In 2024, my prayer is that our church family would be able to clearly see God’s provision over our lives and trust him fully to guide our steps.

Let’s pray.

Father in heaven, thank you for gathering us here. First worship service of 2024. As we continue to celebrate your goodness in our lives, I ask that you give us vision for a spirit fueled, faith filled year. God, what an amazing adventure we’d be on, once we cling tightly to you. I ask that we not only brace ourselves for your blessings as we follow you in faith, but that you empower us to be a blessing to a world that needs your hope and joy. Thank you for allowing us to start the year with gratitude. Your goodness toward us is undeniable, your mercy for us is immeasurable, and your love unending. I pray that as we study your word this morning, that you show how we can worship you with our whole lives as your radical disciples on mission to do your work in this world. Give us your Spirit today. Move us into action, Fill us with your ordained purpose in 2024. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.

Introduction

We are starting a brand new 7-week series titled, “This is What We Do.” In this series, we’ll be exploring 7 foundational rhythms and practices of the Christian faith that, when practiced and made a regular part of our daily lives, would allow us to BECOME radical Christ followers that BRING the good news of Jesus Christ by BRIDGING Christ’s love to those who don’t know him through service.

I love ice cream. My whole family loves ice cream. Right now, I think we have like 5 quarts of ice cream in our freezer. Like, our family loves ice cream so much that once we’ve intentionally had a frozen food night just so we could make room for ice cream in the freezer.

Anybody else love ice cream like that?

Tap your neighbor and share with them your favorite type or flavor of ice cream. Whether it’s vanilla peanut butter moose tracks or orange sherbet. Online, you can type in your favorite flavor/type of ice cream in the chat.

So I was with some friends this past week and they were describing their family’s favorite ice cream flavors and that got me thinking. For as much ice cream I’ve eaten in my lifetime, I don’t know what it’s made out of, or even how it’s made. Yes, yes, I know, ice cream is milk and sugar frozen, but what is it really made out of? Have you ever thought about that?

Ice cream, what is it made out of?

• Milk, really the milkfat from milk. It’s the milkfat in ice cream that gives it that creamy texture.
• Sweetener. It’s the sweeteners that give ice cream the sweet taste.
• Stabilizer, like bean gum. It’s the stabilizers that keep the ice cream from forming ice crystals or melting so quickly.
• Emulsifiers, egg yolk or soy lectin. It’s the emulsifiers that bond the water with the fatty ingredients to keep it creamy when frozen.

Here’s the thing, having the ingredients for ice cream doesn’t mean you have ice cream. The ingredients have to be combined to make ice cream.

How is ice cream made?

• Step 1: Get the right ingredients and quantities
• Step 2: Combine and blend it together
• Step 3: Pasteurize and then homogenize the blend
• Step 4: Cool down the blend of ingredients
• Step 5: Flavor the ice cream
• Step 6: Freeze the ice cream. This is the most important step, because it’s in the state of frozen-ness that we consume ice cream and experience it’s true glory.

Everything I told you about ice cream, what’s it made out of, how it’s made, its all meaningless without actually having experience the flavor and texture of ice cream. When you raised your hand to say you love ice cream, it’s because your experience of tasting the flavor and texture of ice cream made you love it, not the raw ingredients or knowing the process to make it. In fact, if all you had was a recipe without tasting the ice cream, you’d probably not like ice cream. In fact, if you didn’t eat ice cream the way it was supposed to be eaten, you wouldn’t like it either.

We need to experience faith the same way we experience ice cream. Our practice of faith can be just educational, sometimes. We know the ingredients to experience faith: Bible reading, prayer, fellowship, serving, giving, sharing your faith with others; but we never actually experience faith because we don’t take the ingredients of applying faith and actually try doing them in more than spurts and in parts. So we get a taste of what faith can be sometimes, but we don’t get the long term experience of faith that carries us for the entirety of our lifetimes.

