Everyday Worship | Romans 12:1

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Now let's jump into this week's teaching.

Well, good morning.

C3, good to be with you today.

Happy Labor Day weekend to all of you out here.

Hey, uh good news this morning.

No matter how bad the person next to you smells, they smell better than outside.

Am I right?

Am I right?

Yeah.

So glad you're with us today.

Hey, before we jump in, uh, just want to remind you of what's coming.

Next week starts our short-term group study.

We're super excited about this as we're going to be going through the life of Joseph, studying the life of Joseph over the next eight weeks together as a church.

Super excited about this.

And want to encourage you to jump in.

We've had a great response already, but I want to encourage you to jump in.

You can hit the QR code right there, and you can go to see all the different options of groups, all different times available, all different types of groups available as well.

So there's adult groups on Sunday nights and Wednesday nights.

There's um there's women's groups on Thursday mornings, there's a men's group on Tuesday morning, there's a young adults group on Sunday nights.

And because we've had a good response so far, we've actually added a Sunday morning option as well that will start uh during the nine o'clock service next Sunday as well.

If you're looking for a group uh to get in, like we believe this as a church is that we need to grow and we need one another.

We need it, we need to gather.

Um, and we believe that our groups are a great way for you to jump in and and to take that next step.

Uh so we would encourage you to jump in, find a group, jump in.

Uh we're we're excited to see so many more people just grow in their knowledge and understanding of the Word of God as they gather alongside other disciples to become more like Jesus.

So um, this this morning, what we're doing is we're actually kind of continuing a conversation that has naturally just started over the last couple weeks.

We're continuing this conversation and kind of just putting, kind of putting a bow on it, so to speak, of what we've been talking about the last few weeks as we as we wrapped up Jesus the financial planner.

And because we talked about living in joyful obedience to the Lord as a result of what he has done for us, that he has loved us, redeemed us, and made us new.

And so we we live in joyful obedience in response to what he has done.

But this has more to more to do than just with our money.

It's actually with every single moment of our lives.

And so, what I want to do this morning is hopefully get a little bit more practical and talk about every single moment of our days.

And what to do that, what we're actually gonna do is we're gonna be in Romans chapter 12.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

If you got your Bibles this morning, open up the Romans 12.

That's what we'll where we'll be hanging out this morning.

Uh, but I want to do a little exercise with all of us this morning uh to get us thinking on the same track here.

I want you to think about uh a normal day, what a normal day looks like for you.

I think actually it could be helpful this week at some point, just to think through and maybe journal uh what like what my normal day looks like.

What are the different things I'm doing?

Who are the different people I'm interacting with?

What are all the different things that I'm that I'm involved in?

So I don't know, like let's just think through it, okay?

First, the first thing you do in the morning is hit snooze, okay?

Right?

And then wait eight minutes and hit snooze again.

Anybody else a snooze button person in here?

Okay, you guys are kind of leaving me hanging a little bit.

There's a few of you, okay?

Maybe uh maybe there's some of you in here that are just like turn the alarm off completely and hope somebody else in your house wakes you up.

You know, maybe that's what it is.

Okay, okay, nevermind.

Never mind, okay, just me.

That's fine.

But maybe you wake up, do a devotional prayer, work out, get ready for the day, watch morning news.

If there's morning news people in here, or you check social media, or you make breakfast, or you get kids ready for school, and you pack lunches and fix hair, and then you take kids to school, then you get your get yourself ready for work or school, and that's just the morning, right?

We're like, there's so many things, and we're it's eight o'clock, you know.

You've you've made it to eight o'clock in the morning, you know?

And then there's work and and there's grocery shopping, and there's cleaning and cooking and planning and phone calls and conversations and meetings and and sports practices and extracurricular activities and laundry and homework and binge watching Netflix in there somewhere as well, you know?

Like there's so much for to do, there's so much that happens in our days.

And I think it would benefit for you to list out what a normal day looks like.

And as you do, I want to I want to ask you this question: how does worship fit into your day?

How does worship fit into that regular schedule?

What does worship look like?

See, one of the regular things we're doing at the Wee's household over the past few weeks specifically is we uh sit in a lot of parent drop-off and parent pickup lines.

