Don’t Neglect Your Worship | Part 1

I remember several years ago coming home from work and finding water flowing down our driveway. Our water heater had sprung a leak and was draining down the road. Not the most welcoming way to come home. We had our water heater for many years and I had neglected to take care of it. I never drained it. I took it for granted. I needed to have some maintenance on it months and months prior but failed to do so. But just letting things go took its toll, flooding our garage, and forcing us to buy a new water heater earlier than we should have.

It’s one thing to neglect our water heater. It’s another thing to neglect ourselves. We can tend to neglect important areas of our lives, and over time, it can have negative effects. I was reminded of this last week when I read Romans 12:1-2:

¹Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 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.

In this text, Paul explains worship as the way in which we resist the idols of this world, seek to be clean from the stain and pollution of sin that permeates the kingdom of darkness, and present our bodies as a living sacrifice before God. And to be honest, this type of worship takes work! If we think that our bodies—head, heart, and hands—are going to be transformed by just “letting it go” and doing whatever we want to do, we’re going to find that we will become transformed more by the world than by God.

What do I mean? I mean that we must be intentional about the “renewing of our minds.” We can’t sit back and neglect reading God’s word. We can’t sit back and neglect prayer. We can’t sit back and neglect surrounding ourselves with the Jesus-centered community of brothers and sisters, the church. We can’t take our spiritual lives for granted.

…we must be intentional about the “renewing of our minds.”

So how do we live in a way that fights against neglect? First, we need to remember our true identity. Here at FBC we say that we want to be disciples who live out DNA—Dwelling in Christ, Nurturing Relationships, Advancing the Gospel. Each of these have core affirmations that help root us in what is true of our DNA.

As disciples who Dwell in Christ, we can make three affirmations: “I am new in Christ,” “I meet with him daily,” “I gladly obey his voice.” We must start with our identity that is rooted in Christ. We emphasize our identity in Christ because not only does it give us a sense of “who we are” but it also opens the way for us to understand “how we should live.”

Secondly, we must flesh this reality out in the everyday patterns of our lives. Throughout church history, Christians have practiced what are known as “spiritual disciplines” or “spiritual habits” or “habits of grace.” No matter what you call them, these are really practices in our lives that provide structure and substance in following Jesus. They are intentional commitments of learning to love Jesus and walk in his ways.  I think of Paul’s words to Timothy:

⁶ If you point these things out to the brothers and sisters, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, nourished on the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed. ⁷ Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly. ⁸ For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come (1 Timothy 4:6-8)

The way of a disciple is a way of discipline and discipline requires training. “Spiritual disciplines” or “habits of grace” help train us to keep our lives centered in Christ. They lead to spiritual maturity. They keep us from neglecting our lives and our worship.

Ok, so what are these spiritual disciplines? Glad you asked. I’m going to list several of them for you and then we’ll explore them in more detail next week. Here are some of them: fasting, solitude, contemplation, journaling, simplicity, gratitude, sacrifice, silence, Sabbath, bible intake (all the ways we take in Scripture). Whew! And there can certainly be more. In fact, Dallas Willard states this:

“Any activity that is in our power and enables us to achieve by grace what we cannot achieve by direct effort is a discipline of the spiritual life.” (Dallas Willard, Personal Soul Care)

But the point isn’t how many spiritual practices I engage in, as if they have some magical powers in and of themselves. It’s about transformation. And the practices themselves don’t transform us—God does! In his grace and love, he transforms us by the power of his Spirit through spiritual practices. Brandon Cook, in his excellent book Learning to Live and Love Like Jesus, explains this well:

“This is exactly the point of spiritual practices! We engage them so that we might encounter Jesus and be transformed in the core of our being by him, so that we become whole by the grace of God, and so that we are empowered to live for others. Spiritual practices transform us by bringing us to see who God is. They allow us to take the initiative to become open to God and His work in us. The water of God’s grace and mercy is a free-flowing waterfall which we have done nothing to merit or earn, but we do have to place ourselves under the waters.”

Next week we’ll dive more into these spiritual practices and how they relate to transforming our head, heart, and hands for the glory of God. In the meantime, FBC, know that I am praying for you to be transformed more and more into the image of our Lord (2 Corinthians 3:18)!