Worship Depends On The Past And It Shapes Our Future (Romans Week 25) by Sarah Knepper

What does true worship look like in everyday life? In this message from Romans 12:1–2, we discover that worship begins by remembering God's countless mercies and responding by offering our whole lives to Him as living sacrifices. As our minds are renewed through God's truth, we are transformed from the inside out, learning to resist the patterns of the world and discern God's good, pleasing, and perfect will for our lives. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

I am so grateful to be here, and Romans 12 is exciting. So you've done the hard work if you've been here. You've done the hard work getting all the way up to this point. And now things start to get really fun. Now, as we get started this morning, I want to tell you a little bit actually about my family. I am the oldest of four children. I grew up in southeastern Pennsylvania. And my youngest sister is the queen of memory making. She is the most traditional out of all of us. So for example, several years ago, like she was already married, my brother was already married, and we were coming up on Christmas Eve, which as we were growing up, Christmas Eve, like may have may happen in some of your families, we would get in the evening a package which shockingly had pajamas in it that we were all supposed to wear and then have on Christmas morning. Now, super fun tradition when you're growing up and you're a kid. Like I said, at this point we're adults. Hannah's married, my brother is married, and we had talked about doing something different on Christmas Eve, and that caused a lot of stress and some tears. Okay? Now, Hannah, if you listen to this, you know that I love you. But she loves tradition so much. She loves for things to be repeated and to be the same and to build on the memories that already exist. So one thing that we've done, largely because of my sister, is that we go to the same vacation home year after year. I have nine nieces and nephews under the age of 11. It is crazy. Um, and also great. So we all go to this vacation home together. And as in the months leading up to going to this vacation home, one thing that my sister is better at than anyone that I know is she's sending photos out to the whole family. Remember when we were there last year? Remember when Ava did this, remember when we ate this really good meal. Remember when dad fell off of the golf cart and it drove over top of him. That actually happened, okay? So, like she's just constantly sending pictures, sending memories. Remember when, remember when, remember when. And maybe this seems so simple to you, but here's what's like so beautiful about what Hannah does. She has created this space for our family to build not only on what has been, but it continues to shape who we are becoming. Because as she tells those stories, for example, when my dad fell off the golf cart and we drove over top of him, at that point I only had, I think there were three nieces and nephews at that point. But at this point in time, now six children later, every single one of those kids can tell you the story. And they will all go to my dad, whom they call papa, and giggle and laugh about how silly their papa is, how much their papa is willing to do anything for them because the reason he got run over is that he had given up his seat and was just hanging on the side so that the kids could sit there. That she is building truths about my family as she recalls memories, some of these memories that these little people don't even have access to themselves, but she's causing them to remember so often that it's like they experienced it. Some of you are that kind of person. You're memory builders. You're the ones who make the photo book, and when people come over, you say, sit down, let's look at the pictures. Or when you go on a trip, you send out the photos to everyone, and then when you get to someone's birthday, you send 90 pictures to that person of your whole friendship together saying, Remember when we did all of these great things. You're memory builders. And as you're a memory builder, you're not only reflecting on the past, but you're shaping the future. The passage that we're gonna look at this morning is Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2. Two verses that you have probably heard a hundred times. And the title of our message this morning is that worship depends on the past and it changes, it shapes our future. We're going to examine today how Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2 shows us that truth. Will you pray with me this morning as we open God's word? Spirit of God, we just say that we welcome you here. We're listening to you. I thank you for your written word. I ask God that you would speak through your word today, that anything that isn't from you would simply fall away and that your truth would remain. We ask that you would transform us this morning to be more and more into the men and women who reflect your heart and reflect your kingdom to the world. We ask all of this in the name of Jesus. Amen. Read with me Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2. If you have a Bible, you can turn there, or if you have a phone that turns into a Bible, you can go there. Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2. Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing, and perfect will. As we start this passage, we have to notice that there's a therefore that starts us off. And now I'm sure that you have heard someone at some point say to you, when we run into a therefore, we have to ask, what is it there for? So what this word is telling us is we need to look backwards. We need to recognize that these verses are built on what has come before. And really what Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2 is built on is everything that came in chapters 1 through 11. So if you have missed a few weeks here at New Albany Fellowship, you should look up the podcasts, okay? You need to get in your brain kind of what are we talking about? All of this build-up of what God has done for us. Even though we are sinners who do not deserve the grace of God, God has shown his grace to us. Therefore, in view of this. And in the English, it actually says, in view of God's mercy, singular. But in the Greek, that word is actually plural, in view of God's mercies. So where we're starting here in this passage is Paul is saying to us, Paul, the author of this text, is saying to us, as you look back on God's mercies, now, what are God's mercies? There are quite a few, I think, that we could list. As you begin to think just about your own life, in what ways have you seen and experienced God's mercies, his saving grace to you is one great place to start. But then let's think about the countless other ways that you have experienced God's mercies, his goodness to you, his kindness to you, the second and third and fourth and fiftieth chances that he has offered you in view of God's mercies. The place that this passage begins, and I think for so many of us, for myself included, what often happens is we rush ahead in these verses and we start to think about, like, oh, living sacrifice, yeah, okay. Oh, true and proper worship. Oh, I can know God's will. We get ahead of ourselves. Paul says, this begins by looking back. Worship begins by looking back at God's mercies. We have to slow ourselves down and become memory makers. This is something that God asked his people to do regularly throughout the story of Scripture. When we read the stories of the people of Israel in the Old Testament, we often find God saying, Build an altar. You've crossed the Jordan River getting ready to go into the promised land, build an altar, build an altar of stones, and every time your children or grandchildren or nieces or nephews or neighbors say, What is that altar for? You say, Let me tell you a story. Let me tell you a story about how good our God is. In the same way that when my little nephew Forrest, who is only four years old, looks at the picture of my dad with the tire tracks across his jeans, and he says, What happened to Papa? And we say, Oh, Forrest, let me tell you a story. Let me tell you a story about how silly your papa is, about how fun your papa is, about how your papa's willing to give up his seat and get run over so that the grandkids are taken care of. As God's people, we are asked to do the same thing: to build a memorial, to find ways to keep in front of us all that God has done. Now, some of these things are going to be things that have been done specifically in your life and in your family's lives, ways that God has provided for you. I could tell you story after story of ways that God has provided in my life and in the lives of my family. We spent all last year praying for my sister-in-law and my youngest unborn niece because of a complication that she was having. And there was concern for the last half of her pregnancy that the baby might not make it and that my sister-in-law might be in danger. It was scary. It was scary. And I asked so many people that I knew to join me in praying for God's protection and provision. And now my niece Nellie is eight months old. And she is healthy, and my sister-in-law is doing great. I could tell you story after story of God's provision in my life. I could also tell you story after story of when things feel like they're not going the way that they're supposed to. This isn't the ending that I would have written. And even in the pain and difficulty, God has not left me alone. We are called to be memory makers. Memory builders. And people who are willing to share these memories with the people around us. Worship begins by looking back at all that God has done. And if I can add one more thing here, just as a side note. Part of the reason that we are called together, called to be a church, a family of God, is because we have probably all experienced the moments where it feels very hard to remember God's goodness. It feels very hard to remember God's faithfulness. We've likely all been in situations where it feels like if it can go wrong, it is going wrong. And this is why we need each other to be able to hear someone else, when I'm in that situation, to be able to hear someone else say, I know it's hard. But let me remind you of God's goodness. Let me remind you of what God is doing. I found myself in a situation very like this in the year 2015. It was the first time I traveled to Aegis Hope, actually. I was visiting the homes in northeastern India, and I had found myself asking God a lot in that year leading up to my experience there. God, where are you? Things feel really dark right now. And I went to Asia's Hope, and we met this little girl, this little girl who was two years old, and she was just like a shining beacon of light. She could not stop smiling. Her name was Angela. And we asked someone, tell us Angela's story, how did she end up here? And the director of Aegis Hope India said, Well, about a year ago is when Angela came to us, and when Angela came to us, she didn't smile at all. She was the youngest of many children, and her dad was uh addicted to alcohol and needed more alcohol. And so he decided that he would sell his daughter into slavery for $20 to get the money that he needed. That's Angela. And a local pastor heard about it and purchased her instead and brought her to Asia's Hope. And Angela's life is forever changed. And I met this little girl, and I'm looking at her, smiling at me, and I could so clearly sense God's spirit saying to me, Sarah, you think that everything is dark, but it's not. Look at what I have done in the life of this child. There is not darkness everywhere. God's goodness, God's providence, God's