Anyone else in here?

Sitting in parent drop-off and pickup lines, okay, a little bit.

I got some nods.

I didn't really get very many hands.

That's fine.

You're leaving me hanging a little bit this morning.

Okay, but but we sit in parent drop-off and pickup lines.

Um, you know, whether that's you know, at school, drop-off and pickup or or practices or even here on Wednesday night programming, just started this last Wednesday.

So there's parent drop-off and pickup lines out there, and sometimes your kids just don't hear their names being called, you know, for the 10th or 15th time, you know, and it takes them forever to get out to the car, you know?

And sometimes it can be really irritating, you know, it can be easily really irritating and make me really impatient sitting in a parent drop-off line or a parent pickup line.

Um, and it's mainly because of the other parents that are sitting there, you know?

And I don't mean to point any finger any fingers, but if you need to be confronted with this, you need to be confronted with this this morning, okay?

But like there's there's some parents that are just, you know, for whatever reason, they have they have more important things to get to, you know?

So they're gonna cut in line, or they're not, hey, we're doing the zipper method here, you know?

Like this, you gotta follow the rules of the zipper method, you know?

Like, what are you what are you doing?

Stop cutting in line, stop getting impatient and and busting around people, or whatever it is.

Hey, we all we all got the same instructional video on class dojo on parent square before everything started, you know?

Go back and watch that video for a refresher, you know?

And I would be the first one to tell you that I think like of all the regular mundane moments of my day, parent pickup lines are not the most worshipful.

You know?

Like, I I don't know, that's probably a shock to some of you this morning.

No, but like I that's the that's one of the things that I have a hard time putting that into the worship category.

And I would assume that all of us have different times in our days, different moments, different things that we do day in and day out that that we wouldn't easily put in the worship category.

I don't know for you, it might be might be changing diapers, or it might be potty training, it might be might be being the chauffeur to all your kids' different activities.

It might be doing laundry or the dishes, or maybe it's that standing meeting every day every week at work with the same person that you just can't stand.

You know, there's there are certain things that that are really hard to see as worship.

And yet there's certain other things that are that are pretty easy to identify in our daily lives that are pretty easy to identify as worship.

Even like what we have gathered here to do this morning.

You know, as we stood and sang worship songs, true words back to our God, or maybe it's a morning devotion time, or maybe it's that morning prayer, or maybe it's even just like listening to Caleb in your car on your way to work.

I would I would fall into that same category.

You know, I was work I was raised in a Christian home, my dad's in ministry my whole life, still is in ministry, and and you know, so whenever I thought about worship growing up, I thought about the Sundays and Wednesdays and many days in between, that we would go to the church building and that we would sit our bottoms in pews, you know, and that we would stand with the congregation and sing, and that's that is worship.

It's that tradition of worship.

But what I want to communicate this morning is that when our lives are transformed by the gospel, every moment then becomes an opportunity to worship.

Every moment of our lives becomes an opportunity to worship.

When our lives are really transformed by the gospel, and this is what I'm really excited about this morning.

I'm really excited about this idea, this whole concept, and it's the reason why it's been like seeping out over the last few weeks, is because if if our church like grabs a hold of this, can you think about the impact that we could have on our community, in our families, in our in our church, in our in our in our lives?

Can you think about what would happen if we saw every moment that is provided for us as an opportunity to worship our God?

Man, I can't imagine what kind of impact we could have.

God desires every part of our lives to be used to worship Him.

And here's where we're gonna be.

We're gonna be in Romans chapter 12.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

We're using this familiar text.

I guarantee you've heard it before.

Romans chapter 12, verse 1.

Romans 12:1

This is what Paul 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.

I love how the message puts it.

This is what it this is what Eugene Peterson, how he how he translated.

He says, he says this way.

So here's what I want you to do.

God helping you take your everyday, ordinary life, your sleeping, eating, going to work, and walking around life, and place it before God as an offering, embracing what God does for you is the best thing that you can do for him.

So you can see it in both of these translations, and in every one that you have opened up on your lap right now or on your phone right now, you can see it is that Paul is urging us to live every moment of our lives in worship.

It's an everyday worship that Paul is getting at.

