SPEAKER_01 0:02

What is worship? Does it happen only during Sunday service or when we sing songs to God? Or is it something more? How does worship form us into the likeness of Christ? Join Reverend Wei E as we explore the biblical definition of worship and how we can engage and be transformed by God through it.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

Good morning, church. The first reading this morning is taken from the book of Romans, chapter 12, verses 1 and 2. A living sacrifice. 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 word, 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. This is the word of the Lord.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

What comes to mind when you hear the word worship? What comes to mind? Is it the songs that we sing? For better or for words, I was brought up in church, accustomed to calling the singing of songs praise and worship. And we divide praise equals to the fast songs, the songs that we sing at the beginning, the songs to hype people up with the energy and the tempo. And then we have the slower numbers that we call worship, where it's more sentimental, it's more emotional, where we slow down and connect with God. But is that what worship is about? Or is it the Sunday service? Because we call this Sunday service the worship service. Right? But does it mean that if I attend Sunday service, then I have done all the necessary worship for the week? Yep. Just that one and a half hours and then we are we are through. Or is it something more? Can I have the slides? Yes, thank you. Um I want to offer to you some definitions of worship from uh various people across um um across the the centuries, even right? Um I think it's on the third slide, yes, thank you. Yeah, so John Piper would I mean very simply call it valuing or treasuring God above all things. Right? Um Martin Luther says this that what it is whatever your heart clings and relies on. Uh growing up as a youth, uh I always hear this term used. Worship is a lifestyle. I'm not sure if you have heard it recently, if at all, um, but 10, 20 years ago when I was still young, uh, we hear it all the time. Right? Worship is a lifestyle, it is a continuous and daily dedication to honor God, right? To have our whole life set apart for his will and his purposes. And I hope to show you show you today that it is it is this definition that is very, very close to the biblical understanding of worship, right? That we that we value God and that uh it is it is supposed to uh govern the way we live our lives, it is supposed to be our very lifestyle. So uh if I can go to the next slide, um Exodus. We all know the story of Exodus, I hope, uh, where where Israel is in Egypt under slavery, and God wants to bring them out of uh Egypt to free them, right? And many, many times, what does what does God tell Moses to tell Pharaoh? Right? He tells Moses to go tell Pharaoh, let my people go to do what? Right, to sacrifice to the Lord in the wilderness, to hold a feast to the Lord in the wilderness, and many, many times throughout Exodus to worship me in the wilderness. To worship me in the wilderness. Of course, you know, when they were free, they were singing songs, right? But singing songs was just a little small part that they were doing in the wilderness, right? So, what is this worship in the wilderness about? Um, what were they safe for? Right? They were safe from slavery, not just to become a free people, a free nation, but to become God's people, to be formed into God's nation, a people who will value God above all things, who will revere God and say that you are the holy Lord, and I will live under your rule and your blessing. And that puts the law into perspective. In the law is given in Exodus 20, right? But in Exodus 19 and 20, right before the giving of law, even, God reminds them repeatedly, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of slavery. Right? He showed mercy to them when he saved them, and it is by that mercy of God that they are now called to uh enter into a covenant with him, to obey his commandments. Right? It is in light of God's salvation that they are now to respond to God by living in accordance with the law, uh, so that they may be his chosen and blessed people. Right? This is the background and the reason for their worship in the wilderness. And so, as we as we know in Exodus and later on, especially in Leviticus, in Deuteronomy, numbers, uh number Leviticus Numbers and Deuteronomy, uh, we see that there are a lot of laws and uh God instilled the sacrificial system, right? Worship was linked to obedience to the laws uh and to the sacrificial systems and observance of all these things, right? Um, just very quickly, because this is not really the main main point of the sermon, but like like even reading through Leviticus, you will find that they have five different types of offerings, right? A burnt offering for atonement, um, a grain offering, a free will offering to thank God for his provision in our lives, uh, a peace offering, as again, thanksgiving to God, sin offering for unintentional sins against people, and a guilt offering for unintentional violation or sins against holy things. Right? Um, they they were and they were given all sorts of other laws, right? From the Ten Commandments, the overarching uh laws that were uh inscribed on tablets, right, down to laws about very mundane things. So, for example, in Leviticus chapter 19, uh verses 9 and 10, there are laws about how you should harvest from your land. Um, if today you ask the farmer, how should you harvest from your land, what will the farmer say? Take everything, right? You don't leave things around. Right? Whatever you whatever you grow, you harvest. Because that's all your money, that's all your profit. But verse 9 and 10 says this, when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge. Neither shall you gather the gleanings from your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner. I am the Lord your God. A good businessman will think that is crazy. Right? You need to pick up every single fruit. Otherwise, you're just leaving money on the floor and on the branch. But the Israelites were commanded not to collect every single thing they can collect, right? But rather just do one pass, and if they miss something, it is okay.

