, "That's easy for you to say, because for you, eggs are a contribution. For me, bacon would mean giving everything." Now, I've heard that story, and it's been told in business and in other places, and there's a variety of applications, but the reason that I bring it up is because I think that there is some sense of application for us when we talk about this idea of worship. So many times, I think, that we view worship as we are willing to bring God a couple of eggs, instead of saying, "We'll give you everything we are." You see, ultimately, what Paul is going to argue is that worship is really about the obedience of offering everything we are to God, every single thing we are. It's not just about offering a couple of eggs here and there. So in Romans chapter 12, Paul makes that argument, and here's what he says in verse number one. He says, "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." Now, when Paul begins with the word therefore, you know, if you've been around here a while, I've told you this over and over again. Whenever you see a therefore, you always ask, what is it there for, right? Because therefore is introducing something that has come prior to it. In other words, when we see the word therefore, it is saying that there is something that has come before this. Therefore, you are to do the following things. Now, what Paul says here is he says, "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view or in light of God's mercy." So Paul is saying, therefore, in view of God's mercy. Now, where did we get that idea of God's mercy? Well, I would suggest to you that what Paul did is he was summarizing the entirety of what he had written in the book of Romans, leading up to chapter number 12, and in fact, if we take a quick survey, and forgive me if I clip through this pretty quick. Sometimes my cadence gets a little quick, and you're kind of thinking to yourself, "I wish he'd take a breath, and he's not taking a breath, and he's still moving through things quickly." This is pretext for what I'm going to be talking about. But when we look at the idea of God's mercy, we begin to see it. In fact, if you started in Romans chapter one, you would figure out pretty quickly that Paul is addressing, by way of the Holy Spirit, the unrighteousness and the sinfulness and the ungodliness and the rebellion of humanity, and that God was going to reveal his wrath against all of this kind of rebelliousness. Here's what it says in Romans chapter one, beginning in verse 18. The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse." See, in chapter one, we're reminded that everybody is kind of, humanity is experiencing ungodliness and unrighteousness, and that God will reveal his wrath against that very thing. In Romans chapter two, we're reminded very early on that God's judgment is based on truth. God knows what he's doing when he judges. Here's what it says in Romans 2. "We know. Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth," that everybody has sinned and God therefore is gonna reveal his wrath, and he is going to judge sin because he is holy. And then when you get to Romans chapter three, Paul does not let the Jews off the hook. He doesn't let the Gentiles off the hook. He basically says, if you think that you can somehow justify yourself in front of God, you're wrong, because there's nobody who can justify themselves. There's nobody who's righteous. Everybody has made mistakes. Everybody has sinned. It is the condition of humanity. Listen to Romans chapter three, beginning in verse nine. "What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage?" He's talking about Jews. Do Jews have any advantage? "Not at all. For we have a already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one." There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks God. All have turned away. They have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." You see, what we're being reminded of is the condition of humanity, that there is no one that stands righteously before God on their own. But Romans chapter three continues and reminds us that what God has done in Jesus Christ. Now, by faith in him, we can experience a righteousness that's not our own, but it is a gift of God to us, through his Son Jesus. Here's what it says later in that chapter. "This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement through the shedding of his blood to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearances he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished." Think about that. "He'd left the sins committed beforehand unpunished, and he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies, those who have faith in Jesus." Even though the condition of humanity is what it is, God has shown his mercy in and through Jesus Christ, where we could never be righteous on our own. God has now given us a righteousness that is in Jesus Christ. In Romans chapter four, he talks about Abraham and the covenant that came through Abraham, and how Jesus is the fulfillment of that covenant, and this would matter for both Jew and Gentile. And then when you get to Romans chapter five, he talks about the idea that humanity is an enemy of God, but that through Jesus Christ, we