Worship and Sacrifice

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”  Romans 12:1

When we hear the word “worship” in our modern church culture, many people today think of music and singing.  The people who lead the music are known as “worship leaders.”  When it is time to sing, someone will say, “Let’s worship now.”  I will readily admit that this drives me crazy.  It’s not that I don’t like music or singing.  Quite the opposite in fact.  But why have we reduced “worship” to only this one act?  I have always said that our worship includes everything we do throughout the church service.  Certainly singing praises to God is worship, but so is listening to Scripture and the sermon.  Saying the prayers and reciting the Creed are worship as well.  And of course the Holy Eucharist, receiving the Body and Blood of Christ is worship.  

However, there is a part of the service that we sometimes forget about.  The offering.  It is easy to look at this portion of the liturgy where we take a collection as purely practical.  The church has to pay the bills, so everyone is asked to chip in a couple of bucks and we’ll move on to something more important.  I want to challenge you to look at it in a different way.

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