Reasonable Worship

The first verse of Romans 12 has a "therefore." What is it there for? It is, perhaps, one of the biggest "therefores" in Scripture. It refers to Romans 1:16-17 where Paul says that the gospel is the power of God for salvation to all who believe because it reveals God's righteousness. It refers to Romans 1:2-3:20 as he lays out God's righteousness revealed in His wrath toward sin. It refers to the grand "good news" in God's gift of "justified by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus (Rom 3:21-26) where God is both just and justifier. It refers to the grand truths of chapters 4 and 5, 6 and 7, 8 and 9 and 10 and 11. It particularly refers to the end of chapter 11 where Paul writes of God as "from Him and through Him and to Him are all things" (Rom 11:36). In light of all this, Paul urges his readers, by God's many mercies, to "present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God" (Rom 12:1). Paul says this is your logikan latrian. Now, older translations say something like "your reasonable service of worship" while newer ones tend more toward "your spiritual service of worship." That's because logikan has its roots in "logos" which is the true expression of something and "reasonable" or "spiritual" would both fit. So what is worship?

We know what worship is. It's that singing we do in church on Sunday just before the sermon. Well, yes ... and no. Worship is the ascribing of worth -- "worth-ship" if you will. It is recognizing the value of something. It is most often used in terms of deity, but we commonly use it for other things, too. Anything we value. But we tend to think of a "worship service" as that 20 minutes of singing we do before someone preaches at us on Sunday. Maybe the more enlightened among us recognize that the preaching of God's Word is also worship, where we ascribe worth to God speaking. Good! Now we're up to an hour or maybe an hour and a half. We have worshiped God. We have ascribed worth to God. But is that it? A generous hour and a half on the so-called Lord's Day (by which we mean "He gets an hour and a half and I get the rest")? Paul says, "No." Paul says that reasonable worship -- true spiritual worship -- requires ... all. Self as a living and holy sacrifice. It is the right expression of true worship.

If worship is the expression of God's worth to us, surely an hour and a half on Sunday morning is ... a good start. If we recognize God's worth as He truly is, an hour and a half on Sunday morning means you only have 166.5 hours of worship left to do before you start again. This worship would include the preparations for church, the afternoon and evening after church, what you do at work, at home, at play, how you think, how you feel, what you choose to do at any given moment, how you interact with family and friends, believers and unbelievers, everything. It would include where your mind dwells (Php 4:8) and how you respond to trials (James 1:2-3) and how much you rejoice (1 Thess 5:16), pray (1 Thess 5:17), and give thanks (1 Thess 5:18). Everything. If you're in church today, it's a good start. But worship -- ascribing worth to God -- is a full-time occupation, a life lived on our knees before the Lord of lords and King of kings, and if it is not, I suspect you (and I) are missing something.