The Transformed Worshipper
Sermon Transcript
0:00:14.0
Ben Jackson and Sam Lawrence both possess a child-like imagination. I know that because they cowrote a children’s book titled If I Was a Caterpillar. They inspire children of all ages with that miraculous metamorphosis that happens in nature when a little caterpillar changes and transforms into a beautiful butterfly. They dedicated the book to children around the world and encouraged them to “open up your imagination, spread your wings, and don’t ever let anyone stop you from flying.” Makes you want to read that to your kids and your grandkids, doesn’t it? Ben and Sam write, “If I was a caterpillar, I would climb to the top of the tallest tree in the whole world. If I was a caterpillar, I would find the juiciest leaves and eat them all up. If I was a caterpillar, I would crawl along the tiniest branches, reaching out to the sun. If I was a caterpillar, I would wake up as an amazing butterfly and fly around the sky with the eagles.”
0:01:19.0
Now, it’s true that one of the most dazzling displays of creative genius, God’s creative genius in creation and in nature, is this transformation, this metamorphosis that happens when a caterpillar turns into a beautiful butterfly. Nature has an amazing way of inspiring us to believe that positive change can really happen in our lives. God has just woven that into the fabric of creation, and we see it in a number of places.
0:01:51.6
The lifecycle of a butterfly can take anywhere from one month to one year, depending on the type of caterpillar. But the transformation that God wants to bring about in our lives as He is changing us and transforming us into the image of His Son, this transformation happens every day. And it happens throughout our lifetime. We’re always in process of change and transformation. And learning how to worship the God we love is part of that transformational process. We get that idea from Paul’s letter to the Romans 12:1-2. If you have your Bibles, turn your attention to there. Paul says this, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed,”—there’s that word—“by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
0:03:11.3
And so if I were a caterpillar…no, let me rephrase that. If I were a Christian, I would worship God joyously and effusively in three persons—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—until He transformed my life in church, at work, at home and at play. And that’s what we’ve been talking about in this series titled “True Worship” is how worship changes us. I want to talk to you about the transformed worshipper today and what transformational worship looks like and how it happens in our lives, how worship is a discipline that God uses to shape us and mold us and bring out the changes in us to shape us, not from caterpillars to butterflies, but from who we presently are into the beautiful image of His Son Jesus Christ.
0:04:09.6
Let’s go back to Romans 12. I want you to notice a couple things. First, there is both a positive and a negative command in these verses, very important verses in Paul’s argument throughout the book of Romans. And in verses 1 and 2 there is a positive and a negative command. You can either be conformed or transformed.
0:04:35.4
Let’s start in the negative. He says, “Do not be conformed to this world.” What does he mean by “the world?” Well, he’s talking about the world system that has aligned with the devil. A world system that entices the flesh with evil. He says don’t let with world in which you live conform you into its image. Elsewhere in the New Testament, John the apostle says a similar but different thing. 1 John 2:15-17, he says, “Do not love the world, nor the things in the world.” Again, the world system that is governed by the devil and that entices the flesh to do evil. “Do not love the world, not the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father but is from the world. The world is passing away and also its lusts, but the one who does the will of God lives forever.” So he says don’t be conformed to this world. Don’t love the world, and don’t be conformed by it. There’s a relationship between the two. If you love the world and the things of this world, you’re going to be conformed by those things. You’re going to be shaped and molded. And one day, you’ll look at yourself, and others might look at you and say you look more like the world than Jesus Christ. The world and the world system that entices the flesh to do evil, that has shaped and molded your spiritual countenance more than anything else. Paul says don’t be conformed to this.
0:06:23.4
I love the way J.B. Phillips paraphrases Romans 12:2. He says, “Do not let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold.” And the world, the flesh, and the devil are working overtime to squeeze us into its mold. Every time I read J.B. Phillips paraphrase of Romans 12:2 I think of Jell-O. I love Jell-O. And when Jell-O congeals, right…It starts out as a liquid, but when it’s poured into a mold, it congeals. And it takes on the form of that mold. So last time you were in the hospital, you got little squares of Jell-O, right? But you can always be more creative than that, and you have a creative mold. Whatever you pour the Jell-O into, it shapes to that mold. I know a lot of Christians who are like Jell-O. And they are shaped and molded and congealed by the world and the world system controlled by the devil. And all that entices the flesh to do evil. The negative command here is don’t be conformed by the world.