unknown 7:42

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SPEAKER_00 7:43

Don't strip your vineyard bare, don't collect every single thing you can find on your branch, those on the floor, you don't go normally they will do a second pass to get anything that they have left behind, right? So that's gleaning the field, right? Don't glean your field. For what? To leave it to those who are poor and the strangers, the the foreign residents in their midst, who have no means of farming or no means of getting any food, right? To allow them to have their goal in your field. Right? This was a command to love your neighbors in practical ways. Resortal law affects how you run your business, so to speak, or how you how you harvest your field. In that same chapter, verse 19, we read uh three very quick statutes, right? You cannot crossbreed your cattle, you cannot sow two different kinds of seeds in your field, you cannot wear a garment of cloth made of two kinds of material. And that sounds like puzzling to us today, right? Why why can't we do any of this? Because there's nothing inherently wrong with any of these things, right? So what were these what were these laws governing all these mundane things for?

unknown 8:53

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SPEAKER_00 8:54

Is God like a micromanager trying to try to try to tailor our fashion or trying to uh do this and that to make our life difficult? There was a lesson in every of these laws, and God always starts with that in Leviticus 19, he says it time and again I am the Lord your God. Or I the Lord is a holy God, right? All these were meant to teach a very simple lesson. God is holy, so you must live in a holy life. Be holy, for I am holy. So why is it that there's only one particular seed you can grow in the field? Right? Because it should represent your oneness to God. Why clothes with one linen, one fabric? Because it will it should represent your oneness to God, your holiness to God that we give everything in our lives holy to the Lord. So when we look at all these Old Testament laws, you look at sacrificial systems, you look at their practices in totality, something interesting emerges, right? To them, actually, quite literally, worship is a lifestyle. Right? They have all these things to govern how they are supposed to live their lives, right? From the big things like the festivals, the sacrifices, the things they need to do when they go to the temple, all the way down to what they can eat or what they cannot eat, what kind of clothes they can wear, how they are supposed to tend to their farms, right, who they can marry. All these were meant to form them, to teach them, to inculcate this idea that the Lord is a holy Lord. And so your lives right down to your everyday, ordinary, mundane life, is to be lived as worship unto God. And that is how they will value God above all else. That is how they will be set apart from the rest of the nations, right? That will be how they show themselves as God's chosen people and the holy nation. And so the idea of a of worship as a lifestyle, right, is embedded in the Old Testament in very concrete ways. Uh, but we all know, and Paul says it in Romans 8, right, that the law was powerless because of the weaknesses of the flesh. And Israel was sinful, they were unfaithful to God. And one of the most devastating sins that they often commit was the sin of adultery, uh the sin of idolatry. Yeah. Um, and actually, that was the first thing that God says not to do in the Ten Commandments, right? And we just read the Ten Commandments uh at the beginning, right? You shall have no other gods before me, you shall not make for yourself a calved image, and you shall not bow down to this calved image. But over and over and over again, they committed the sin of adultery. They had other gods before God. They uh would panic and build like the golden calf, then they would bow down to the the the golden calf instead of bowing down to God. And this sin of idolatry uh is essentially worshiping anything created instead of the creator, right? It is loving or valuing anything more than God, and it is the antithesis of worshiping God, right? And this is something Paul addresses in Romans chapter 1, uh, which parallels our reading for today. And uh the next slide will I hope show you um what I mean by that. In Romans 1, of course, you know Paul talks about the the plight of humanity, right? That is uh has been given over to the depravity of sin. Right? And in verse 24, it says that God gave them over them, gave that gave them over to their lust and all to so because they were dishonoring their bodies, right? Um and in verse 25 it says that they worship and serve the creature rather than the creator. And in verse 28, you know, they did not see fit to acknowledge God, uh, and so they have a debased mind. Right? The two words there is actually in Greek is the same word, right? Meaning they did not see fit to approve God, so they were given an unapproved mind, a debased mind, right? A mind that cannot approve what is right, cannot approve the will of God. Uh there was a sin of idolatry, uh idolatry, right? We dishonor our bodies and debase our minds in our worship and service to the created things rather than God, and we come mastered by the things that we worship, and so we see a reversal of that in Romans 12. Right? Instead of dishonoring your body, we present your bodies as a living sacrifice. Instead of worshiping the created things, our spiritual worship is to the Lord. Instead of um having an unapproved mind, and instead of not approving God's will for us, right, uh we renew our minds so that now we can discern. Again, the same word that is used in the Greek, so that we can now approve what is the will of God, what is good, acceptable, and perfect. It's a reversal of idolatry to a true worship unto the Lord. And so Romans chapter 12, verse 1. 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. Again, this is a call to make worship your lifestyle.