And I think the question that I want to set up the rest of our time this morning is just simply this: hey, what does everyday worship really look like?

What does everyday worship really look like?

And I think from Paul's words here in Romans chapter 12, it looks like at least three things.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

The first thing is everyday worship is sacrificial.

That's the first thing that I think Paul is telling us.

And there are several things that come to my mind when I think of the word sacrifice.

It's it's man, it's humbling and it's hard not to mention the word sacrifice and talk about what happened in our country 25 years ago this week.

I don't I think everybody who was who was alive during that time, during that day of 9-11, remembers immediately.

I think you remember immediately where you were.

I remember I was I was in middle school.

I remember walking into history class, and I remember a TV sitting on a TV cart, old tube TV sitting on a TV cart in the corner.

I remember my English or my history teacher sitting at her desk in the back of the room just crying, and we we sat there and we watched in silence as the second plane hit hit the second building.

And I don't think I realized it as a middle school student, like how how important it was of how our country then responded in the in the days and weeks and and months and years to come.

But but as I've continue to get older, the more and more I am just thankful for so many people who have given their lives to protect this country, to serve this country, many of many of whom are sitting in this room right now.

And I'm just overwhelmed with gratitude, with thankfulness.

I saw this picture several years ago as it was the anniversary of this, this picture right here.

You've probably seen this picture before.

And what what what caught me was the was the caption that says barely noticeable in the bottom of this photo is New York Fire Department's ladder 118.

They're crossing the Brooklyn Bridge in this picture, and they're on their way to the Twin Towers.

And this caption says, Every single person on that truck died trying to rescue people that day.

They were literally heading towards their own deaths when this photo was taken.

They answered the call and gave everything.

And I am just so thankful for so many men and women who have answered the call and given above and beyond in a sacrificial way.

It's where my mind goes when I think of sacrifice.

I can't help but think about it.

But in the same breath, you and I know this.

Not every single one of us in this room is actively putting our lives on the line to protect those around us.

You know, not every single one of us is is actively putting our lives on the line in military or as a first responder.

So maybe the kind of sacrifice Paul's talking about in Romans chapter 12 is a little bit different.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

You know, I can't help think of or think of the word sacrifice and not think of Jesus.

You know, it's probably a foolish decision for me to preach a sermon and talk about the word sacrifice and not say Jesus' name in the same sentence.

So I'm going, I'm going to say it.

Like I can't help but think about what Jesus has done, and we've already reflected on it this morning and gone to the tables as a result of what he has done.

We are lost without this.

Actually, this is who we are as a church.

We're a gathering of people who realize that we need Jesus.

Like this is really what it comes down to.

The sacrifice of Jesus is our life and our hope and our reason for gathering together today.

It's what binds us together across all other, any dividing walls or barriers that stand between us, and it helps unite us stronger than anything, than any other thing can.

But you and I know this to be true as well.

Like none of us sitting in this room, none of us are God in the flesh.

None of us are the Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior of the world.

And so maybe the kind of sacrifice Paul's talking about is a little bit different than even that.

See, I think what Paul's getting at, what I believe Paul's referring to is actually sacrificial language and talking, taking us back to Old Testament and temple language.

There's this kind of sacrifice that Paul's really referencing here, and the kind of sacrifice he's referencing is a whole burnt offering.

It's whenever a person would come and bring a valuable animal from their flock without spot or blemish, and it was always burnt totally, like completely burnt up.

It represented complete devotion and consecration to God.

So worship as sacrifice means that you are fully at God's disposal.

Like, listen, there is nothing left of the sacrifice.

Nothing is held back.

Everything is given, and everything that you do, in everything that you think, in every decision that you make, in every area of your life, you are his.

And it takes us back to what we've been talking about over the last few weeks.

That actually Hannah read to start our service off today, as we talked about Psalm 100 last week, that ultimately we belong to God.

We are his.

We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

We belong to him.

We are wholly his.

We are his people, completely and fully dependent upon him and at his disposal, which means we follow his example.

So we serve rather than expecting someone to serve us.

And we we give rather than hoping to receive, and we put to death the things of this world instead of playing around in them because they make us feel good.