now have peace with God. Here's what Romans 5 says. "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly." And then he continues on in Roman 6 and Romans 7, and we see him talking about the Law, because the Jews sometimes would want to say that they were righteous because they were followers of the Law, and he says it's not about that at all, in Romans 6 and 7, because Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law. And then when you get to Romans 8, you're reminded that this is about new life in Christ, and his Spirit is what gives us life. And we talk about life in the Spirit in Romans chapter eight, and then in Romans 9, 10 and 11, we see a picture of both Jew and Gentile, who are all in need of the mercy of God, and that God has shown his sovereign mercy to everyone, whether Jew or Gentile, so that he can fulfill his purposes in and through Jesus Christ. And then Romans 11 concludes this way. "Just as you were at one time disobedient to God who have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God's mercy to you. For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all." Therefore, in view of God's mercy. "Are you seeing it now? You see, this is where Paul was going when he talked about, "Therefore, in view of God's mercy." And then he says, "I urge you, brothers and sisters. Therefore, in view of God's mercy, I urge you, I exhort you, brothers and sisters, to do something." What is he exhorting the Roman church to do, and what is he exhorting us to do? "Therefore, my brothers and sisters, I urge you to," do what? Here, listen. "To offer your bodies as a sacrifice." That's what he's saying. He's basically saying, look, in view of God's mercy, offer your bodies as a sacrifice. Now, you know that this is not a literal sacrifice, right? Because all of that was the Old Testament, where we had the sacrificial system, right? There would be the sacrifice of an animal that was foreshadowing, that was picturing what would come. You see, Paul knew that his readers knew that, and we know that we know that, that this is actually talking about Jesus being the fulfillment of all of those sacrifices, because Paul's talking not here about a literal sacrifice. He's talking about something even deeper than that. And he says, "I want you to offer your bodies as a sacrifice." When he says body, he's not just talking about our flesh. He's talking about everything about us, right? The whole of who we are, is what he's saying. He says, "I want you to offer yourselves as a sacrifice." See, this is bigger than you just being able to give something to God. God is, listen, God is not requiring you to give something. God is requiring the giver herself, the giver himself. You see what this text is saying? Listen. We are the offering. That's what Paul is getting at here. We are the offering that we bring. Now, what Paul does is he describes that offering. He says, "Offering your bodies as a sacrifice," and he uses three adjectives to describe what that sacrifice is. Here's the first one. He says it's living. This is a living sacrifice. Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice. Now, maybe you've been in church a long time. You've heard this verse many times over. Maybe you haven't. Maybe it strikes you as odd when you hear this verse. You kind of go, "Living sacrifice? Isn't that kind of like internally self-contradictory? Because maybe I'm not sure about all this, but doesn't sacrifice by definition mean a dead thing?" It does. So let me make sure I'm clear. Paul's asking for a living dead thing? How's that go, a living dead thing? Well, it's actually not as contradictory as you might suspect, because what Paul is saying is that what he wants and what God is calling us to for actual worship is a submission of our very lives, right? Something needs to die so that something can continue to live. You see, what happens when we offer our bodies as a living sacrifice is we are actually saying, we want to see our flesh, and I don't just mean our skin. I mean that in us that remains of our sinful nature, right? Kind of the remnant of our sinful nature that wants to work in opposition to God. You know what it's like, right? That that needs to die, so that we can walk in the Spirit. In other words, when we offer ourselves, we don't die, but a part of us does, the part that should, but the remainder of us continues to walk out life in the Spirit of God. You see, it's interesting that the difficulty is, is that when we offer a living sacrifice, what happens too often in our lives is that we crawl up on the altar and we offer ourselves to God, but maybe on that day, we go, "You know, I'm not feeling it. I'm gonna just crawl right back off." Right? Because we're a living sacrifice, right? We offer ourselves, but then we take ourselves off, right? We say, "I'm gonna submit myself on the altar, God, and I want my flesh to die, so that I can live life in your Spirit." But oftentimes we just say, "No, I don't know that I want to do that today." You see, Paul says this is what actual worship looks like, that you offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, right? But he also says that it needs to be holy. He says you offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy. Now, that