unknown 14:41

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SPEAKER_00 14:42

We no longer offer dead animals for sacrifices, right? But we offer ourselves to the Lord, not as you know, dead carcasses on the fire, right? But as a living sacrifice with one goal in mind to worship the Lord with the whole of our embodied life. Um so this is how Eugene Peterson translated in his uh translation or his interpretation of scripture, right, in his message uh Bible. Uh he says this. So, this is what I want you to do, God helping you. Take your everyday, ordinary life, your sleeping, your 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 you can do for him. So, what does it mean to be a living sacrifice? Uh, there's an Instagram profile that will pop up in my feed from time to time. Um and and it's it's not a very big uh profile, but you know some of you may have come across it. Uh it is um uh it is uh of this young man in India who uh has been training to compete in Olympics 2028. Right? Not sure if you anyone has come across this. Uh I think his handle is feed underscore with Desi, uh, if you're interested. Um every single day he's posting his his snapshots uh of his of his daily routine, right? Um and I think now he's at 152 days out of a thousand days, right? Working towards uh Olympics 2028. Um so every day he'll post something from the moment he wakes up, you know, and it's all about preparing for the Olympics, right? Uh he will do his daily chores, of course, um, but he will travel around places to train in the field, to train in on a track, to train uh in the gym. And he's just training and training and training hard. Uh do some chores here, do some chores there, eat, train, eat, train, and then go and sleep. Every single day, right? His entire feat. And and in and I mean his entire life at this point is dedicated to that one goal of his the Olympics uh 2028. Right? And that is a picture of living sacrifice. In our waking hours, we will do everything unto the Lord with worship as the singular goal in our life. And so Paul says this living sacrifice, uh, this offering of our bodies as a living sacrifice, we offer it as holy and acceptable, which is our spiritual worship. Right? Um, and I mean ESV translated as spiritual worship, uh, NIV translated as your true and proper worship, and um, some other versions, I think authorized version and KJV will translate as reasonable service, right? Because of the Greek words used there, right? Um the first word is actually more uh about logic, right? Logicus about about about logic about rational uh irrationale. And so what Paul here seems to be trying to say then that is that worship is a rational response to God, right? It is not just a bodily thing, external thing where like I just do, you know, uh this, I just I just obey God with my body, right? It is a rational thing that it is our reasonable worship as we um learn about his nature, his character, his deeds in human history, right? Our rational worship, our rational response is to service him, is to worship him. Which is why he goes on to say in verse 2, right? 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. If the bodies is the external part that acts in the world, the mind is the internal part that uh drives our actions. And it is where a lot of wrestling takes place. Right? Uh, it is where our worldview is, our fundamental beliefs, assumptions, and values. And we be we value different things uh because we have learned from our different experiences that formed and shaped our mind. And Paul here is speaking of the worldly values and behaviors that are at odds with the will of God in the world, right? The values and behaviors actually we see in Romans chapter 1, right? Which is uh which is idolatry. Um, and this idea of conformity um is uh interesting, right? Paul says do not be conformed to the world, right? Um, there's a scholar by the name of uh G.K. Bill, he wrote this book titled We Become What We Worship. And he has a basic principle: what we revere, we resemble for ruin or restoration. What we revere, we resemble. For ruin or restoration. Uh his book is a study on idolatry in in the Bible, and um he had a he had an interesting observation about about uh particular in particular the book of Isaiah. So you read through Isaiah, Israel is often judged in this way they will see but not perceive, they will hear but not understand. Right? They are always blind and deaf. And that's a judgment against Israel. And he asks, why is that so, right? Um and I mean interestingly, the the same the same thing is quoted in the Gospels, especially when Jesus uh explains why he speaks in parables. And Bill makes the connection to Psalm 115, right? Where there's an indictment against the other nations. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths but do not speak, eyes but do not see, they have ears but do not hear, nose but do not smell, they have hands but do not feel, feet but do not walk, and they do not make a sound in their throat. Those who make them become like them. And so all who trust in them. And he argues that that is what idolatry leads to. You become like the idols who can't speak, can't see, can't hear, can't smell, can't feel, can't walk. And that was the state of Israel. They failed in their vocation as God's people, and rather rather than being alive in God, they were spiritually lifeless and empty. And at the heart of it, I I reiterate, Israel's greatest problem was a sin of idolatry. So towards the end of his book, uh Bill reflects on Romans chapter 12, verse 2, and he writes, When we are too committed to the world and its way of thinking, then it molds and forms us according to its image and likeness, so that we reflect it and his way of thinking more and more. But the main point was trying to drive home in his book is that we were made to revere God above all else, to be committed to him and to identify with his name so that we become like his character. What we revere, we resemble for ruin or for restoration, and we were made for that restoration to resemble God in his. His character. And so Paul urges us to be transformed by the renewal of our minds, right? And it links to Romans chapter 8, verse 29. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son.