Cedarbrook, this sermon series we’re starting today is not just about studying the ingredients of faith on a week to week basis, it’s about experiencing faith like we would experience ice cream on a hot sunny summer day. To become a radical disciple of Jesus we need to be his people who experience his goodness and be radically transformed by living in his goodness for us. Radical disciples live radically in faith, fully experiencing what trust in God means as they give themselves over bringing the good news to a broken world through a life of service, for the sake of our joy and God’s glory.

The title of the sermon today is: Applying the Gospel Everyday

Open your Bibles to Romans 12:1.

Scripture

I appeal to you therefore, brothers [and sisters], by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. ² Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:1-2 ESV)

Keep your Bibles open a little longer, to really understand these two verses, we actually have to go back a few verses. Romans 11:28-36.

²⁸ As regards the gospel, they [Jews] are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. ²⁹ For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. ³⁰ For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, ³¹ so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. ³² For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.

³³ Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

            ³⁴ “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”

            ³⁵ “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?”

³⁶ For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11:28-36 ESV)

There’s so much to unpack here and we’ll do so sometime in the future when we do a series on Romans. Here’s the 30,000 foot view of what’s going on.

In verse 28, Paul is addressing Christians in Rome and is making a distinction between practicing Christians who are a mix of ethnic Jewish people and Gentiles, and Jewish people who were actively not practicing their faith and were going as far as not allowing the good news to be shared or practiced by people coming to faith in Jesus. Paul is saying that this group of non-faith practicing people are acting as enemies because they are trying to prevent the practice of faith by followers of Jesus and furthermore, they were trying to stop the spread of the gospel by preventing the gospel to be heard.

Literally, the word “gospel” means “good news.” Breaking down what that means—news is just stories, commentary, insights about a topic. News needs to be disseminated and heard or read. To be determined as good or bad news, there must be some type of actionable insight for a person to make that decision. In general, news should prompt action or activity for the person receiving it. At least that’s what the traditional purpose of news is. If you do nothing with the news you receive, it’s just noise.

The implication Paul is making in verses 28-32 is that the reason the gospel is good news is because the good news shapes our culture. Simply put, the gospel shapes our way of life, our practice of living. The gospel causes us to go from living in disobedience and rebellion to the way of life God designed to being obedient to the way God designed our lives to be lived. Church, disobedient people receiving mercy from God is good news because disobedience deserves punishment, but we received none. Moreover, it’s good news because when disobedient people received good news, it wasn’t based on anything that they did, mercy was given purely based on God’s love for us.

In response to this good news, Paul writes, in verses 33-35, praise saying “how inscrutable his ways… who can come up with a plan like God?” Emphasizing the fact that God decided to have mercy on people like you and me despite our disobedience because his love for us and then chooses us, not because of our abilities, or activities, but through faith alone in Jesus Christ and in his substitutionary atoning death on the cross. It is by God’s grace the perfect righteousness of Christ is assigned to us when we repent and believe in him.

This is the bottom line in verse 36: “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever.” Church, this one line highlights the fullness and purpose of our lives and further illuminates the good news of Jesus. Our lives are from God, and we have life and live through God, and our entire lives, every part and substance of it are dedicated to God so that he can have the glory now and forever.

Point 1. The gospel transforms our lives

If you receive the gift of God’s mercy through faith, your life is transformed. There are two ways our lives are transformed:

1. First, by justification. That means that we are declared righteous before God through a single act of grace. Jesus’ death on the cross absolves us from the punishment we deserve from our sins toward God. Then through the resurrection of Jesus, we gain the right to life everlasting. Justification is instantaneous and complete by faith alone in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection.
2. Secondly, as a result of our justification, we are being sanctified by the gospel. Meaning we are being transformed to gradually grow more righteous, to be more like Jesus. This is made possible by the Holy Spirit’s work in us. Through the gospel, our future eternal reality in Jesus, our justification, gives us faith to live obedient to God. Sanctification is the gospel being applied to our everyday lives, where the future hope we have in Jesus transforms us here and now to be more like him.

The good news changes our eternal destination and also our lives now as the gospel enables us to overcome brokenness and sin in us by the mercy and power of God as we continue to live in a chaotic and fallen world. 