0:07:32.8
Now, you always have to balance a negative command with a positive one. And Paul does that beautifully here. “Do not be conformed to this world,”—say it with me—“but be transformed.” Transformed. Now we’re back to the caterpillar who becomes a beautiful butterfly, because the world translated “transformed” here comes from the Greek language. It literally means “to change the essential form or nature of something.” And the word in the original language is the exact word where we get our English word “metamorphosis.” So God wants to bring about a metamorphosis in your life and in my life, to change us from a grubworm into a beautiful spiritual butterfly. He is changing us from the grubworm into the image of Jesus Christ so we can soar with the eagles and not just inch along in this dirty, filthy, grubby world like a worm.
0:08:37.8
How does that happen? Well, through something we might call transformational worship. Again, he appeals to us. “I appeal you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God.” And he has just spent 11 chapters talking about the grace, the mercy of God, scaling the heights of theology regarding the sovereignty of God. Now Paul gets immeasurably practical. And he says, “I’m appealing to you; I’m begging you, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,” and so forth.
0:09:23.6
How does transformational worship happen? How exactly does this take place? Three things I want you to write down. Number one, you’ve got to present your body. He says it at the beginning there. Do you see that? “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God.” He says, “Present your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Some of you might be thinking, what does my body have to do with worship? I thought worship was a spiritual thing. It’s all about the spirit, not the body, right? No, you’ve got to bring your body to worship. And I’m not just talking about showing up in a place of worship like this, in a church. That’s important. It’s important to have a physical presence when we’re worshiping and a collective presence together. Again, Hebrews says, “Don’t forsake the assembling of yourselves together.” Yeah, you’ve got to bring your body to worship. But we’re talking to true worship as it relates to church, work, home and play. What role do our bodies have in worship? Why should I bring my body and present my body to the Lord?
0:10:39.8
Romans 12:1-2 represents the capstone of Paul’s biblical theology of the body. We’re in rare air here in Romans 12. After all that he has said in the book of Romans and in other places in the New Testament, now he says, “Present your body as a living sacrifice to God.” There are pictures of this in both the Old and New Testament. Isaac, of course, was a living sacrifice. Didn’t actually go through the death and all that. And you know the story in the Old Testament. Jesus Himself was a living sacrifice. They presented their bodies as living sacrifices. We’re to be living sacrifices. Somebody once said one of the problems of the living sacrifice is that they keep crawling off the altar. And that’s true. What does it mean to present your body as a living sacrifice? And again, what place does the body play in all of this, because most of our have a love/hate relationship with our body, don’t we? Most of it’s on the hate side. The nip and tuck, plastic surgery culture in which we live is a daily reminder that Americans and most human beings don’t like their body. We’re either too tall or too short, too fat or too skinny. We don’t like our body because it’s disease-ridden, or it’s carrying excess weight, or we have body odor. I mean, why would God want my body to show up in worship? Isn’t the soul and the spirit more important than the body?
0:12:19.0
Well, actually, in church history some wanted us to believe that. One of the early heresies in the 1st, 2nd and 3rdcentury was something called Gnosticism. Gnostics believe that salvation came by attaining the higher knowledge of God. In the Greek language, gnosis is the word for knowledge. Thus, Gnostics. And the Gnostics strongly emphasized the mind over the body, believing the body was of secondary importance. They even went to so far as to say the body was evil and only the spirit could be redeemed. And this led to a couple of extremes in church history. Ascetism on one end, and something called antinomianism on the other end. Asceticism called for the fleeing of all bodily pleasures because the body was evil. And we don’t need to entice the body with evil. And then antinomianism reasoned that if the body was of little importance compared to the soul, then we could do whatever want with it. It’s our body, and it doesn’t matter in our relationship with God. This led to, in some cases, drunkenness, gluttony, sexual promiscuity. In the pagan religions, they actually mixed worship at the pagan temples with sexual promiscuity through the use of temple prostitutes, if you can imagine that. And they disgraced their bodies through sexual promiscuity and called that worship.