unknown 22:19

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SPEAKER_00 22:19

God seeks to rather be conf rather than be conformed to the world, he seeks for us to be conformed to the image of his son, to be more and more Christ-like. And that transformation comes when our mind is renewed by his spirit and when we be spiritually keen in the things of God, to be able to discern and to approve his good, acceptable, and perfect will for our lives. So how do we make our how do we make worship our lifestyle? I would like to suggest two things to consider as we commit ourselves to God daily, uh, to be transformed into Christ-likeness. Um the first thing is a reflection on um idolatry. Uh Timothy Keller puts it this way, right? Idolatry is treating anything as more important than Jesus for your meaning in life, for your happiness, for your security and hope, for your self-regard. And that comes from conforming to worldly standards, to worldly ideals and values, right? Um Keller goes on to say to the effect that sin, uh the sin of idolatry is actually very insidious, right? It quietly takes root in our hearts and it grows slowly over time. And before we even realize it, it has taken over the place of God in our lives. It is like gum disease. Uh I found out last night while I was researching this, that gum disease apparently doesn't really hurt at in the early stages, right? You may not know you have gum disease, and if you don't go for a regular checkup, you may be living with some disease in your gums, right? And by the time it starts hurting, and by the time it starts hurting really bad, it's already too late. And that is idolatry, right? It it is it is incepted into our hearts, and early stages we may not detect it, we may not know it. But if we don't tend to it, right, it can grow into something much bigger and it will can grow out of control.

unknown 24:26

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SPEAKER_00 24:27

And we think that we we are we are very uh well aware of ourselves, right? Um but idolatry can pop its head up from just about anything in our lives, right? You may land a job with a very high pay, and there's no issue with that, right? But getting a high pay is okay. But affluence and career can become so important that they start to exceed other things in life. They become idols, they drive you to work longer and harder, to earn more, to climb higher, and it can drive you to exhaustion, can pull you away from family and friends and hurting your relationships. As I was just reading this again, I just realized actually this does fit even to pastors, and there are so many pastors or missionaries who claim you know this is God's call for me, I will do it no matter what. And it was done at the expense of their family. That ministry somehow becomes an idol for them, that they neglect their families. Um Paul's Paul says this very interesting thing first uh in Colossians chapter 3, verse 5. And he specifies that covetousness is idolatry. Um and again, as I was researching for this sermon, I came across this particular passage, right? And and covetousness is an idolatry, right? And I um and then I mean as this is more like a self-reflection here, right? Um but uh you know, I have I have people around me like uh telling me about how their friends are like like super rich and how they splurge on things, like it's nothing. Uh I should I see pictures and of videos of their house, the the kind of celebrations they have, you know, and and all. And I have always felt that I'm contacted with my life. I'm okay with with whatever I have. But when people bring this up, I cannot help but feel, wow, so so so nice. I also want. I keep telling myself, wow, I also want. You know, having more money is can't be a bad thing, right? Um to the point that sometimes, uh maybe getting more and more frequent, which is very bad, but sometimes I will jokingly tell Beth to go back to your old career. You go back to your old career, then uh we'll be much more well off. Right. I then then I then I mean I may even be able to just quit my job via tire, just stay at home, right? Um and um I don't know. I I say this knowing that actually my family uh has been really blessed by God and like like we we financially we we we really have no uh problem and we are content. Um and yet I can't help but feel as I as I as I go through this passage and talk thing about idolatry, I can't help but feel that somehow I've kind of just planted this seed. No, wow, so nice! I also want this. Wow, so nice. Wow, the guy is very very sure. Go go travel again. I also want to travel, you know. Um I also want this in my life, I also want that. And I wonder if I just planted this seed of idolatry in my heart, and um perhaps at uh I am at the danger of even despising the level of our income or the level of our uh of the things that we already have, right? And these are things not to be despised, these are all generous gifts from God, and I thank the Lord for providing for my for my family and for me. Right, and then somehow it just chips away at my reverence for God and my commitment to the things that God has called Beth and I to. Idolatry really can be very insidious, like it will slip in as a joke, as a witty comment, as as just a thought, right? And it can just faster and faster into a full-blown idol in your life. And so the point of reflection for us, uh this is the first point of reflection for us this morning, right? Are there idols driving our day-to-day decisions? Right? Whether it's uh who we choose to hang out with, who we choose to avoid, you know, that that that strange kid sitting in the corner of the classroom, you know, we don't talk to the don't talk to him, right? Um what do we do with our time, with our money? What kind of qualities we look for in a partner?

