Sunday Summary, 16/2/14

So this weekend Ps James and I preached while Ps Ed & Michele went on holiday. We carried on our series in which we’re talking about Individual Next Steps in our personal walk with Jesus. So far we’ve covered topics such as the fear of God, prayer and the Holy Spirit and on Sunday we talked about the Sacraments and Worship.

Remember you can listen to any of the messages again on our podcast.

Today though I’d like to focus on what we said about worship.

Ps James began by saying that worship can mean a whole lot of different things to a whole lot of different people. For some it means singing, for some it means something you add to your life, for some it means being a church-goer, for some it’s a ritual or ceremony. But the truth is that worship is so much more than any of these things. It’s not something you add to your life, it is your life.

We are to worship as living sacrifices. Listen to what it says in Romans 12:1-2 (NLT),

And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behaviour and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

What a fantastic passage! It shows that our whole lives are to be worship to God. It shows that it is not what we do with our bodies that is or isn’t worship, it is our whole person itself that worships God or worships something else, but either way, we are all, always worshipping something. The question is whom or what will you worship?

To place anything or anyone else at the centre of your life other than God means that they are they objects of your worship. To prioritise a relationship or a hobby or anything else above Jesus Christ, that thing becomes the object of your worship.

The question is, will you lay down what you love most to gain Jesus Christ? That is true worship and that is what God wants for you. Because the truth is that you may lay down the thing you thought you needed to make you happy or whole but you will gain God, the only One who can do those things fully and finally. And that is why worship is a gift to us!

– Dave