0:13:49.8
Now, the apostle Paul addresses these sinful uses of the body in his letter to the Corinthians, who, by the way came out of the pagan religions. The Jewish church had a much easier route to authentic Christianity coming out of Judaism, but the Corinthian church came out of paganism. And so you read all the stuff they were having to deal with in the Corinthian church. When you know out of which they came, you have some understanding of that. And Paul had to address even the sinful uses of the body in worship.
0:14:21.7
For example, in 1 Corinthians 6:18 he says, “Flee immorality,” a hint toward asceticism. “Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own. For you have been bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body.” He doesn’t even mention the spirit, the soul. The only Spirit he mentions here is the Holy Spirit. But he is saying, in Romans 12 terms, present your body as a living sacrifice.
0:15:09.9
Now, this is a good place, 1 Corinthians 6 is, to start when it comes to a brief theology of the body. And there are a couple of things that we can say from this passage. You ready for this? You might want to write this down. First of all, your body belongs to God. Your body belongs to God. Now, that’s not what our prevailing culture says today. In fact, there are some remnants of Gnosticism in our culture, and paganism. And you find it in the language of the abortion activist who says something like this, “Get your hands and your laws off my body.” And the implication in that is, “My body belongs to me, and I tell my body what to do. You don’t tell me what to do with my body.” That’s at the heart and at the core of the proabortion debate. And I wouldn’t expect the world, the world system that is controlled by the devil and that entices the flesh toward evil, I wouldn’t expect them to think any differently of their body. But for a Christian to say, “It’s my body, and I’ll do with it what I want, including the abortion of a child,” is so unbiblical in so many ways, starting with a biblical theology of the body. Your body and my body belong to God.
0:16:49.5
Paul says, “You’ve been bought with a price.” The picture here is you’ve been redeemed from the slave market of sin. Sin is no longer your master. Jesus Christ is now your master. Your body belongs to Him. And you are to bring your body and present it to Him as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to Him. But everything we do with our body that is on loan to us from God and houses our spirit and, as we’ll get to in a moment, the Holy Spirit as well…Take care of your body. Make sure you present it to the Lord that everything you’ve done with your body can be identified as holy and acceptable to Him. Yes, your body that is disease-ridden. Yes, your body that sometimes has body odor. Yes, your body that is sometimes overweight. That body that you don’t love, that body you want to change, bring your body to worship and present it to the Lord.
0:18:03.8
Now, this is nothing new. Of course it dates back to the time of the writing of scriptures in the 1st century. But even in the 16th century, the church formed what was called the Heidelberg Catechism and recited these words in their worship services. “I am not my own, but I belong with body and soul, both life and in death, to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.” Can you affirm that? Can you affirm the Heidelberg Catechism? I’m not my own anymore. I’ve relinquished my rights to Jesus Christ, who is now my Master. And it starts with my body. Your body belongs to God.
0:18:48.8
Secondly, your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. We touched on this last time. But Paul says it right here in 1 Corinthians 6:18-20. He kind of says (0:19:00.0) with a twinge of sarcasm of surprise, “Or do you not know? Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own.” Your body—that body you don’t love very much, that body you would love to change, that body you have a love/hate relationship with—as a believer in Jesus Christ, is a temple of the Holy Spirit.
0:19:31.8
Last week I mentioned, you know, God has always desired to dwell with His people. Sin interrupted that, Genesis 3. But quickly in the Old Testament He found another way to dwell, for a holy God to dwell with a sinful people. It started in the Tabernacle. He built this traveling worship facility under Moses’s leadership. And under certain conditions He says, “Come and meet Me there.” And then later they built the temple under Solomon. (0:20:00.1) And the Lord dwelled in the temple as well. But something happened after the death, burial, the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. Something changed the fundamental way in which God dwells with His people on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came. And there are many ministries of the Holy Spirit we could talk about, but first and foremost is His indwelling ministry. He came to indwell believers. Do you have the Holy Spirit? If you’re a believer in Jesus Christ, a true believer in Him, you’ve got the Holy Spirit. You’ve got all the Holy Spirit you’re ever going to get. He came to live inside of you at the moment of salvation, making you a temple of the Holy Spirit.