means set apart. In other words, that when you and I want to actually worship God, that what we need to do is we need to surrender all of ourself. None of this two egg business. All of ourselves to God, and what we are doing is we are setting apart ourselves from the world that we live in and all of the filth associated with that, and all the temptation associated with that. We are setting apart ourselves from sin and we are setting apart ourselves to God. This is what we are doing when we truly actually worship. All of us, God, and when we do that, that is a holy offering, that it is a living sacrifice, and it is a holy sacrifice, because we are setting ourselves apart from the world, and we are setting ourselves apart to God's purposes. But then thirdly, he says, it's a pleasing sacrifice. It's living, it's holy, and it's pleasing. Your text may say acceptable. Both are perfectly good translations there. You see, here's the reminder. This is what God wants. If you've ever wondered, what kind of worship pleases God, you don't have to wonder anymore. The kind of worship that pleases God is when you offer all of yourself as a living sacrifice, a holy sacrifice. This is pleasing and acceptable to God as an act of worship. You don't have to wonder anymore, because what pleases God is not, "Hey, you know what? I've got two eggs to give him today, and I've made a contribution to God. Aren't I awesome?" And see, the problem with that is, is that you look around and you think to yourself, "Man, they only gave one egg today. Pathetic. I'm in great shape, because I'm a two-egg person." But listen, two-egg person before you start getting too pumped up about yourself. You're gonna run into a five-egg woman here pretty soon. You're gonna run into a seven-egg man here pretty soon, right? So all this comparison business, listen, stop it with the eggs. You're going, "Jerry, you stop it with the eggs," right? Stop it with the eggs. This isn't about just making a contribution. God would never say it this way. I'm just using it as a matter of the illustration that I used earlier. He's not looking for eggs. Looking for bacon. He wants all. He wants a full all-in commitment. This isn't about the number of eggs you can contribute to God. God says, "I want all of you. If you wanna know what pleases me in worship, here it is. Give me all of you. Everything about you." You are the offering. That is what is being told to us here, and here's what Paul says. He says when we offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, this is our true and proper worship. Now, that word in the Greek language, there, it can mean reasonable, our reasonable worship or our spiritual worship. It's translated here our true and proper worship. That's a perfectly good to utilize. I like that translation fine. You wanna know what true and proper worship is? Offer your body as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. That is what it consists of. You see, what Paul is doing is he's expanding on the idea. Jesus taught us that we are to worship him in spirit and in truth, right? And that means kind of the fullness of who we are, in every way that we are worshiping him, and Paul is expanding that idea and talking about it from the picture of a sacrifice, that we are offering all of this to him. Why? Because here, listen, fundamentally, do you know what worship is? Obedience. Fundamentally, what worship is is obedience. You see, too often, we've let ourselves run in circles and in our minds, and just said, you know, "Yeah, man, I really, you know, yeah." "How was church today?" "And oh man, the worship was awesome. The preaching was, ah, it was alright. The worship was awesome." I'm sorry. What? What we're doing right now, if we are doing it right, is worship. We are worshiping around the Word of God as he reveals the glory of God to us. We worship when we sing. We worship when we encourage one another. We worship when we pray. We worship when we give generously. We worship when we bear one another's burdens. Worship is all-encompassing, and Paul says your true and your proper worship is when you yield everything about you as a sacrifice of worship. And then to kind of uphold that or affirm it, he gives two commands in the very next verse, verse number two. Here's what it says. "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." So, two commands that are here. Here's command number one. Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world. That's command number one that Paul gives us. So he gives us kind of what we call a negative command and a positive command. On the negative side, it is do not be conformed to the pattern of this world. Now, you were looking at this phrase kind of the way that it's actually stated literally, you could say it this way. Do not let the world squeeze you into its mold. That's how you would look at that phrase. Do not let the world squeeze you into its mold. Now, let's see if I can illustrate. You guys understand what this is. How many of you have served in the military? Just raise your hand, wherever you are. You know, you served in the military. Great, bunch of you. Thank you for that. Appreciate it. So I grew up as a son of a