unknown 28:38

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SPEAKER_00 28:38

How we plan our children's schedule, right? All these decisions can be made in conformity to the will or in conformity to Christ, to the will of God. And so the first thing to do ask is that have we set any of these things higher than God? That they are they have become an idol in our lives. And the second reflection for us uh this morning is this concept of sacrifice. And uh, if anything from the Old Testament and the New Testament, it shows us that worship involves sacrifice, and by definition, it will cost us something. Right? Uh we find ourselves um having to give up something valuable because we value God more. Um, as a pastor, we we work over the weekend, right? And officially uh it is half day on Saturday and half day on Sunday. Uh in the past, I was very okay with it. Um it's fine, you know, weekends uh just come to church, work half day. There's nothing but, right? Even after Beth and I got married, we didn't really have a problem. Uh she was involved in uh para church organization and ministry even before she started working here. She didn't mind me working over the weekends, and then sometimes she would just come along as well, right? Um great. Ever since we had Sage, and now we have Claire as well, um, it has been bugging me. So I guess it has been bugging me for the last three years or so, um, which is that my time over the weekend with my kids is very, very limited. So much so that on the very rare occasion that we have a Saturday free, an entire day free to ourselves, it is so nice to go out, to go somewhere further than issue, to just do something together as a family. And right now they are young and things are fine, and I but I find I have this growing fear, and maybe this is also like becoming an idol in me. I don't know. But I have this growing fear that there will come a time when my kids are older and they are only free over the weekend, but I am not. When they have the time and they want to spend with their father, but I can't be there. And you know, it's something that I know I have to come to terms with, and obviously, like it's something I'm still walking through. Um it's it's it's and some people might think, ah, come on, it's just part of a job, right? You you chose this, right? Like what are you complaining about? Um and if it were just a job, I think I would have probably quit already, right? If it's just really a a career for me, then I'd rather find something that's like Monday to Friday, then weekends I can spend it with my children. But because this is a calling for me, I I and I see that my work is my worship unto the Lord, um I can't help but see this as you know, my sacrifice to the Lord. Something that I have to trust God that He will sustain me and my family for. I'm sure you will face different types of sacrifices that you have to make for the Lord. Right? Worship uh is worship in the sense of valuing God over everything. Worship in the sense of like I identify with God, I am God's people, God's children, right? Sometimes called for painful sacrifices, right? You'll be called to make sacrifices in your studies, in your work or your business, in your family, sometimes your time, your money, your energy, and more often than not, we rather not have to. But we come back to Paul's appeal and in verse 1, right? I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, his mercies far outweigh anything we can sacrifice for him. And so as we encounter um points in our life where we uh we have to choose, right? Um, let us stand firm in our commitment to discern and do God's will, trusting that it will be good, acceptable, and perfect. That what we lose is nothing compared to what God will bless us with as we seek to reveal Him day to day. And so here are the two reflections or the two implications for our lives as we hear the word of God this morning. And first is to be honest with ourselves, to tear down the idols in our lives. And two is that worship involves sacrifice. Uh, and just as a side note before I end, after Holy Communion, towards the end of the service, um, we'll be led into a prayer and we will pray. I'm sure if I read this out, you will you'll suddenly become very familiar. Almighty God, we thank you for feeding us with the body and blood of your Son Jesus Christ. Through him, we offer you our souls and bodies to be a living sacrifice. Send us out in the power of your spirit to live and work to your praise and glory. Amen. Uh soon we'll partake the Lord's Supper. As we come to Jesus, as we come to his table, if you are struggling with either of these two or both, if you are struggling with idolatry, something is holding you back and you cannot live fully to the Lord, if you are struggling with sacrifice, that you feel unable to give up something for God, as you come to his table, would you ask for his spiritual grace and strength that we may become more like Christ as we partake of his body and his blood, like Christ who was free from idolatry and who made the ultimate sacrifice for our sake, so that we may follow his ways and be a living sacrifice ourselves, empowered by the Spirit to give a word to the Father's praise and glory.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

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