0:20:46.6
That’ll change the way you think about yourself. That person that’s looking back from you in the mirror, just look back at him and say, “You’re a temple of the Holy Spirit.” And here’s a question for you. Are you a trash can or a temple? On our daily radio program called “Something Good” I write a little introductory piece and voice it. And our producer put some neat sound effects to it. And I remembered one that I wrote several years go titled “Trash Can or Temple.” “Oscar the Grouch is a Muppet character on the television program Sesame Street. He’s a green monster with a prickly personality who lives in a trash can. He actually proclaims his affection for trash with a song titled, ‘I love trash.’ Like Oscar, some people I know love trash. They must, because they fill their minds with trashy thoughts from trashy music, trashy movies and trashy television programs. They even love to read trashy romance novels. Are you a trash can or a temple? As a believer in Jesus Christ, remember this. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Hey, don’t you think it’s time to take out the trash?” And that’s an important reminder for us as we do a little brief theology of the body here and as we’re wondering what it looks like to be a transformational worshipper. You present your body because your body belongs to God and your body is…well, it’s the temple of the Holy Spirit.
0:22:23.1
Let’s move on though. How does transformational worship happen? How do I become the kind of worshipper where God is changing me, where a metamorphosis is taking place from who I am into the beautiful picture of Jesus Christ? First, you present your body. Secondly, you renew your mind. Shouldn’t surprise us. Paul goes on and every emphatically says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” Now, just like your body can be a trash can and you can trash out your body in a number of ways, so your mind can be a trash can as well. In fact, the world system is working overtime to trash out our minds through about every media source you can possibly imagine. Trashy novels, trashy this, trashy movies. You name the trash. There is a place here in Virginia Beach called Mount Trashmore. It’s a trash dump that they tried to turn into something beautiful. Your mind and my mind need to be renewed. Why? Because the world and world system want to turn our mind into a trash dump. And some people, by the way they live their lives, they must love trash like Oscar the Grouch. I love trash! Because they’re living in a trash can all the time. You’ll never be transformed by worship if you don’t renew your mind. You’ve got to take out the trash.
0:24:18.7
Again, Paul says, “Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” Christianity will never tell you to check your intelligence at the door, by the way. The mind matters as much as the body matters. Bring your body to worship. Present your body to the Lord as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable before Him. But don’t stop there. Don’t be afraid to engage in rigorous thought. Tozer said, “What comes into our mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” If you can’t get through to a biblical understanding of who God is and the way He has revealed Himself because you’ve got all this trash in there and you’re just weaving through the trash to get to some revelation of God…no, you’ve got to take out the trash and renew your mind with the Word of God.
0:25:17.4
How do you do that? Let me give you four or five simple ways. First of all, you renew your mind by reading God’s Word daily. I think of Philippians 4. It tells us something about what we’re to think about. “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” What do you think about all day long? What are you setting your mind on? Paul says to the Colossians, “Set your mind, even your affections on things above, not on things on this earth.” How do you make sure that you’re thinking about those true and lovely things? Well, start by reading God’s Word. You’ll never read something that’s trashy in God’s Word. It’s always true and love and of good report. It’s the truth.
0:26:19.2
So you renew your mind as a worshipper by reading God’s Word daily. Secondly, study God’s Word regularly. Are you in a Bible study? We have Bible studies that are starting this week. Come on now, register. Men, women, get involved in a life group. Study God’s Word. 2 Timothy 2:15 says, “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not be ashamed, right dividing the word of truth.” That’s not a word just to preachers and missionaries and Bible teachers. That is a word to every believer in Jesus Christ. Read God’s Word daily. Study it regularly. The difference is maybe the addition of a pen and a piece of paper to write down some thoughts or to be in a group with other people studying God’s Word.
0:27:09.3
Thirdly, meditate upon God’s Word deeply. Joshua 1:8 says, “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it, for then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have good success.” These words were given to a guy named Joshua from the Lord just as Joshua was about to lead the next generation of Israelites across the Jordan River and into the Promised Land. And the Lord said to Joshua, “You want to be prosperous? You want to be successful? Great, here’s the plan. Meditate upon My Word day and night. Don’t let there ever be a time when you’re not thinking about My Word and My truths. Let it saturate your mind. Meditate upon it.” It’s the picture of a cow chewing its cud and digesting it, and then chewing it again and digesting it, and chewing it again and digesting it. When you read it, you kind of read it. When you study it, you go a little bit deeper. When you meditate upon God’s Word, you’re chewing it over again and again and again and again.