That brings us to Romans 12:1. That was the introduction.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers [and sisters], 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 ESV)

If there is one new year’s resolution regarding how you live your life this year, then let it be this….

Big Idea: Life is spiritual worship, live rooted in the gospel

Let’s live presenting ourselves as holy and acceptable to God, as a living offering to God, because Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection is good news to us, and that news supernaturally changes how we live and approach life.

“Spiritual worship” is the key phrase here. It is the context of the rest of this verse. Worship is not just singing. Some of us come to church on Sunday thinking that worship is singing and you don’t sing good so you don’t come to worship. But worship is actually an experience of faith where we are acting and practicing devotion toward God and he is responding to us.

So, our lives being “spiritual worship” means that every single thing we do in life is an act and practice of devotion toward God that is immersed with and activated by the presence of God in us. Let me be clear. Spiritual worship is living a life that is being sanctified by God’s Holy Spirit in the gospel. If our lives are spiritual worship, then living a life that is holy and acceptable means we must live applying the gospel to the everyday things of life – eating, working, talking, listening, being. Our lives, as spiritual worship, is the gospel transforming our everyday acts and practices to make us in character and action holy and perfect like Jesus is holy and perfect. And as we are living in spiritual worship, God is responding to our acts and practice of devotion to him.

That’s the difference between doing religion and living in faith. Doing religion is a list of ingredients and instructions that never receives a response from God. Living in faith is experiencing how God is responds to you as you received good news from him and you choosing to live through him and dedicating all of your every day things in life to him for his glory.

How do we make spiritual worship with our everyday activities. Let’s take our meals for example. Most of us eat at least once a day, if not three or five times a day:

• On Monday meals, you can remember your mission to glorify God and fulfill his purposes in saving you from sin. You can plan or pray for opportunities to go on your mission to share the gospel or live out the gospel in service to others.
• On Tuesday meals you can read the gospel and apply a truth Jesus lived out in his life and find ways live faithfully to the truth of Jesus in your own life.
• On Wednesdays, make space to eat with other people in our church family, a neighbor, friend, co-workers to encourage them with the grace of God, to help them experience the regenerating power of God over a shared meal.
• On Thursdays, give thanks to God for all he’s done for you this week. Don’t wait until Thanksgiving to start recollecting the good news of God’s mercy in your life.
• On Fridays, make it a movie or game night and train your eyes and ears for opportunities to examine the culture we live in against Jesus’ example for us, his work in us, his identification with us.  
• On Saturday meals, serve others who can’t repay you, who don’t have an opportunity to eat with a meal like Jesus did. Bridge the love of Jesus by serving those who need it.
• On Sunday meals, prioritize worshipping God at church and just like in eating communion together we proclaim the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus, over the meal, apply the gospel in light of the word you heard at church.

I know most of us do more than just eat every day. Let’s take other aspects of our every day lives and see how it can be spiritual worship:

• Listening to our kids, our spouses, our co-workers, our bosses. As we listen to the people God placed in our lives, listen for the longing, the pain, the need for Jesus, how in the stories of their lives the gospel would transform their identity, their problems, impact their hope and then share that insight.
• Celebrating. When you get your kid into school successfully in the morning. Accomplishing your goals chores, honey-do lists, should result in celebrating. Because we are and our culture is more naturally inclined to negativity and cynicism, celebration isn’t what we do. But the Gospel causes us to celebrate. To laugh, to be grateful, to be faith-filled and emanating emanate the goodness of God as good news that overcomes fear, doubt, and cynicism; that’s spiritual worship.
• Bless God and people daily. That’s to say that we do things for other people or we pray for people and do so to invoke God’s favor.
  • In praying and interceding, we are applying the gospel by living  without self-interest but in self-sacrifice for others.
  • In blessing others with our lives we weave the gospel into their lives because we know the urgency of their lives apart from Christ.
• When we work, in our homes, classrooms, workplace, or field, we apply the gospel by putting God at the center of that work by asking how can we love God and our neighbors through the way we work.
  • The way we work when applying the gospel enables us to show our love for God and for the people we work for, employers, clients, our families.