Marine, lived on a bunch of bases when I was young. I've lived in Camp Lejeune and Quantico, lived in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, so I've been in a few different places as a little guy, 'cause my dad was a Marine. Here's what I know. You come in to the Marine Corps, and probably true with any of the branches of service we're talking about. Come in however you are, but I promise you, you're going to leave exactly what they want you to look like, because they are going to press you into a mold. That's the job. You don't just get to be like, "Ah, you know, whatever." No, no, no, no, no. It's very specific. Your conduct, discipline, dress, the mission. It's all very specific. There is a mold for a Marine, and you might come in however you come in. You are coming out a Marine, because you are going to be pressed into a mold that you are going to conform to, right? We all know what that looks like. Paul is saying the world that we live in has a mold that it wants to form us into. When he says, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world," listen carefully. The idea of world there, you have to understand what he's saying when he says that. We read the word world in our Bible often, but it doesn't always mean the same thing. Sometimes the word world means like the globe, right? The planet. Sometimes the word world means all the people that make it up, right? Everybody, everywhere that lives on this planet. Sometimes the word world means the spiritual system that is set up to oppose God. So for instance, when John late in his life writes, "Do not love the world or the things of the world," but John earlier had quoted Jesus in his gospel, "For God so loved the world," but they're talking about world in two different senses here. God loves the world. He loves everybody that makes up the planet. God has demonstrated his love to every single person. But over here, "Do not love the world," does not mean don't love people. It means don't love this spiritual system that is set up to oppose God. Everybody clear on that? So when Paul says, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world," he's talking about the spiritual system set up to oppose God. Don't let that system squeeze you into its mold. Now, if we were to just pause for just a second and talk about how that occurs, you'd understand what I'm talking about, right? There's a mold that the world has, that it wants to squeeze us into. In fact, there are little molds all over the place that it's just trying to squeeze us into, that fit into the bigger puzzle pieces of the greater mold that we would call the pattern of this world. Like the mold of distraction. See, the world that we live in is so distracting. We've got devices in our hands that are constantly beeping, or we put 'em in our pockets, and they're going off, and alerting us to things and all that kind of stuff, so much so that we don't even hear the one voice that matters, God's, because we're being dinged and buzzed about everybody's voice and everybody's update, and all this is going on. We're so distracted that we can't even hear from God, and the world wants to press us into that mold, squeeze us into that mold. Or the mold of consumption. You need this. Whatever it is, you've got to have it. Doesn't matter if you don't have the money. Who cares? I've got to get that in my life. Consumption. The world is squeezing us into its mold, right? Self-indulgence. The world says, "Look, as long as everything's good from your perspective, don't worry about anything else. It doesn't matter. You're good. Things are good. It doesn't matter about anything else." Self-indulgence. Or the mold of self-reliance. I've got what I need. I don't really even need to factor God in, because I can take care of myself. I can do my own stuff. And the world wants to press you into that very mold right there. When we've forgotten the words of Jesus, "Apart from me, you can do nothing," but the world wants to squeeze us into this mold of self-reliance, right? And there's so many others we could talk about. Image. The world wants to squeeze us into the mold of image. In other words, what is it that I want people to think about me? Not who I really am, but what do I want people to see and think about me? I'm gonna curate all of social media, and I'm gonna contour a narrative so that people think certain things about me, because I'm being squeezed into the mold that image is everything. Or I'm being squeezed into the mold of a definition of success that the world has. You've gotta have this much money and this much stuff and you gotta be at this place in life. You gotta have all the trappings of power and influence if you want to be successful. If not, then you're not. And it's squeezing us into that mold. We could go on and on. You understand what I'm saying, don't you? The world is constantly causing us to want to squeeze into the pattern that it forms for our very existence. And here's what Paul says. Here's the command. Do not conform. Do not conform. That's what he says. Do not conform to the pattern of this world. But he couples that negative command with the positive command, which is command number two. