What does a life of worship look like when we're at work or at school or when we're engaged in the daily tasks that make up the bulk of our lives? The following excerpt is from John Piper's sermon "What is the Will of God and How Do We Know It?" which he preached on August 22nd, 2004.

The aim of Romans 12 1 and 2 is that all of bodily life, everything you do with your bodies, all of life be worship. Present your bodies as living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. The goal of these two verses is that you find the way of life at work and at home that makes Christ look as valuable as he really is.

That's what worship is. Worship is an expressing, a display of the worth of all that God is for us in Christ. So when your bodily life, what you do with your hands, your feet, your arms, your tongue, your eyes, your ears, when all of that becomes worship, it becomes a way of displaying the value, the worth of Christ.

So that's the point of these verses. Paul wants to build on 11 chapters of theology and turn your life into doxology. So it sounds like doxology, it looks like doxology, smells like doxology, and if you don't know how to do that at work, if your work feels like the kind of work where that is an absolutely inconceivable idea, two possible problems.

One is you have the wrong job, but that's probably not the case. It's probably that verse 2 isn't happening to the degree that it should. Verse 2 is the means by which verse 1 comes about. Your life becomes a worship to God, it becomes a manifestation of the worth and value of Jesus when you're not conformed to the world and all their values, but you're transformed by the renewal of your mind so that the will of God becomes precious to you and a joy to you and you find yourself living a lifestyle of love and sacrifice and Christ-exalting standards that cause the world to recognize his reality and his beauty and his value.

So it's probably not that you're in the wrong job, it's just that we have a lot to do in order to pursue what it means to be renewed in our minds. When it says "be transformed" verse 2, "by the renewal of your mind," Christians know it means "I'm already new." 2nd Corinthians 5 17, "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation." Period.

He is a new creation. And then we also know that the Bible builds on that rock-solid reality of our identity in Christ and says, "now become what you are." For example, 1st Corinthians 5 7, "cleanse out the old leaven," picturing leaven is sin, "that you may become a new lump," picturing the lump of dough is your life, "as you really are unleavened." Isn't that amazing?

Clear. "Become what you are." You are unleavened, sinless, perfect, accepted, love, home in Christ. Now, become that in your practical bodily behavior so that people will see the worth of Jesus Christ to you. Or Colossians 3 10 says it this way, "you have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after its creator." You have put on the new self, you're there, you're home, you're new, you're in Christ, you're accepted, you're loved, you're justified, acquitted, vindicated, verdict not guilty, it is finished.

Now, be renewed according to who you are in Christ. Amen. That sermon excerpt was from John Piper's sermon, "What is the Will of God and How Do We Know It?" delivered on August 22nd, 2004. We have over 1,200 other sermons of his in the DesiringGod.org archive, but none of them are more popular than this one.

Well, a podcast listener writes in to ask, "What does it mean that we are to kill sin by the Spirit in Romans 8 13?" Tomorrow, Pastor John will explain. I'm your host Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.