faithfulness is breaking through. We need each other to build memories. So our worship begins by looking back at God's mercies. Now, once we have started to do that, we've started to look back at God's mercies and we've started to build these sort of memorials to remind ourselves of who God is and what God has done. What does this do for us? It requires a response. Our response to these mercies is to then offer our whole selves to God. Now that seems like a really big ask unless we have slowed ourselves down to reflect on all that God has already done for us. And when we remember all that God has done for us, now all of a sudden it does not seem like such a big deal, a big ask, for me to be asked to offer my body as a living sacrifice. What else could I give? In response to all that God has done, what else could I give? Let's look back at verse one and let's notice some of the things that Paul includes here as it comes to offering our whole selves to God. I'll start back at the beginning of the verse where he says, Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercies, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. So we're asked to offer our bodies. That's an important word choice that we find there. Not just what you believe in your brain, not just the emotions that you feel in your heart, not just your voice as you sing on a Sunday morning. Now, all of those things are important. But Paul catches them all by saying, you have to offer your whole body. The Christian faith is an embodied faith. We don't believe in a separation of the spirit and the body. God created us as whole beings, and so we offer ourselves as whole beings back to Him. So what does that mean? That means that every choice that you make is an opportunity to worship and to offer a sacrifice to God. The things that you read, what you choose to watch on TV, the way that you spend your money, the activities that you participate in, the relationships that you have, and the way that you enact those relationships, the job that you work, and the way that you behave at that job. Everything we do is an opportunity to worship God. This shouldn't surprise us. The story, actually, that this makes me think of when I read this verse is an encounter that Jesus had when he was walking on earth. We see it recorded for us in Matthew 22. Let me summarize for you what's happening there. We're in the last week of Jesus' life, and some religious people come up to Jesus and they are trying to trap him. They're trying to test him. And they ask him a question. Jesus, should we pay our taxes to Caesar or shouldn't we? They think no matter what he says, he's gonna make a whole bunch of people mad and he will lose his following. Jesus, of course, is really smart. I don't know if you knew that. He's smart. And often when someone asks Jesus a question, he just responds with another question, which all the students in the room hate. You hate it when your teachers do that to you. Jesus says, Does anybody have a coin? Okay, can I see it? Whose image is on this coin? And the answer is Caesar's. And so he says, fine, give to Caesar what is Caesar's, but give to God what is God's. Now, the question that that should bring up in your mind is, okay, if Caesar's image is found on this coin, where is God's image found? It's found in you. We go all the way back to Genesis chapter 1 and 2, and we find that each one of you is created in the image of God. You reflect him to the world. You are who you are, you are created who you are in his image. So when Jesus says, give to God what is God's, his image is in you. Jesus is saying, you have, okay, the taxes issue is an issue for another time when you guys go through the book of Matthew, and someone else can talk about that, okay? But the issue here, the issue that we're driving at is Jesus is saying, where is God's image found? It's found in us. So we offer ourselves back to God. We offer who we are back to him. God, sometimes I don't feel like enough. God, sometimes I feel like this is what you want. Okay. And God is saying, yes. Yes. I made you. I love you. I saved you. Offer yourself back to me. And we offer ourselves, we see that Paul says, as a living sacrifice. Now I I have heard other people say it's interesting that Paul says, a living sacrifice, because that implies to us that we actually have the ability to like crawl back down off of the altar. Which many of us do a lot. But he's saying to us, I want you to give me not just your Sunday mornings, not just the part of your life that feels spiritual. A sacrifice wasn't a partial thing. When an animal was sacrificed, the lamb couldn't say, like, that's fine, you can have my spirit and my emotions, but I'm gonna hold on to my blood and my body. Thank you very much. When an animal is sacrificed, it takes everything. This is what Jesus is asking from us. Now, again, this starts to feel really big and maybe a little bit overwhelming, which is why we should hit the pause button, return to the beginning of the verse, and remember, this is in view of all that God has done. And so I would encourage you, if and when this starts to feel like too much. God, you're asking too much. I feel overwhelmed and stressed out and don't know if I can do it. Okay. Then let's pause and look back at God's mercies. Let's go back to the memories. Let's return to the altar of remembrance. What has God done in your life? What has God done in the lives of his people? What has God done for humanity throughout the course of time? Allow yourself to remember. And then we offer ourselves as a sacrifice. Now, offering ourselves as a sacrifice is our true and proper worship. Your translation may say something different, it may say spiritual, it may say informed. The idea in Greek is that we're making this sacrifice based on things that we know to be true. And so this emphasizes to us this point that we're not simply offering ourselves as a sacrifice because we're masochistic, we're offering ourselves as a sacrifice because we recognize all that God has done. All that God has done for me causes me to say there is nothing else I could do but to offer myself in a sacrifice to him. So then where does this take us? I do believe that as we reflect on the past, this is shaping our worship. But how does it change our future? Let's look at the last verse, verse 2. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing, and perfect will. Our meditation on God's mercies begins to transform us from the inside out. I grew up in the church. If there is a youth ministry thing that could happen, I have been a part of it. I have gone to the conferences, I have gone to summer camp, I have done summer-long ministry programs, I have done Messy Games Night, which every teenager that grew up in the church in the 90s has done. It's gross, okay? I have done all the things. And as a teenager, we heard this verse a lot. Do not conform to the pattern of this world. Don't be like the people around you. You should be different than the people around you. That's hard. Like, how am I supposed to do that? How am I am I supposed to do I dress different than the people around me? Like maybe, okay, maybe some, but like how different? Do I need to just start making all of my own clothing? Like, how how far do I go on this? Don't conform to the pattern of this world. Does that mean the things that I eat? How far do we go? Don't conform to the pattern of this world. Does that mean the things that I watched? Should I not have a television? How far does it go? Again, this can feel so overwhelming. And so I think it's very important for us to notice that the way that we are transformed is through our minds. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. This is not the only place we see this kind of idea occurring. Paul writes about this in other letters. You can find it in Ephesians chapter 4, verses 23 through 25. You can find it in Colossians chapter 3, verses 9 and 10. And the pattern in both of those places, Paul says, you have taken off your old self, you renew your mind, and now you are able to put on the new self. This renewing of your mind is what is changing you, transforming you. You're not as excited about this as you should be. The renewal of your mind means that the sort of thinking ruts that you find yourself in, you don't have to live with those for the rest of your life. The sort of trauma response that exists in your life because of things that have happened to you, you don't have to live with that for the rest of your life. Neurologists have actually found to be true that you and I, as human beings, are able to create new neural pathways. I am not a neurologist, so I am not gonna pretend to understand everything that that means, okay? But my my layman's understanding is that a neural pathway exists between two things. For example, if you've ever touched a hot stove, you burned your hand. And so now there's a neural pathway that exists, okay? That when your hand starts to get close to heat, your hand will pull itself back. You have built a neural pathway, it's a natural connection. You can form new neural pathways. So, for example, if your current neural pathway as you interact with someone in your family, is that every time you speak to that person, you just feel so angry. Because of things that have happened in the past, because of the ways that you've been treated, whatever. You have formed a neural pathway. And some of you know what I'm talking about. It's like all you need is to see their name pop up on your phone and you're already mad. You don't even know what they're gonna ask you or what they're gonna say to you, but already it's like this guy, I can't, I can't. That's a neural pathway that has formed. But what we're seeing here in Scripture, and what science has confirmed, I love it when science catches up with scripture, what science has confirmed for us is that you have the ability to form a new neural pathway, to experience a renewing and a changing of your mind so that when you encounter this person, no longer is your initial reaction anger, it can be one of love and grace. Now, some of you have people in your mind and you're thinking, no, Sarah, you don't know my person. You don't know. It's not possible. Yeah, it's not possible for us on our own. But you're not on your own. In view of God's mercy, think of all that he has done for you and the fact that he has placed his spirit inside of you. The same spirit that brought Jesus Christ back from the dead lives in you. And Ephesians 3.20 tells us that now this spirit is able to do immeasurably more than all you can ask or imagine. Now I can ask and imagine some pretty big things. He can do even more than that. The person that makes me so mad, yeah, he can change my thinking, renew my thinking, change my reactions so that I'm not responding that way anymore. How do we stop conforming to the pattern of this world? We must be renewed in our minds. So how do we do that? It matters what you consume. It matters, it matters what you put in your mind. Now, again, as a teenager, that means I regularly was hearing garbage in, garbage out. And I would roll my eyes, and now as a 41-year-old, I have to say, that person was right. It's amazing how the things that you fill your mind with begin to be the lens through which you see the whole world. Now, I'll give you an example from when I was in college. My undergraduate degree is in math. I know you guys are jealous. Um it was miserable. I don't know why I did it. Uh so I had to take four semesters of calculus. Um, I cried a lot, cried a lot during these four semesters of calculus. If any of you have ever taken calculus, I'm a high school math teacher now, and interact with kids who are taking calculus and