This is how our lives become spiritual worship, living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, when we apply the gospel to our every day activities.

But none of these activities happen if we’re not changed in the heart by our minds being transformed through spiritual renewal. Romans 12:2

² Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2 ESV)

What the Apostle Paul is acutely aware of is that we’re either living in the gospel countercultural to the rest of world or we’re living like the world, being conformed in the same hopelessness and brokenness of living without the good news of Jesus in an eternal security. If we want a life that is good, acceptable, and perfect then we must examine our thoughts through the gospel everyday. The reason is because:

Point 2. The gospel is the source of all that is good, acceptable, and perfect in our lives

Mental exercise: when you’re engaging in your daily activities:

• What is going through your mind?
  • Is what is going in your mind good news?
• Is it the truths of God?
  • Or are they lies and opinions masquerading as truths?

When we believe that we’re already justified and are being to become more like Jesus, then our minds must process every situation and circumstance we are facing in light of the gospel we received from God. When the good news of how we received God’s grace and mercy because his love for disobedient, sinful people is on the forefront of our minds, then we’re finding ways to live out the good news in our life strategy and daily to-dos. Strategy is simply a plan of action that work together to achieve a clear destination. Our destination is pretty clear – eternity from God, through God, dedicated to God now and in eternity. Allowing the gospel transform our minds then protects us from lies, accusations, and temptations from our ultimate destination.

I can’t tell you how important this is for us today in our culture. Just think about it, in our culture, news about good, acceptable or perfect just don’t sell and is not propagated, but scandal does, temptation island does, criticism builds an audience. This is why we need to double down and live in the experience of faith and not just knowledge of faith.

Honestly, that’s why applying the gospel to transform our minds is hard when we’re trying to journey in faith alone. We’re bombarded with bad news instead of good news, so it becomes easier to give excuses and be conformed to the brokenness than it is to live counter cultural to it.

This is why I’m encouraging you to serious and prayerfully considering joining a life group this year. This is a reminder, beginning January 14, we’ll be opening our online portal for you to find and join a life group that fits the day of the week you’re available, a location you can commit to being at.

In joining a life group, you are allowing others who are applying the gospel to their minds and actions daily become your authentic and caring spiritual family. It’s in this type of family where brokenness is confessed, and healing found in the gospel being ministered toward one another. Then all of us we will be better equipped to discern the will of God, better equipped to live in the good, acceptable, and perfect ways of the gospel.

How many people here want to be better equipped to live in the good, acceptable, and perfect ways of the gospel, as a life holy and a living sacrifice before God? Then get with a spiritual family to let others help you be renewed in the mind.

As we kick off life groups this year, all of our life groups are going to be starting off with a curriculum called Rooted. [put up Rooted graphic]

Rooted is a 10-week Life Group experience designed to help you capture and examine your thoughts with the gospel everyday through guided readings, journalling, prayer, and small group discussions. But it doesn’t end at just learning, the curriculum will help all of our Life Groups apply the gospel to everyday life.

Take a step in applying the gospel to your everyday life by making space to get into a life group and meeting with a spiritual family that will help you envision how you are being called and transformed by the gospel. Then you will truly experience all that is good, practice what is acceptable and live in the perfection given to us in faith through the gospel of Jesus.

Let’s apply the gospel to our lives every day:

Our lives are spiritual worship, so let’s be rooted in the gospel through our daily everyday activities and by the renewal of our minds.

Let’s pray.

Father in heaven, we are dependent on your good news for every single day of our lives. We want your gospel to capture every thought we have, fill every action we take, and be the truth we speak in our lives. Lord, we believe your presence is with us wherever we go so that everyone may see and hear the love of God we experience through your gospel everywhere every day. God, help us be immersed in your gospel so that we can submit our lives to you and have the hope that changes our eternity change the world around us. Help us think and live out the gospel because it is your power made available to all who believe. Help us live unashamed of the gospel because the good news transforms us into your image, and we want to look like you. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.