Worship IX Day 2 The Great Experience: Digging Deeper

Digging Deeper Days
Finding the original intent of Scripture and making good application to our everyday lives as we become equipped to correctly handle the Word of Truth!
The Questions
Romans 12:1-2
Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.
Original Intent
1) What does it mean to “present our bodies as a living sacrifice”? How is this “true worship”? (verse 1)
It’s important to keep a couple of things in mind as we work our way through this passage. First, the book of Romans is a letter written by the apostle Paul to house churches in Rome. Paul is teaching these new believers how to live out their daily lives following Jesus. In saying, “present your bodies as a living sacrifice”, Paul’s meaning is to “worship God with all you’ve got – head to toe”. Worshiping just one God was a relatively new thing for Roman citizens as it was common to worship many gods. (Acts 17:22-23) There are a couple of clues in the first verse that can help us dig a little deeper. The first word is “Therefore” meaning that what follows is referring back to what was already stated. Hint: Anytime you read therefore in Scripture, it should prompt you to read the previous section to pick up the author’s meaning. If we go back a few verses to Romans 11:33-36, we read a short hymn of praise where Paul is reflecting on God’s greatness. He sings in verse 33 “Oh, the depth of the riches of both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!”. Paul is leading these readers to think about what they have learned about Jesus and worship Him with their entire lives. It’s also important to remember that “whole life worship” wasn’t a new idea; numerous references in the Old Testament speak of the call to all-consuming worship. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” (Deuteronomy 6:5) God designed us to love and worship Him with that we’ve got!
2) What is the difference between being conformed and being transformed? (verse 2)
Let’s look at the original language and its definitions for these two words to help our outstanding. First, “conformed” in Greek is “syschematizo’‘ meaning “to fashion or shape one thing like another”. In this context, Paul chose syschematizo to convey living in such a way as “to be or act like everyone else”. The Greek word for “transformed” is “metamorphoo”, which literally means to “change forms, or undergo a complete change under the power of God in character or conduct”. This leads us right back to the idea of “whole life worship” that Paul is pressing upon his readers. These believers’ lives should look radically different than the everyday lives of Roman citizens who didn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus. Paul wrote a very similar instruction to the church in Ephesus, “take off your former way of life” and “be renewed in the Spirit in your minds”. (Ephesians 4:20-23) Paul is encouraging the early church in Rome to confidently know they are on the right track of following Jesus when their everyday lives didn’t match with non-believers’ lives.
3) Why is it important to understand God’s will; is it even possible? (verse 2)
Once we give our lives to Jesus, we’ve relinquished our desires to Christ. Our lives now exist in Jesus and His will for us. (Colossians 3:3) Abandoning ourselves to Christ requires denial of self and daily surrender to His will above our own. This was just as true and important for the original readers of this letter as it is for us today. Paul urges his readers to give their entire lives including body, mind, and soul, over to God. The Lord intends us to follow Him while holding nothing back but instead fully surrendering our all to Him. Paul calls this “true worship” which means that part of worshiping Jesus is trusting Him with our everything. For the original readers, knowing and understanding God’s will for their lives would have been a new concept. They didn’t grow up hearing or being taught to live by God’s will. They likely worshiped many gods and their worship was primarily centered on offering the right sacrifices to the right god at the right time. Now Paul instructs them to give themselves as an act of worship by surrendering the entirety of their common, everyday moments to the One True God. Worshiping God wholeheartedly naturally positions us to not only be discerning of God’s will for our lives, but also leads us to increasingly desire the Lord’s ways while His Spirit equips us with courage to obey Christ as Lord.