And we don't follow the ways of this world or the natural flow of all those around us, but we let the word be the absolute truth in our lives and we submit to its authority.

And we live with the fruit of the Spirit evident in our lives.

This love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control.

And we take responsibility for our actions.

We confess and we repent and we turn back to the Lord when we have messed up, and we will find mercy and grace to meet us in our time of need.

See, everyday worship is not easy.

It's a sacrifice.

But man, it's it's necessary for us.

And so if everyday worship is sacrificial, which means that you and I are completely at God's disposal, then it begs this question: what is something in your life right now that you're not letting God have complete control over?

What's something in your life that you're holding too tight to?

That you're not just letting the Lord have.

It's all his.

It all belongs to him, including you.

What are you not letting him have complete control over?

I think Paul's also saying another thing of what everyday worship really is.

Everyday worship is continual.

It's continual.

As many of you know, I've got four kids and I love them very much.

Wouldn't trade them for a thing.

That's my disclaimer, okay?

There's also a lot of frustrating things about being a parent.

You know, can I get an oh yeah?

You right?

There's so many frustrating things.

That was that was the strongest oh yeah I've ever gotten, okay?

But man, there are some frustrating things about being a parent.

I think one of the more frustrating things about parenting is whenever you set rules and expectations and then everybody goes to sleep.

You know?

Like you set, you've spent all day setting rules and expectations, and then everybody goes to sleep, and your kids wake up and they're like, Well, we're still doing that?

We're still doing that whole thing, you know?

I thought that was a yesterday thing, you know?

Like I didn't think we were still doing this, and I'm I'm doing the same thing.

It's like I'm setting the same ground rules and same expectations all over again, you know.

Um one of my one of my buddies, he's a he's a pastor at my church that I grew up at down in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

And him and his wife were expecting their fourth child, and she was pretty far along, you know, and as you know, when somebody's belly grows exponentially over a short period of time, it limits their mobility.

Okay, I know a little bit of what they're talking about there, just not quite to the same extent, okay?

But you're limited on that mobility a little bit.

And she said that their their uh youngest at this time, they're expecting their fourth, and their youngest was about 18 months old at this time, and he quickly realized that if he got in trouble with mom, he could just lay flat on the ground, and she couldn't reach him.

Like she couldn't quite get to him.

And she she told me that actually, actually, um, that he loved to do this, loved to get squirrely after bath time, you know, and would be kind of just running around and kind of going crazy after bath time.

So he would be, you know, fresh out of the bath, still soaking wet and completely naked, and do something that was that was disobedient, and then lay flat on the ground and she couldn't get him.

He's slippery and she couldn't pick him up, you know.

Here's what Paul says he says, I urge you to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice.

Literally, we could we could translate it as living killing.

That's what he says.

And that word living, actually, one scholar pointed out that it could just point to the fact that this is meant to be a continual process.

This is meant to be a constant thing.

Jesus is the one who says that uh whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves, take up their cross daily and follow after me.

See, this is the continual part of this everyday worship is we we continually remind ourselves of our dependence upon and our submission to God.

Continually.

Like it doesn't mean that we can one day get up, open up his word, and accept it as true, and then the next day flip to another page, another passage, and then lay flat on the ground and pretend like he can't reach us.

No, we have to submit ourselves to the word daily.

We follow its leading and guiding and correcting and challenging daily.

It is not a pick and choose kind of everyday worship.

It is every moment of every day is in sub is in surrender, submission to him.

We're continually renewing our position before God and being obedient to his word and surrendering to however he wants to use us.

Like surrendering to Christ, submitting to Christ is it's an everyday decision to get on the altar of sacrifice, not just a one-time decision that you make in this body of water up here.

It's an everyday decision to submit to his word and his rule and his reign in your life.

I love how Michael DiFazio puts it.

He says it this way he says, Paul is talking about obedience and worship language, because worship and obedience are the same.

They are the same.

And sometimes, honestly, sometimes you hear a message like this and it can just feel daunting.

And the last thing I want to do is just heap burdens on your shoulders of obedience, on top of your shoulders that you just feel crushed by.

That's the last thing we want to do.

That's the opposite of what the gospel frees us to.

