The Meaning of Worship

Introduction, Worship, Offering, Communion, Sermon, Worship, Outro. We always have worship in our church services. The band is on stage singing out their hearts and people are lifting up their hands. What are they doing?

Worship is such a beautiful response to God's character and his being and all that he has done for us.

I remember when I went to a Soul Survivor Youth Conference and there were around five thousand youth just praising God and dancing together. It's so amazing when we, the body of Christ can come together and worship God in unity. 

There's one verse which I think sums up why we worship very well; it's Romans 12:1, which says:

"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."

"...by the mercies of God" - The mercies of God should be our motivation for everything that we do. It is because of what he has done for us on the cross. He died in order to save us from our sins and to bridge the gap of the broken relationship between us and God. As a result, we can now have that relationship with him and he with us.

Our worship should all be a response to what God has done for us and should be an overflow of our love and adoration for him.

"...to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God..." - Our bodies are to be presented as a living sacrifice. What does that mean? Remember in the Bible in the earlier chapters of Leviticus, there are so many sacrifices for thanksgiving, sin and others; does this mean that we are meant to be like a sacrifice, do die on an altar before God?

Yes, and no. We may not be called to die in a literal sense for God, although some do face that (e.g. martyrs), but I think that this is really saying that our lives should be offered up to God so he can use us as he wills. This means that we should ready our hearts, and be receptive to his will. God frequently uses his people in the Bible to display his power and his glory is often shown through his servants like Elijah. 

Elijah was a prophet in the Bible, who was disliked by King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. They were very evil people who prostrated themselves before other gods and turned away from the true God. 

One last point about sacrifices, they were used back in the day in order to communicate with God. The priest would act as the mediator and the sacrifice would be the 'message' to God to say sorry I have sinned, or thank you for something. However, when Jesus came, the Bible says, that he is the Lamb who was slain for our sins. In essence, since Jesus is God's son, he paid the ultimate sacrifice in order to save us from our sins and provide us with salvation.

In addition to presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice, it also says "...holy and acceptable to God". 

We should be receptive to what God is telling us to do, but also we should be living a life that is holy and acceptable to God. This is our worship; that in everything that we do, we are acknowledging that he is LORD. By acknowledging that he is LORD, we by right should do what he says. It is like saying that we know that someone is King and so we do as the law says. In this case, we are acknowledging that Jesus is Lord and so we try to live a life that he has called us to live. God desires us to live a life that is holy and acceptable because God is holy. 

A holy (set apart) life may seem impossible, but far from it. Jesus has paid that price for us once and for all.

Respond to this message through worship =]