Everyday Application
1) What does it mean to “present our bodies as a living sacrifice”? How is this “true worship”? (verse 1)
Our application today is much the same as it was for the churches in Rome; we are to be “all in” for Jesus every single day. The same head-to-toe whole life worship is how we, as Jesus followers, are urged to live. There is another word in this verse we should carefully consider as we study the idea of “whole life worship”; sacrifice. We may not be as familiar with this concept today as the Romans were, so let’s return to its original language and meaning. The Greek word for sacrifice is “thusia”, primarily meaning “an offering”. Interestingly, this is the same word used to describe when Jesus “sacrificed” Himself on the cross. This way of life that Paul urges us to choose is one of complete offering, and total surrender of ourselves to Jesus. In a way when we choose to live this way, we are saying “Here is my entire life, Jesus; all my hopes, dreams, desires, successes, failures, and my physical life itself. I’m giving it all to You to do with as you please and direct.” It’s easy to see why Paul calls this “true worship”. Sacrificial living isn’t something we can, or should, do on a whim, for it takes determination, humility, and prayer to be successful. Living “all in” for Jesus will not be easy. Jesus says it Himself in Matthew 7:14, “…difficult is the road that leads to life, few will find it.” But, if we are willing, Jesus will take our meager sacrifice of whole life worship and accomplish His amazing work through us! (2 Corinthians 12:9)
2) What is the difference between being conformed and being transformed? (verse 2)
Being conformed and transformed are two completely different ways of living. Let’s go back and take another look at Ephesians 4:20-32 for practical applications on how to live transformed. I love Paul’s wording here, he makes it so easy to understand and I’ve added my own paraphrase as well. “Put away (just get rid of it) lying, don’t give the devil an opportunity, don’t steal, but do honest work, watch your language, encourage and build others up. Let go (I imagine singing “let it go” from Frozen when I read these words!) of anger, bitterness, shouting and slander. Forgive others just like Jesus forgave you.” (my paraphrase) I’ll be honest enough to admit that conforming is much easier many times. Not many people today want to stand out or be different, especially when doing so makes you unpopular and, in some cases, an easy target for ridicule. Living a life transformed by Jesus however, is fueled by a strength that is not from ourselves but from His Spirit living inside us. Jesus says in John 14:18 and 26, “I will not leave you as orphans, I am coming to you” and “The Counselor, the Holy Spirit will be sent to you and will teach you everything in my name.” We are called to live transformed lives, but we are NOT called to do it on our own; we have God’s own Spirit living within us! What new ground will you confidently take in your life as you press against being conformed to the world and transformed by Christ?!
3) Why is it important to understand God’s will; is it even possible? (verse 2)
Understanding God’s will is one of those things we often make harder than God designed. From the very beginning of Genesis in the Bible, we learn that God created man to be dependent on Him. Full of pride, however, mankind chose independence over dependence and we’ve been fighting that same battle over and over again ever since the Garden of Eden. God’s will for each of us is that we live completely surrendered and fully dependent on Him while enjoying Him forever. Remember earlier when we talked about how truly worshipping God means entrusting our entire lives to Him? This means we don’t need to know or understand the details. Yes, I get how hard this is, especially for those of us who like to have a well-thought-out plan with bullet points for tracking and checking stuff off as we finish. Being really honest, I’d also like to have a backup plan, just in case, but this isn’t how God works. He gives us exactly what we need, precisely when we need it. When teaching His disciples how to pray, Jesus says, “give us today our daily bread”. (Matthew 6:11) He doesn’t tell us to ask Him for everything we need for next month while showing us where and how to get it. He instructs us to simply ask, then trust Him to provide. Yes, we need to pray and seek God’s will and direction for our lives, but we can’t allow ourselves to get bogged down in needing all the details. Our primary job is to honor Him with whole life worship.
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1) Take this passage (or any other passage).
2) Read it, and the verses around it,
several times
3) Write down your questions
as you think of them.
4) Ask specific culture related questions and be ready to dig around for your answers. Google them, use www.studylight.org, or look them up in a study Bible and read the footnotes (click on the little letters next to a word and it will show you
other related verses!). (www.esvbible.org)
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in your everyday!
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Why Dig Deeper?
Finding the original meaning is a huge deal when we study Scripture and can make all the difference in our understanding as we apply God’s truths to our everyday lives.
In our modern-day relationships, we want people to understand our original intention as we communicate; how much more so between God and humanity?!
Here’s a little bit more on why we take Digging Deeper so seriously.
Study Tools
We love getting help while we study and www.studylight.org is one of many excellent resources, providing the original Hebrew (Old Testament) or Greek (New Testament) with an English translation.
Want to know more about a specific word in a verse? Click on “Strong’s Interlinear Bible” then click the word you’d like to study. Discover “origin”, “definition” and hear the original pronunciation – That Is Awesome!
Want more background? Click “Study Tools”, then pick a few commentaries to read their scholarly approach, keeping in mind that just because a commentary says it, doesn’t mean it’s true. (just like the internet :-))
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