Readers of past posts may recognize sermons in this series. To anyone who may be disappointed to see a "rerun," I apologize. I dare say, however, that for a preacher, revisiting familiar sermonic ground is as delightful an experience as a walk in a familiar wood or a stroll on a favorite beach. October 9, 2011
Isaiah 6:1-8; Romans 12:1-2
One book in the New Testament has been responsible for more revolutions, reformations, revivals, and conversions than any other book in the history of the Christian faith.
For example, in September of the year 386, a young professor of rhetoric at the university of Milan sat despondently in a garden. Through tears of frustration at his confusion over the character and quality his life—or the lack thereof—he read the verses, “Let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, nor in quarrelling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” The young professor wrote this about his encounter with those verses: “No further would I read, nor had I any need; instantly, at the end of this sentence, a clear light flooded my heart and all the darkness of doubt vanished away.” His name was Augustine, and he went on from that experience in the garden to became the first great theologian of the Christian faith—and a saint, no less.
Fast-forward to the early 1500s. An Augustinian monk and university professor was reading the same New Testament book and struggling with a particular expression in it: the “righteousness of God.” He wrote, “Night and day I pondered until . . . I grasped the truth that the righteousness of God is that righteousness whereby, through grace and sheer mercy, [God] justifies us by faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning, and whereas before ‘the righteousness of God’ had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in greater love. This passage . . . became to me a gateway to heaven.” From reading this book, Martin Luther launched the Protestant Reformation and changed the course of the history of the Christian church.
One more example. Two hundred years after Luther, on an evening in May in 1738, an Englishman in his 30s sat in a church on Aldersgate Street in London and listened to the Preface to Luther’s commentary on this book read out loud. He wrote in his journal about that evening: “About a quarter before nine, while [Luther’s Preface] was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for my salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken my sins away, even mine; and saved me from the law of sin and death.” From this “Aldersgate conversion” in which his “heart felt strangely warmed,” John Wesley went on to found the Christian movement that became the Methodist church, and once again this one book was responsible for a revolutionary new course in Christian faith and practice.
It is no wonder that the great British New Testament scholar F.F. Bruce wrote in the introduction to his commentary, “There is no telling what may happen when people begin to study the Epistle to the Romans.” Paul’s letter to the Romans is responsible for more revolutions, reformations, revivals, and conversions than any other book in the history of the Christian faith.
This morning, we’re only looking at two verses from Romans, but as we saw in the case of Augustine, it only took two verses to put a university professor on the road to sainthood! So “there is no telling what may happen,” even if we read only two verses. Romans 12:1-2 mark a new beginning in the book. In chapters 1-11, the apostle Paul lays out great ideas of the Christian faith: the righteousness of God, justification by faith, the nature of sin, the nature of grace, the nature of the gospel, the work of Jesus Christ in salvation, and many more. But in Romans 12:1-2, Paul turns from great ideas to great and faithful living in the light of those great ideas. After all, what good are great ideas if you don’t put them into practice? That’s what Paul calls us to do beginning in Romans 12:1: put the faith we profess into practice.
According to Paul, putting the faith we profess into practice begins with worship. “I appeal to . . . you, brothers and sisters, . . . to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” So the first work of the faithful is worship. We gather in this place in the morning of every first day of the week to worship God, because in our work-week, as it were, our first work is worship.
Maybe you’ve heard the conventional wisdom that “90% of success is just showing up.” “90% of success is just showing up.” I have to admit that I usually consider that statement not conventional wisdom but conventional stupidity. It takes a whole lot more to succeed than just showing up. But this morning, at the risk of attracting the ire of preachers and pastors and teachers and employers the world over, I’m going to endorse the conventional stupidity that “90% of success is just showing up.”
Here’s why. First, if you don’t show up, you can’t possibly succeed, so “just showing up” is in fact the foundation for success. Second, the first thing the apostle Paul says when he turns from talking about great theological ideas to talk about great and faithful living is “prez-ent your bodies.” Prez-ent. Be there. Now, I know as well as you do that the correct pronunciation is “pre-zent.” But you cannot pre-zent anything if you are not prez-ent.
When it comes to worship, the common stupidity turns out to be pretty wise. 90% is prez-enting “your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Congratulations. You are 90% there just by being here. If you are listening on the radio because you can’t get here, you are 90% here by being there where you can participate by hearing. But none of us, no matter where we are, is where we need to be yet.
But before we move on from where we are to where we need to be, let’s take a moment to look at here. I cannot tell you how important it is to see and to understand that according to Paul we don’t come to worship “to get something out of it.” We come to worship to give something to God. The something we come to worship to give to God is ourselves: “present your body as a living sacrifice . . . to God.” If you came to worship this morning in order to get something out of it, then you came here putting yourself ahead of God, and that’s idolatry. When God said in the Ten Commandments, “You shall have no other gods before me,” that includes the god of self who comes to worship thinking that worship is about what I get out of it instead of about what I give to God first, foremost, and forever.
