The living archive is loading.
Continue exploring
Connected by scripture or shared themes.
Continue exploring
Connected by scripture or shared themes.
The book of Romans addresses one of the most paramount questions within every human heart: How do we get right with God? While not everyone verbalizes it in those exact words, we wrestle with deeper questions: Is there a point to this life? What is the meaning of existence? Is there truth? Is there a God? Deep within each of us lies an unsettled feeling that whispers there must be more, and perhaps there is a God behind it all.
You and I are fallen individuals in a fallen world. This isn't meant to be insulting but insightful. We look at the brokenness, wickedness, and evil around us, yet true humility requires us to look in the mirror and acknowledge that these broken tendencies also exist within us. Our human nature places us at odds with our Maker.
When we wrestle with our options, Paul's answer in Romans is clear: there is only one option, and that is Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world.
Romans is written in the form of a debate. Paul goes to the marketplace of ideas, inviting everyone to reason together—bringing all their suspicion, accusations, objections, and questions to the table. What makes Paul compelling is that he is not defensive. He is patient, gentle, and persuasive. He lays out the gospel with such clarity and concise terms that you begin to realize: Christianity, the gospel, is historically sound, philosophically sound, theologically sound, and academically defensible.
It is worth your time to kick the tires and ask: Who is Jesus? Does He truly have a plan for my life? What has He already accomplished that changes everything when I place my faith in Him?
After Paul exhausts Jewish history and answers all the pressing questions in chapters 9–11, he breaks into a doxology—a word of glory. This section is the most personal to Paul; it is the part of his letter that would have come with tears, with relational impact and consequences. It is his story.
"Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out. Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen."
The word doxology comes from two Greek words: doxo (glory) and logos (word)—essentially, a word of glory.
Throughout this series, many have raised questions about the tension that arises in chapters 7–11, where different theological camps and traditions emerge. We can exhaust these debates and even take on irritation with other believers who view things slightly differently.
But here is the critical point: if you get to the end of chapter 11 focused only on the tension between Arminian and Calvinist perspectives, you have missed what Paul is saying. The appropriate response to understanding the gospel is not doctrinal debate—it is worship.
The fundamental tension Paul addresses is this: Who are God's people? Will God choose the Jew or the Gentile? Who does God love?
Paul's answer swings wide open: the gospel is good news for all. Anybody who places their faith in Jesus Christ will be saved. It does not matter who you are, where you've been, or what you've done. It is all about His performance and His accolades.
This is good news for all of us.
Throughout this series, we have established that grace can be understood as God's riches at Christ's expense. Paul sets the gospel apart from world philosophy, from religion, and in fact, takes a wrecking ball to religion itself.
You have two options:
The gospel can be summed up in two words: grace and peace. Peace is where we're going. Grace is how we get there. Grace is the vehicle; peace is the destination.
Paul has established three essential truths about grace:
Grace favors like a parent. Just as you favor your own child over any other child, God extends His unmerited favor to His children. God loves all of us as if there were only one of us. He goes above and beyond and is a better parent than any earthly parent. His favor is extended abundantly—as David would say, "My cup runs over."
Grace flows like a flood. When a river exceeds its banks, the flood spreads everywhere. Similarly, grace overflows into every area of our lives. We come to Christ for different reasons and discover that God met us where we were. But eventually, this grace jumps out of that one isolated situation and starts flowing into other areas—our marriage, our career, the way we steward our finances, how we manage illness. It has an abounding effect.
Grace fits like a glove. God's grace is tailor-fit to every single one of us. God is aware of your brokenness. He doesn't run from your mess. He's not intimidated by all the things you and I do wrong. He leans in with extreme adoration and an unyielding devotion to you and I. Even when we go sideways, turn our back on Him, and swell up in pride assuming we can do it on our own, He stands ready every single day of our lives to work in us and through us. Even when we're running in the wrong direction, He stays in pursuit of us.
This grace is an absolute game-changer.
In his overwhelming response, Paul worships three things:
The person who doesn't actually praise God is the person who hasn't accurately appraised God. It's the person who has taken Him for granted, jumped on the spiritual treadmill, and is going through the motions—settling for some surface version of God without realizing His magnitude, riches, greatness, and mesmerizing, wonderful attributes.
Even if all God did was die on a cross to pay for our sins, we would be spoiled rotten. The fact that He does immeasurably more is staggering. This is Him favoring like a parent.
Here is where many of us get exposed for unwarranted pride: the person frustrated with God being mysterious is trying to reduce God to something or someone that cannot provide what we need. We do not want a God who fits into the confines of our limited minds. We need a God who is so much greater, a God who is beyond our comprehension.
This doesn't mean God is hiding or keeping secrets. God is infinitely comprehensible. You can wake up every single day of your life discovering something new about God. You can do the same thing the next day. God is such a big deal that there is always more to discover. Be glad this God is beyond your comprehension. Be glad there's still more you can learn.
Paul asks: "Who has counseled God?" This is a comical question because most of us initially assume prayer is us going to God to inform Him of our plans. But the reality is that we don't have the control we think we have.