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Do not conform, but instead be transformed. Don't conform, be transformed. That's the way to remember it, right? Don't conform to the pattern of this world. Be transformed. What does he say? By the renewing of your mind. Now, it's very interesting that Paul comes back to the renewal of the mind, because Paul started Romans, in Romans chapter one, talking about what happens when we choose to leave God out of everything and to ignore God. He says something happens to our minds. Listen to what he says in Romans 1. "Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done." In other words, the longer we continue to leave God out of everything, the more depraved our mind becomes. It just begins to devolve. I'm not saying people are all of a sudden dumb or they can't fix things or that they're not really smart, or they can't lead a company. I'm not saying any of those kinds of things. I'm talking about in reference to the knowledge of God and who he wants us to be, and what his purposes are in the world. It just devolves. And see, what Paul is saying here, is that we need to have a constantly transformed, renewed mind, because if we leave God out of all of this, if we don't offer ourselves completely to God, then we will not have the capacity to be able to think God's thoughts after him. See, the only way that we can do that is when we are transformed by the Spirit through the mediation of the Word of God. The Spirit uses the Word, right? The Word of God is called the sword of who? The Spirit, right? The sword of the Spirit. And so the Spirit of God uses the Word of God to transform how we see God, because what's so important for us, brothers and sisters, is how we see God. Most of the problems that I encounter with people when I talk to them, and they're like, "Man, I've got this issue in my life, and here's what's going on," and I don't do tons of counseling. You know, that's not my thing. I'm not really great at it, if I'm being honest with you, but here's what I've deduced. Most of the things that I have conversations with people about, that are talking about issues in their life, really revolve around two things. They've got a wrong view of God, or they've got a wrong view of who they can be in God. One of those two things. It's just a broken view of God. Why is that important? Because we need our minds renewed in the beauty of who God is, and that our minds are renewed by the Spirit through the Word, so that we have the mind of Christ. That's what God's intent for our very lives is, and if you do not have a constancy of time in the Word of God and allowing the Spirit of God to shape your mind and your thinking about who God is, how God works in the world, how God views the world, what life apart from God looks like. If you don't have all of that, your mind's not being renewed. You're not being transformed as God's design in your life really desires. So those are the two commands, right? A positive and a negative. Do not conform to the pattern of this world. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. You know, these commands remind me of chameleons and caterpillars. Chameleons, they just, they can work out anything in any spot, right? Put 'em in any situation, and they can just blend in. Everything's good. That's where too many people are in their journey of faith. We just start blending into the nature of the world. We just start blending into the pattern of the world. We just, everywhere we are, we blending into it, as opposed to looking different than the world. You see, the caterpillar is a caterpillar, but it undergoes a death of sorts, so that it becomes a butterfly. That's what you call transformation, metamorphosis, right? Transformation is what we're after. We're not trying to live chameleon existences, where we are just constantly trying to blend in with everybody. That's not what we do. We are actually trying to say, all of these chameleons, looking around, blending in with everything, when they lift their eyes, they're like, "So that's a butterfly. Huh. That's a butterfly, right there." It's a caterpillar that was transformed into a butterfly. Transformation that occurs. Now, what Paul is saying in verses one and two in the book of Romans, I've summarized this way, if it helps you. When we offer our whole selves to God, this is the obedience of worship, because worship is fundamentally obedience, and when we offer our whole selves to God, this is the obedience of worship. But do you know what else it enables us to do? When we actually offer our entire selves to God, do you know what it enables us to do? To discern the will of God. That's what it actually says there at the very end, right? Paul says that, when we do that, when we don't conform the pattern of this world, we are transformed by the renewing of your mind, then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is. Listen, people ask me this question from time to time, "Jerry, how can I know the will of God?" And if I return to them this question, "Let me ask you. Let me ask you something. Have you surrendered everything to him?" Everything, 'cause until you do that, you're gonna struggle to know his will, because the worship that he says is pleasing to him is when