0:28:19.4
The eastern religions talk about meditation. But in the eastern religions, meditation is the emptying of the mind. Biblical meditation is the filling of the mind with God’s truth. Are you filling your mind with truth or with trash? Are you presenting your body to Him? Are you renewing your mind?
0:28:41.5
Here is another way to renew your mind. Read, study, meditate…How about memorize God’s Word strategically? Psalm 119:11, “Your Word have I hidden in my heart that I might not sin against You.” One of the most transformational spiritual disciplines…Hear me on this…Is scripture memory. If you don’t have a scripture memory program, you need to get one. Some of you just need to start reading God’s Word, let alone studying and thinking about it deeply and meditating upon it. But especially if you have a particular sin, a besetting sin that seems to trip you up, make a list of verses from the scriptures that relate to that sin and do the hard work of committing that truth to memory so you don’t have to look it up. It comes right off your lips. And when the temptation comes, then the Spirit of God has a sword in your arsenal, a sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. And He can draw upon that sword immediately to help you fight the spiritual battles that you’re in. That’s how the Christian life works. He has given us this armor, one of which is the sword of the Spirit. Hide that Word in your heart so that you know it backwards and forwards and to where it just falls right off your lips.
0:30:09.3
And then finally, listen to the preaching of God’s Word intently. I had a professor in seminary who used to say, “Everybody needs to be under the preaching of God’s Word and in it for themselves.” And he was saying that to a group of preachers who were preaching all the time. I need to be under somebody’s teaching. And I listen to other radio broadcasters and all of that. I listen to the preaching of God’s Word intently. Romans 10:17 says, “So faith comes by hearing.” It comes by hearing.
0:30:45.1
We’re talking about becoming a transformed worshipper. And it happens first with your body. Your body is as important as your spirit in this and your soul. You present your body as a living sacrifice. Make sure that it’s holy and acceptable unto Him. It matters what we do with our bodies. Secondly, you renew your mind. You don’t cast off rigorous thought. Don’t be an intellectually lazy Christian. Read something. Stretch your mind. Start with the Word of God- study, read, meditate, memorize, listen. Renew your mind. Take the trash out, and put the truth in.
0:31:35.9
So present your body, renew your mind. Thirdly, yield your will. Yield your will. Latter part of verse 2 in Romans 12, “that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” You see how Paul has taken us from the body to the mind, and now to the will in the context of talking about your spiritual act of worship. Interestingly enough, he’s never mentioned music. Music is a part of worship, but this series is designed to expand our understanding. Worship is not that song we sing for one hour on Sunday morning. It can be, after you present your body, after you renew your mind, and, thirdly, yield your will. He says, “By testing,”—that is, testing probably the truth that you’re renewing your mind with—“you will discern what is the will of God.”
0:32:46.9
How many of you want to know what the will of God is for your life? That’s probably near the top of the one, two or three questions that pastor often get from people. “Pastor, I’m trying to discover God’s Word for my life.” Well, before you discover His will and discern His will, you have to be willing to yield your will to His. And if you’re not willing to do that, He’s probably not going to reveal His will. But if you go into that discovery process, presenting your body, renewing your mind…and then saying when I learn certain truth by the renewing of my mind, then my will, my volition, is ready, willing and able to take the truth that has renewed my mind and tell my body go and do it. Put it into practice. That’s how it works. The will. The world talks about willpower. Yeah, you need some willpower and some won’t power. And that power only comes from the Holy Spirit, who floods our being with His power when we align His Spirit to our spirit. We talked about that last week. When our spirit in tandem with the Holy Spirit who lives inside of us get in step and in stride, that’s called living by the Spirit, walking by the Spirit, keeping in step with the Spirit, yielding to the Spirit who says, “I want to be president of your life, not just resident in your life.” It’s when we say our will belongs to Him.