The last thing I want to do is just put all these different things on top of you.

So I want to give you one simple thing to ask yourself today.

Hey, what is one thing I need to submit to God today?

Like, what's one thing, what's one area of my life that I am not completely submitting to Him?

And how can I do that today?

How can I submit to Him today?

If this whole idea is just about like reorienting our hearts and our minds and our lives back to God, what do I need to submit to Him today?

Maybe it's my work, maybe it's my relationships, maybe it's my conversations or the words that I'm speaking, or my money, or my time, or my priorities, or my children, or my family, or maybe it's my future.

Like I'm not just letting him have it.

Everyday worship is continual.

It's continual.

Keep turning to him, keep trusting in him, keep submitting to him.

And yet in Paul's language, we see, I think, one other thing that Paul says here everyday worship is also it's logical.

It's logical.

Now, if you're a real Christian like me, then you probably memorized Romans chapter 12, verse 1, with the Bible that Jesus read, which was the NIV 1984 version, okay?

Romans 12:1

That's probably how you memorized it.

Okay, so you would you would read it and you would know that that at the end he said, This is your true and proper worship, or some translations say this is your spiritual worship, is what you're supposed to do.

This is truly the way to worship him.

But all the translations kind of missed the point, actually.

The Greek word that's used here by Paul is the Greek word logicon.

This is your logical worship.

It's rational.

It makes sense to give yourself completely holy to the Lord.

Every single moment of every single day.

The question in the world is like, how in the world?

How in the world is this logical?

How in the world does this make sense?

Luckily, for you and for me, Paul gives us the answer.

Did you see it at the beginning of verse 1?

Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.

This is your logicon worship, your logical worship, your true and proper worship.

Paul says that in view of God's mercy, in a lot of ways, Romans 12 actually picks up where Romans 8 left off.

You know, the book of Romans is like the second half specifically is kind of really weird how it's all set up.

Romans chapters 9 through 11 are some of the more like confusing, like seem like off-the-wall chapters.

Romans 9 · chapter mention

Okay?

And they they make sense, like if you really get into it, they make sense of the flow, but it really almost seems like Paul came back and added in an editor's note, chapters 9 through 11.

And what he really wanted to do is go from chapter 8 to chapter 12.

You remember how chapter 8 ends?

It's like this great, incredible, like worship experience, right?

If God is for us, who can be against us?

What can separate us, the love that our God has for us, which is demonstrated, demonstrated to us by sending his son for us?

His conclusion at the end of chapter 8, nothing, nothing can separate us from the love that we have, that we have received from God through Christ Jesus, our Savior.

And then he starts chapter 12 with this in mind, with this in view, in view of all that God has done for you, in view of God's mercy.

See, the only way it makes sense to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice is when we have a proper view of all that He is and all that He has done.

It is logical to worship in this way when you know who your God is and what he has done for you.

And what has our God done for us?

Like, who is our God?

And our God is He's above us and beyond us.

Like we we cannot fathom his greatness, we cannot understand the left the depth of his purity, we can't wrap our minds around his holiness.

And he saw our condition, he saw you and he saw me.

What Dave talked about earlier.

Nobodies.

Like people who are sinners.

He saw us in our condition.

And you know what he did?

He didn't just like he didn't just like yell from heaven and say, Hey, I'm up here.

You should you should hang out with me.

You should you should come be in a relationship with me.

He didn't just like kind of like pace back and forth and said, What are they gonna do?

I hope they get their act together.

You know, he didn't just like like like just wring his hands or or pop his knuckles and just be like, gosh, I I hope they figure this out.

No, he came to us in the person of Jesus.

Like God put on flesh and he lived a perfect and sinless life.

He took on the penalty that you and I deserved, that we rightly deserve because of our sin.

And he took it to the cross and he nailed it to the cross as he was hung there for your sin and for mine.

And by his sacrifice, you have been you have been given an opportunity to have an to have a relationship with Almighty God because of what Jesus has done for you.

And we know what he did.

He died on that cross and he was buried in that tomb, but he didn't stay dead.

He rose again and defeated death forever, so that all who call on his name might have everlasting life.