we offer ourselves as a living sacrifice, set apart from the world and set apart to God, and once we've done that, when our heart posture is that, when we've surrendered everything that we are to God, then we can begin to discern the nature of what God's design and desire is not just in our life, but in the world. This is God's heart. This comes from not being pressed into the mold of the world, but instead to have a mind that is renewed. So this passage in Romans is another way of restating the Great Commandment. When Jesus was asked, "What's the greatest commandment of all the commandments?" Jesus said, "Love the Lord your God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength." He wasn't trying to dissect humanity into four different parts. He was simply saying, "Everything you are. Everything you are, that's what you're to do. Love me with all that you are." What is worship? Surrendering all that we are to God. That's what worship looks like. Surrender everything that we are. So if Paul has said to offer our bodies as a sacrifice, we should do an inventory. Real simple way. Just do an inventory, and ask questions about whether or not we've surrendered that to God. I'll start you out. Let's start with your hands. Your hands have been given work to do. Are you doing your work to the glory of God as an act of worship? Are you offering worship to God with what you do for work? Some of you are going, "Pastor Jerry, if you knew my work scenario, I just, I hate my job. I want out." I hear you, I hear you. But let me ask you a question. Does God still want you to offer that to him? 'Cause he's asking for everything. He's not looking for a couple of eggs. He wants everything. So even if you hate your job and you're looking for another one, I understand. That's fine, but while you're doing the one that you're doing, why don't you demonstrate what a butterfly looks like? Why don't you demonstrate what it looks like to work to the glory of God? You know why? Because if your body is a living sacrifice, then what he has given your hands to do, you offer it to him in worship. Or maybe stay right here with your hands. Maybe it's what he's put in your hands, and you need to ask the question, how am I worshiping God with that which he's put into my hands, the resources he has put into my hands? Listen carefully. You at some point are gonna have to solve a very simple question. Who is the owner of all of your stuff? You know what the Bible calls us related to our stuff? Stewards. You know what stewards are? Managers. You know what managers aren't? Owners. We manage, we don't own, because God gave it to us. Everything. God, am I being generous with what you've put in my hands? God, am I stewarding that what you've allowed me to keep for your glory? God, what am I doing with that? Some of you're going, "Look, man, I work hard. I made my own way." Back it up, Bucky. The strength that you have, the mind that you have to work, the health that you have to work, all given by God. The fact that you've got breath in your lungs this second is the mercy of God. Everything we have is his. Everything. Even the tangible resources he entrusts to us, are we offering that to him as an act of worship for whatever it is he wants to do with it? I got other body parts I can mention. How about your feet? Where are they taking you to consume all your time? Huh? It's worthwhile to ask. Now, we all have stuff to do, right? Everybody's got things to do. You got kids you're running around, or you know, you got grandkids, or whatever. I mean, you got stuff to do. I get it, but it's worth asking the question from an inventory standpoint, if what Paul has said pleases God is when we offer ourselves, all of us to God, then let's ask the question, what's consuming all of our time? Where are our feet taking us with everything that we do? 'Cause some of us, our feet take us everywhere, but where God is calling us. It's just self-indulgent. But if we said, "God, everything of me is yours. Whatever it is you want, I'll do. Wherever you want me to go, I'll go." This is what it means to offer everything to God. About your eyes? The eyes are the gateway that lead to the mind and the heart in terms of what we ruminate on, and what do we allow for our eyes to see? What about our mouths? I better take a drink. What about our mouths? Have we offered our mouths and what comes out of them as an offering to God? Instead of unwholesome talk or gossip or slander or tearing down instead of building up, which is not what should be in the body of Christ, or speaking of things that we don't actually know about fully, and run the risk of bearing false witness against our brother or sister. You know, God's very serious about bearing false witness. Not only is that in the 10 Commandments that he gave to his people, but when you're reading through Proverbs, you see it all the time. There are six things that God hates, seven that are detestable to him. False witness, it's one of those. This is our mouths, right? And our mouths are on fire. Sometimes our mouths just translate to our keyboards, and we're on fire sharing stuff, talking about stuff that maybe we don't even know what we're talking about. We need to offer our mouths as