0:34:42.8
I put a list of verses in your notes there, and they’re not on the screen. Just listen to these. This is a series of verses that talk bout the will, the volition. Again, the will grabs the truth that renews the mind, and then tells the body, go do this. Put it into practice with your hands and your feet. Matthew 26:39, Jesus said in the Garden of Gethsemane, “My Father, if it possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” A yielded will. He taught us to pray, did He not, in Matthew 6. “Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” In Mark 3:35 Jesus says, “For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.” James 4:15, James is writing to businesspeople who plan. Any planners here? I’m a planner. James tells us don’t plan presumptuously, but plan this way. “Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or do that.’” Every once in a while, I get an email from somebody. And they sign their name at the bottom, and then just put the letters “DV,” deo volente, Latin for “if the Lord wills.” It’s a way of submitting all of our plans to the Lord’s will.
0:36:11.1
Psalm 40:8, “I delight to do your will, O my God. Your law is within my heart.” You see the connection there between the renewed mind and the law of God and the truth of God and the will? David had saturated his mind and his heart with the will of God, but he aligned his will and his willingness to put that law into practice. And then finally, Isaiah 1:19, “If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land.” Oh, we want the good of the land, don’t we? But are we willing to do what God tells us to do as an act of worship? Are we obedient to Him?
0:36:51.3
You present your body. You renew your mind. Take out the trash of your body. Take out the trash in your mind and renew it with the truth of God’s Word. And then align your will to His will. That volitional part of you that says yes or no, your will grabs the truth that renews your mind and says to your body, go and do this now. That’s why oftentimes I pray before we open up God’s Word, give us ears to hear. Because you can have perfect audio and not hear what the Spirit of God is saying. Ears to hear, a mind to understand, a heart to receive it. But don’t stop there. It’s hands and feet that are swift to put it into practice.
0:37:50.6
We’re talking about transformational worship. It involves your body, your mind, your will. And what the Lord wants to do is to transform us, right? It’s back to that caterpillar and that butterfly. You ever heard of worm theology? It came out of the Reformation. Luther and others, and Calvin, talked about worm theology. That apart from being redeemed by the blood of Christ, we’re nothing but grubworms like that caterpillar. Just grubworms, sliding along the dirty, filthy, soil-filled earth. But in Christ we can go from that grubworm to a beautiful butterfly. A metamorphosis takes place. A transformation takes place. Worship is a part of that. Body, mind, will. Because God wants us to fly and to soar to places that we’ll never get to as long as we grub along this world like a worm, grubbing up all the trash and the dirt. No, He has something more for us. And this thing called worship that we’ve been talking about, it’s an all-in kind of thing- body, mind and will. Because God wants to take us places that we can barely even dream about. But we’re just kind of used to being a grub worm. Trash in, truth out. We need to change that around.
0:39:45.5
You want to be a transformational worshipper? Here is what Paul says again. Let me just read it in closing. “I appeal to you. I beg you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” By the way, once your will is ready to say yes…Hey, back to the question. How do you discover the will of God? How do you discern it? You discern the will of God by reading the Word of God. It’s that simple. His will is right here. He’ll reveal Himself through the pages of His Word- the written Word and the living Word, Jesus Christ. And here is what you’ll discover. When your will is already in a “yes” mode—whatever you say, Lord—here is what you’ll discover. Whatever His will is for your life is good, it’s acceptable, and it’s perfect.
0:40:52.8
I think back to the time when I was younger, and people were saying, “Ron, you need to think about fulltime vocational ministry.” And I had this little catchphrase. “Oh, God doesn’t want another professional. He needs a few good laymen.” That was me. I resisted that for a while. And as time went on, His will for my life became good, acceptable and perfect. I look back over 25 or 30 years. I can’t imagine doing anything else. I can’t imagine that. Why did I resist that for a period of time? You present your body and say, “Lord, I’m all in, holy and acceptable to You, a living sacrifice.” Sacrifice, surrender, self-denial. That’s the way to live the Christian life. Trash out, truth in. “I’m renewing my mind with Your Word, and my will is already saying yes. God, just tell me what I’m saying yes to.” And on the authority of God’s Word, you’ll find it to be good, acceptable and perfect. That’s the way to worship God body, mind and will.
0:42:19.7