And that everlasting life, it starts right now as he gives us his spirit to walk with us, to empower us, to do his will, to remind us of the hope that we have beyond this life.

This is the gospel.

And hear me, the truth is everyday worship is possible when the gospel is realized.

Like when we when we let this like sink down deep into our hearts and into our minds.

Like this is when it's possible, when our lives are transformed by the gospel.

Every moment becomes an opportunity to worship.

Every moment of our lives becomes an opportunity to worship.

So where do we go from here?

Where do we go from here?

I think one of two things.

I think that's what it is.

For some of us in this room, man, I just want to say, hey, realize the gospel.

I hope that's what I've been praying for this morning.

As we prayed as we as we met before, was that if there's somebody sitting in this room who has not surrendered their life to the Lord, not submitted to his rule and reign, not given their life in complete surrender, and responded in baptism and responded with a life that's submitted to him every moment of every day.

Man, this is this is what we want you to realize more than anything else.

This is what I love about this family.

What I love about this church family is this is who we are.

We're a group of people who realize we all, every single one of us, take a look around right now.

Every single one of us needs Jesus.

There's not a single one of us who is exempt from that.

We all need Jesus.

Every single one of us is lost without him.

And what I love about this, if you want, if you're thinking about what it means to be a part of this family, man, surrender to Jesus.

That's what it means to be a part of this family.

Like come to this realization that you need him just like every single one of us does.

But you can turn to him today.

It's what this is what binds us together.

It's the realization that is the motivation for us being able to joyfully obey the Lord in all that we do.

So let me just say this as clearly as I can.

If you've never accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, never submitted your life to him.

There's gonna be people in the back of the room, there's gonna be people up front.

We've got everything you need to respond this morning by submitting your life in baptism this morning, and by being risen to walk a new life in faithful obedience to your God.

We've got everything you need this morning to make that happen.

My guess is that there's a lot of you in the in the other category.

So maybe you have, maybe you've been following Jesus for a long time.

Can I encourage you in this way?

Remember the gospel.

Remember it.

And sometimes we we follow Jesus for such a long time that the gospel becomes, man, almost too familiar, you know, that it kind of loses its power a little bit for us.

Man, sometimes, I don't know, maybe it's just me at points, maybe this isn't you, but sometimes, whenever I'm sitting in service and somebody leading us through communion or somebody leading us through a sermon, or somebody opening up the word, they start talking about the gospel.

Uh it can be tempting to check out of it sometimes.

If you've been following Jesus for a long time, it can be tempting just to be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it.

I know that part.

All right, let's move on to the stuff that actually matters.

And no, listen, we don't move on from this.

I love how my brother James said it six months ago.

He said, Hey, we don't we don't graduate from the gospel.

We don't just receive grace and then move on for it from it.

Like the the truth of the gospel isn't just for those who haven't heard the gospel, it's for every single one of us in this room.

We need this truth.

This is our motivation.

This is our reminder of how good and how powerful and how loving and how gracious and how merciful our God is to us.

This is a reminder of what our God has done for us that we could not do for ourselves.

This is our reminder that even in our sin, even when we were dead in our sin, God made us alive through Christ.

This gospel helps us reorient our lives under his authority.

Man, can I encourage you?

If you've been following Jesus for a long time, can I encourage you?

Man, spend some intentional time.

Maybe it's right now.

As we stand and sing in just a second, maybe you sit and you just reflect back on what the Lord has delivered you from.

Maybe you think back of what he's brought you through.

Maybe it's later this week as you just carve out some time in your week just to write out all the different things that the Lord has provided, all the things that He has delivered you from, all the things He's brought you from.

And as we reflect on the Lord and His mercy this week, as we reflect on what He has willingly gone through to make us His own, so that we may be filled with new life.

And as we do so, may we respond by taking our everyday, ordinary life, our eating and sleeping and going to work and walking around life.

And let us place it before God as an offering.

Let's stand and sing together this morning.

Thanks again for listening to the Carterville Christian Church podcast.

Our prayer is that today's message has encouraged you and drawn you closer to Jesus.

To learn more or get connected with our church family, visit Carterville Christian.com.

We'd love to walk alongside you on your journey of faith.