In a famous description of worship that I’m sure you’ve heard before but that we can’t hear often enough, the great Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard characterized worship as a play on a stage with actors, prompters, and an audience. The actors in the drama of worship are everyone in the congregation gathered to “exalt God” as the mission statement of this congregation says of worship. You are the actors in worship prez-enting and pre-zenting “your bodies as living sacrifices . . . to God.” That’s what you are doing right now. The leaders in worship—the preacher, the praise team or the choir, the deacons, the ushers, whoever reads Scripture or leads in prayer—are all merely prompters, people whose job is to prompt you the actors as you act out your part and deliver your lines for the audience who is God. The music that is sung or played in worship is not sung or played for us as though we were the audience. It is sung and played as an offering to God who is the audience. The sermon is not offered to you for your approval or disapproval. The sermon is offered to God for God’s approval or disapproval and as a prompt—a prompt for you to respond to God by offering yourself to God.
Look at the drama of worship in Isaiah 6 that we heard read this morning. If you have a Bible with you, open it to Isaiah 6. In Isaiah 6, the prophet Isaiah is present for worship in the temple in Jerusalem—Isaiah has done his 90%. But the more import presence than the presence of Isaiah in the temple is the presence of God: Isaiah “saw the Lord, sitting on a throne, high and lifted up,” verse 1 says. The audience—God—is present, and the drama of worship begins in v 3 with the praise of God in a Hebrew praise chorus: qadosh qadosh qadosh adonai tzebaoth melo’ kol ha’aretz kebodo, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” That song of praise wasn’t sung for Isaiah; Isaiah wasn’t the audience. It was sung for God; God is the audience and the object of praise in worship.
The praise of God in verse 3 is followed by a confession of sin in verse 5: “Woe is me,” says Isaiah, “I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.” Any time we catch even the slightest glimpse of the holiness and the glory of God we cannot help but recognize our own unholiness. But by God’s mercy and by God’s grace, “If we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” as 1 John 1:9 says. And so the confession of sin in Isaiah 6:5 is followed by the forgiveness of sin in verse 8: “your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out,” Isaiah is told.
After praise and confession and forgiveness, worship continues with a word from God, in this case, a question that is a call: “Whom shall I send, and who will go?” comes the word. And worship is not complete until the worshippers respond: “Here am I! Send me!” Isaiah answers in response to the word that he has heard. Praise. Confession of sin. Assurance of forgiveness. Proclamation of the word. Response to the word. That’s the movement of the drama of worship, and 90% of it is getting yourself here on stage to play your part for God. Congratulations! But even if showing up is 90% of success, it’s only 90% of success; and the other 10% makes all the difference.
Look at verse 2 of Romans 12: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” The other 10% is being changed by God, being “transformed,” being renewed, being revolutionized, being reformed, being revived, being converted. Did you come here to be changed today? Did you come here to be transformed, renewed, revolutionized, reformed, revived, converted? I did. I walked into this room to offer myself to God—that’s the 90%—and I walked into this room to be transformed, re-formed, re-newed, revived, converted by God—that’s the 10%, the difference that makes a difference in my life and yours.
When we give ourselves over to God as a living sacrifice, God never fails to give our selves back to us, changed, converted, revived, renewed, re-formed, transformed, in the direction of God’s will, which Paul defines as “what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Remember what F.F. Bruce said: “There is no telling what may happen when people begin to study the Epistle to the Romans”? Well, there’s also no telling what may happen when people begin to worship, when people begin to prez-ent and pre-zent themselves, body and mind, “as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God.” Because when we do, God changes us.
I don’t happen to know what kind of change needs to happen in your life this morning. Maybe you are like Augustine, disappointed or despondent in the character and quality of your life, and you need an entirely new direction, a fresh new start. What you need this morning is for “clear light” to flood your “heart and all the darkness of doubt” to vanish away. Maybe you are like Luther, struggling with something that just doesn’t makes sense to you. And what you need is to feel yourself “reborn . . . so that the very thing that is filling you with confusion or pain or anger or hate can become to you “a gateway to heaven.” Maybe you are like Wesley, needing your heart to feel “strangely warmed” by the assurance that Christ has taken your sins away, even yours.” Maybe the change that needs to happen in your life this morning is not Augustine’s or Luther’s or Wesley’s or anyone else’s, and maybe only you and God know what it is. You are 90% of the way there just by being here.
Open yourself now to the other 10%, and ask God here and now for the revolution, the transformation, the reformation, the renewal, the revival, or the conversion that you need. 90% of success is showing up. The other 10% is opening up: opening yourself up to God to be changed today and every Lord’s Day in worship.
Copyrighted © 2011 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jeffrogers110@bellsouth.net.
No comments:
Post a Comment