Over the next several weeks we will be looking at other facets of of what we are pursuing as a church family.

• Agape’s Mission is Worship God, Love People, Make Disciples. This is how we define

as a church family. It is our

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.
•

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is first. Why?
• Erwin Lutzer >> If we haven’t learned to be worshipers, it doesn’t really matter how well we do anything else.
• So, today we want to turn to Romans 12 and define worship.

Being precedes doing

• Why do New Years’ Resolutions often

? Because oftentimes the resolutions simply focus on doing something different without ever addressing the part of our character that lead us to a place where we needed change. If you want to see change, don’t start with “

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,” start with “

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.”
• Pastor A.W. Tozer >> We emphasize “doing”—getting things done and so making a difference in this world. But in God’s order “being” precedes “doing.” “Being” affects how and why we do as well as what we do.
• As who we are, our being, is

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, then the “do” naturally follows.
• As a church, we cannot simply focus on what we do. Filling our calendar with activities cannot be our first priority. Our identity must be found in what God has called us to be, who we are, and who we are becoming. What you do is important, but why you do what you do is more important. Ministry and mission are byproducts of worship. Worship is our core

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.
• Pastor Ray Stedman: Worship is really nothing more or less than being what you were made to be, and doing what you were made to do.

What is worship?

• Romans 12:1 | 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.
• “Therefore” >> God showed His immeasurable

for us by sending Jesus to pave the way for our deliverance and redemption out of sin and death. He has provided for our salvation, our justification, and, as we are seeing in Romans 8, our glorification as well.
• Because of what God has done for us in Jesus, offering our full

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, our full selves, in worship is the only right response.
• What is a good definition of worship?

// Harold Best >> …acknowledging that someone or something else is greater – worth more – and by consequence, to be obeyed, feared, and adored…Worship is the sign that in giving myself completely to someone or something, I want to be mastered by it.
// Louie Giglio >> Worship is our response, both personal and corporate, to God for who He is, and what He has done; expressed in and by the things we say and the way we live.
// Ryan’s >> Worship is a whole-life response to the

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of God.

• The word “worship” comes from the word “worth.” Worshipping God is about declaring his worthiness.
• Being a worshipper means that you exist to exalt the

of God and you look to take captive every part of your life to worship God.

How do we worship?

• Worship is not primarily displayed by singing. Worship is the natural

of a person who has embraced their identity as a worshipper.
• “offer your bodies as a living sacrifice” >> Paul uses this imagery to indicate the only appropriate level of worship to the work of God on our behalf. When a sacrifice was placed on the altar,

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was withheld. There was complete surrender.
• How we worship (half-hearted or surrendered) is an

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for us to let God be God and live rightly under His authority.

How will you respond?

• Your time, your talent, and your treasure are the tools of worship and the indication of your complete surrender to the Lord. So, is He truly Lord?
• Ralph Waldo Emerson >> What we are worshiping we are becoming.
• False worship or idolatry destroys the worshipper and the object of worship.
• Worshipping God brings wholeness, peace, joy, purposefulness, hope, and is a foretaste of eternity.