a sacrifice of worship. How about our ears? Do we long for gossip to fill them, or do we long for truth to fill them and ring in them? How about our minds? What are we allowing our minds to dwell on? What do we fill it with? What are you reading and meditating on and thinking about and watching? What do you allow your mind to deal with? Is it the Word of God? Are you filling your mind with the Word of God and meditating on the Word of God? There's so much talk about meditation in the world that we live in, by so many different sources, right? You know, I'm gonna meditate. For them, that means I'm just gonna empty my mind. Om, I'm just meditating, om. Cool, whatever, you're emptying your mind. That's not what meditation is in the New Testament. Meditation is not emptying your mind. It's filling your mind. It's filling your mind with what God has said in his Word. We meditate, we chew on what God has said. What about our hearts? When we're offering our bodies as a living sacrifice, are we cultivating in our hearts the highest affection and the highest adoration for God, above everyone and everything, or do we have competing loves? This is what it means to worship, my friends. What it means to worship is to obey, and what obedience looks like is giving our whole selves, offering our whole selves to God for his purposes. That's the obedience of worship. I'm reminded of that on this day, Palm Sunday, because what our Lord Jesus did is that he set his face like flint to Jerusalem, knowing what was going to befall him there, and he entered in, in this last week that we call Holy Week. He came into cheers and palm branches, but he also had to pause to weep over the city that he knew was going to reject him, and that the tide of popular opinion was going to turn on him, and that ultimately, Jesus would go to a cross to die for his people. Do you know why? Because Jesus understood what true worship was. He offered his body as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This was true and proper worship of the Father, and Jesus exemplified it on our behalf, and that is why, my brothers and sisters, in view of God's great mercy to us in Jesus, Paul says, "I urge you to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his perfect, beautiful and pleasing and sovereign will for our lives." This is God's heart for us. Let's bow our heads together. In a moment, we'll be dismissed, and if you're here and maybe have never put your faith in Jesus, you've never been made new, well, you've heard very clearly today from God's Word, just in the book of Romans, that we've all sinned and come short to the glory of God. We cannot save ourselves. We are helpless and hopeless on our own. We'll never have a righteousness of our own. It is only because God's mercy in Jesus Christ has been shown to us, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for our sins, taking upon himself our sin, dying for us, rising from the dead, conquering sin, hell, and the grave on our behalf, and that by faith in him, we can be reconciled to the Father and have our sins forgiven and our life made new. If you you've never come to that place where you've experienced that relationship with God through his Son, Jesus, then when we dismiss in just a moment, I would encourage you that you would come straight across the atrium, into the fireside room. We'd love to take a moment, whether it's a pastor or prayer partner, would take just a moment, pray with you, send you home with something that's gonna encourage you in your faith. You're not up for anything you don't wanna sign up for. We just want to be an asset to you, a help to you, so I encourage you to do that. If you're watching us online, go to thechapel.com/knowingJesus. We can connect with you there. Father, there's so much for us to be able to apply from what we have read today by your Spirit through your Apostle Paul. We know that what pleases you is when we offer our whole selves to you, every part of us, holding nothing back. You're not looking for us to get into an egg competition with someone else, as if we can justify our righteousness based on whether we're better or worse than the person next to us. What you want is all of us, and I pray that we would be people who would offer our very selves, so that you'd empower us by your Spirit, for our flesh, that we would continually put it to death, and that we would live by your Spirit, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable, and pleasing to you, and that you would empower us to not be pressed in or squeezed into the mold that the world wants to squeeze us into, but instead, that you would transform us by your Spirit, through the renewal of our mind, through your Word, that we may know you, and we may know your will and your desires for our lives. I pray by your Spirit, you'd help each of us to do an inventory of our own lives, and to repent where we need to repent, and to ask for your help, that our very lives may be offered to you in full, whatever it is you want to do with us. You are the potter. We are the clay. Do with us as you will for your glory, so that we may be people that worship you truly by our obedience to you. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.