One passage which has been misunderstood and misapplied to teach that all of life is worship is Romans 12:1. In the NASV, the verse reads: “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”
This noun translated “service of worship” is found five times in the NT: John 16:2; Romans 9:4; 12:1; Hebrews 9:1, 6. It is translated (in NASV) sometimes “service” and sometimes “worship.” The word is defined “to perform religious rites as a part of worship.”
The verb is found twenty-one times. Again, the verb is translated sometimes as “serve” and sometimes as “worship.” Even though the word can be translated “serve,” it never is used to refer to man serving man. It always is used to refer to man serving God.
The focus of this word as it relates to worship is that it pictures worship as service to God. All of life is, or ought to be, service to God. Worship is simply one aspect of our service to God. When I act as a husband to Rachel as God tells me to do, I am serving God as a husband. When I act as a father to Jewell and Ana as God tells me to do, I am serving God as a father. When I come to worship and I express my thanksgiving, praise, and trust in God, I am serving God through acts of worship. In fact, don’t we sometimes call worship “worship services”? That’s this word found here in Romans 12:1.
Paul had just told Christians to offer their body as a “living and holy sacrifice.” To refer to our lives as a “sacrifice” is a metaphor. Paul is taking the concept of animal sacrifices from the OT and he applies that concept to our own lives. Just as the Jews offered animal sacrifices in their worship services, so you and I are to offer our very lives as a sacrifice to God. That is an act of service that shows God we are thankful to Him and we trust Him.
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Paul has the same idea over in 15:16 as he talks about his preaching ministry. He says he is a “minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, ministering as a priest the gospel of God, so that my offering of the Gentiles may become acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” Paul is using that same metaphor to picture the Gentiles as Paul’s sacrifice to God. Evangelism was Paul’s act of service to God. Take a look also at these verses for the same idea: Philippians 2:17 and 2 Timothy 4:6.
So, let me summarize before we get into the book of Acts tomorrow… In our worship services, that specific time that is set aside for specific acts, offered to God as an expression of our thanksgiving, praise, and trust, we engage in five rituals: praying, singing, the Lord’s Supper, giving, and listening to God’s word. But, outside of our worship services, our very lives are to be offered to God as a sacrifice which daily shows our thanksgiving, praise, and trust in God.
Monthly, we have been studying in the book of Acts, the first church history book. We are studying Acts because we want to know: “What does God expect His church, the church of Christ, to look like and to do?” What is God’s pattern for His church? We hear all the time: Attend the church of your choice. But we all believe a far better question is to ask, What does God want in His church? What are those behaviors that God expects from all Christians, for all time, everywhere?
Paul Holland
