Worship in the Workplace
00:00:00.000 | What does a life of worship look like when we're at work or at school or when
00:00:09.560 | we're engaged in the daily tasks that make up the bulk of our lives? The
00:00:13.960 | following excerpt is from John Piper's sermon "What is the Will of God and How
00:00:17.240 | Do We Know It?" which he preached on August 22nd, 2004.
00:00:21.280 | The aim of Romans 12 1 and 2 is that all of bodily life, everything you do with
00:00:30.840 | your bodies, all of life be worship. Present your bodies as living sacrifice,
00:00:37.680 | holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. The goal of these two
00:00:44.960 | verses is that you find the way of life at work and at home that makes Christ
00:00:55.520 | look as valuable as he really is. That's what worship is. Worship is an
00:01:03.160 | expressing, a display of the worth of all that God is for us in Christ. So when
00:01:11.800 | your bodily life, what you do with your hands, your feet, your arms, your tongue,
00:01:17.000 | your eyes, your ears, when all of that becomes worship, it becomes a way of
00:01:21.360 | displaying the value, the worth of Christ. So that's the point of these verses. Paul
00:01:28.640 | wants to build on 11 chapters of theology and turn your life into doxology.
00:01:35.080 | So it sounds like doxology, it looks like doxology, smells like doxology, and if you
00:01:42.600 | don't know how to do that at work, if your work feels like the kind of work
00:01:48.760 | where that is an absolutely inconceivable idea, two possible problems. One is you
00:01:54.800 | have the wrong job, but that's probably not the case. It's probably that verse 2
00:02:00.000 | isn't happening to the degree that it should. Verse 2 is the means by which
00:02:08.080 | verse 1 comes about. Your life becomes a worship to God, it becomes a
00:02:12.840 | manifestation of the worth and value of Jesus when you're not conformed to the
00:02:17.600 | world and all their values, but you're transformed by the renewal of your mind
00:02:22.360 | so that the will of God becomes precious to you and a joy to you and you find
00:02:28.080 | yourself living a lifestyle of love and sacrifice and Christ-exalting standards
00:02:35.200 | that cause the world to recognize his reality and his beauty and his value. So
00:02:41.440 | it's probably not that you're in the wrong job, it's just that we have a lot
00:02:45.360 | to do in order to pursue what it means to be renewed in our minds. When it says
00:02:50.920 | "be transformed" verse 2, "by the renewal of your mind," Christians know it means
00:02:58.960 | "I'm already new." 2nd Corinthians 5 17, "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new
00:03:06.640 | creation." Period. He is a new creation. And then we also know that the Bible builds
00:03:12.800 | on that rock-solid reality of our identity in Christ and says, "now
00:03:17.840 | become what you are." For example, 1st Corinthians 5 7, "cleanse out the old
00:03:24.880 | leaven," picturing leaven is sin, "that you may become a new lump," picturing the lump
00:03:31.000 | of dough is your life, "as you really are unleavened." Isn't that amazing? Clear. "Become
00:03:38.360 | what you are." You are unleavened, sinless, perfect, accepted, love, home in Christ.
00:03:46.360 | Now, become that in your practical bodily behavior so that people will see the
00:03:52.920 | worth of Jesus Christ to you. Or Colossians 3 10 says it this way, "you have
00:04:00.200 | put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after its creator."
00:04:06.520 | You have put on the new self, you're there, you're home, you're new, you're in
00:04:11.960 | Christ, you're accepted, you're loved, you're justified, acquitted, vindicated,
00:04:16.720 | verdict not guilty, it is finished. Now, be renewed according to who you are in
00:04:24.560 | Christ. Amen. That sermon excerpt was from John Piper's sermon, "What is the Will of
00:04:29.600 | God and How Do We Know It?" delivered on August 22nd, 2004. We have over 1,200
00:04:34.400 | other sermons of his in the DesiringGod.org archive, but none of them
00:04:38.560 | are more popular than this one. Well, a podcast listener writes in to ask, "What
00:04:43.320 | does it mean that we are to kill sin by the Spirit in Romans 8 13?" Tomorrow,
00:04:47.800 | Pastor John will explain. I'm your host Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening to the
00:04:50.920 | Ask Pastor John podcast.
00:04:54.040 | [BLANK_AUDIO]