they say, I don't understand what's going on, and I say, I know. It's a whole new language. If you've ever taken calculus, you know it's a whole new language. And part of what you have to do is you just have to sit in the confusion. Nobody likes that. I don't want to just sit here and not understand what's happening. But the longer that you sit in it with the integrals and the derivatives and the limits that everybody hates, the longer that you sit in it, it begins to shape the way that your brain is looking at the math in front of you. I found myself in calculus semester four, all of a sudden looking at a problem and saying, Calculus one makes sense now. It took me two years, okay? That felt pretty bad. But it took me that long of allowing my mind to just be immersed in a new language of math to be able to see things the way that I was supposed to see them. I have um interacted with high school students who have taken breaks from social media. And what over and again they will say to me is it's amazing how once I stop looking at social media, it changes the way that I see myself and it changes the way that I see my friends. Yeah. Yes. Because you're changing your lens, you're renewing your mind. Now, I'm not saying social media is the devil, but we have to choose what we are putting in our minds. We have to choose how often we expose ourselves to these things. My guess would be if we as a group committed to memorizing God's word together, spending time in God's word regularly, it begins to change the way that you see the world around you. Your lens has changed. I don't mean to oversimplify this. But if the goal is to be in view of God's mercies, to reflect on God's mercies, then we must spend time studying this book that is so full of God's mercies. We must make it a priority. Because in view of God's mercy, we're now able to worship him, to offer him ourselves, and to then be able to see the world through his lens. It makes me think of Galatians chapter 5, verse 16, where we are invited to keep in step with the Spirit of God. How do I keep in step with God's Spirit? Well, I have to know who he is and what kind of things he does. If I know who he is and what sort of things he does, it is much easier for me to keep in step with him. Otherwise, he's way, it feels as though he's way out ahead of me or that I have run way out ahead of him. When I keep in step with the Spirit of God, now the last part of this verse, being able to test and approve God's will, that doesn't seem like a mystery anymore. It seems like a natural outworking because I have placed myself in view of God's mercies. It is shaping and renewing my mind so that the way I interact with the world is through keeping in step with and through the lens of the Spirit of God. This is what we're invited to this morning. My hope is that this doesn't feel heavy or burdensome to you, but that this feels so exciting. What a gift that God has offered us, that we get to keep in step with Him by remembering all that He has done. This morning as we close, I'm gonna pray for you, but we are going to invite some people to receive prayer as we worship and take communion at the end. And as I've been thinking and praying about this morning, if you are someone who you would say, I just find it really hard to keep in mind the mercies, the goodness of God. Maybe you're in a season that just feels very dark. Like as I was describing in 2015 when I went to India for that first time and I just felt like, God, where are where are you? I'm talking and I don't know that anyone is listening. If that's a season that you find yourself in, like where it just is hard to sense, to experience, to remember God's goodness, we would love to pray for you this morning. There is no shame in being in that place. As human beings, we all find ourselves in those places from time to time. And this is why we come together as the family of God to pray for each other, to encourage each other. So if you find yourself in that place, we would love to pray for you this morning. I would also love to pray for you. If this idea of like renewing your mind, I want to renew my mind by spending more time connected to God, if that feels like something that you want to take more seriously or even feels like something that is overwhelming to you. I don't even know how to do that, I don't know where to start. We would love to pray for you. The Spirit of God dwells in you if you are a follower of Jesus. He wants to lead you in this. So let us pray for you as you embark on this journey with him. Let me pray for us, and then we'll enter into ministry time together. Spirit of God, we say thank you. We say thank you for the ways that you have worked in our lives. I say thank you, Spirit, that you are dwelling in us now, that you're present in this room, that you have the ability to do immeasurably more than all we could ask or imagine. Spirit, I pray that even now, in each one of our minds, you would bring to mind your mercies. That you would bring to mind the ways that you have intervened in our lives. Your goodness in our lives. Your goodness throughout time, throughout history. Spirit, will you help us begin to build memories? Altars of memories of your goodness. We want to be transformed. And it can feel overwhelming. God, it feels overwhelming with all of the inputs that are coming toward us in so many different places. It feels overwhelming. Will you lead us in what it means to be renewed in our minds? We want to offer ourselves as sacrifices to you. God, we ask that as a family, as a community in this church body, that we would be men and women and children who reflect you to the world. That we are no longer conformed to the pattern of the world, but that we are transformed into your image more and more. And we pray that you would get all of the glory through it. We ask this in Jesus' strong name. Amen.