We are control seekers by nature. We set a budget, and our car breaks down. We start working out, and we get a terminal illness. We make plans, and our kids disrupt them. We start to realize there is so much outside of our control, and this creates agitation and anxiety in the soul.
But here is the good news for the believer: we know the One who is in control, and He is so much better than us. He knows all things. He's all-powerful. He's always present. He's absolutely brilliant. And folks, He never lies.
Before long, you start to realize: "I'm glad I don't have control. I'm glad someone of His pedigree and uniqueness has control."
God doesn't need our advice. He is already proactively working in our lives.
Paul quotes Isaiah and Job when he asks: "Who has ever given to God that God ought to repay him?" In both questions—"Who has counseled God?" and "Who has given to God?"—Paul is emphasizing the consistency of God's character throughout Scripture. God doesn't owe you anything.
This may sound harsh, but it is actually merciful. Throughout his entire letter, Paul has been taking a wrecking ball to performance, to religion. He wants us to know that our pardon and God's grace are not compensation. They are not a wage. They are a gift.
We have not manipulated the heartstrings of God. He is simply proactively saying: I love you so much. Even when you were unaware of it, I made this available to you. There is an incredible, tender, intentional mercy in God, and He is consistent through it all.
Paul concludes: "From him are all things. Through him are all things and to him are all things."
He is referring to grace's work in our lives. Grace is the vehicle that carries us through life and accomplishes God's plan and purposes in us and through us.
Grace starts. Grace is the initiator. You and I don't become Christians by any other means. It is simply by the grace of God and our faith in Christ that we are grafted into the family of God.
Grace is the fuel in the tank. If we as Christians try to live out a life for Christ that is not initiated by grace and sustained by grace, we will not only miss the mark and throw in the towel—we will exhaust our faculties trying to manufacture something we cannot produce on our own.
The power required to live out this life for Christ is beyond us. Yet now that we have received Christ, we have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This grace continues to carry us forward, and it is available not just for our past or present, but for our future.
When you become a Christian, God does not wave a wand over your life and make you perfect overnight. God is not making robots; he is raising children. He is not concerned with the speed of our growth but with the strength of our growth. He takes us one step at a time, knowing we will make more mistakes.
The person who is not rooted in grace cannot shoulder the shame that comes with their pitfalls. It brings too much self-sabotage, too much self-loathing, too much self-deprecating thinking that trips us up. If you are not sustained by grace, if you are not anchored every single day in God's redemptive work in your life, you will run out of gas.
When you live a life anchored in grace, it gives you a compass to help you navigate the complications of our world. You start to gain clarity: this steers my life. I take my cues from Christ, not from culture, not from my peers, not from Google, not from ChatGPT. I am taking my cues from the one who offered me this life-altering grace.
Paul wants us to know that it is in grace that we discover our person—your identity. If your identity is not rock solid, your activity is going to be bizarre. Who you are determines what you do, not the other way around.
We live anchored in grace, understanding that by what Christ has done, he said: "I'll take your brokenness and I will give you my righteousness." Now you are a child of God—a son, a daughter, an heir to the kingdom. This is the mindset and identity that you live within every single day.
You do not approach life as just some broken-down sinner without hope. You approach life as a child of God, growing as a saint with the imputed righteousness of Christ, reflecting him to the best of your ability.
Grace is the power and energy that carries us through. When you give your life to Christ, there comes a driving force in your life. You discover you are suddenly empowered. Your life has been altered. You now live with new desires, a new devotion. Your life is aimed in a new direction. You walk with a new demeanor. There has been a shift, and it is all because of the power of grace at work in your life.
Grace is also the motivation and purpose. You wake up every single day with this mindset: Wait a second, he did what for me? Why would I not go all-in for the one who went all-in for me?
This is where you find individuals who show up to church and sign up for things before a campus pastor ever gets on the platform asking for volunteers. Individuals who are anchored in grace don't need the prompting because they already have the purpose.
In chapter 12, Paul will shift into what is referred to as marks of maturity. As you live for Christ, you take on a different substance evident in the maturity of your life. Paul moves from theology to doxology—from teaching to worship and praise—and then he moves from doxology to duty.
Serving Christ is such a delight and such a privilege, an honorable duty that we get to be part of the cause of Christ. In the same way God knew when the world would need a Mother Teresa and when it would need a Billy Graham, God knew when the world would need you. God places us in the positions we are in for such a time as this. It is a wonderful heavenly duty that we get to reflect Christ in our spaces.
Why is this worship component so important? Worship is catalytic. It is instrumental to your growth. It is not just so you can show up on a weekend and have 15 minutes of inspiration to give you some emotional high so you can walk out the door and live as a supercharged Christian for the next three hours. That is not worship.
Worship is not a feeling. There will be times you show up to church and you don't feel like worshiping. It has been one of those weeks. You are not showing up full of joy. But it is in these moments that you make an active choice: despite what you are facing, despite what you are carrying, you know your God is faithful, and so you are going to worship him.
One thing all of us will struggle with—seen throughout Scripture and evident in the nation of Israel—is developing spiritual amnesia. We have a tendency to experience God's goodness, to experience his faithfulness, to walk in his purpose and plans for our life, to see his provision and his power, only to get down the road and forget it all happened. Suddenly we are irritated with God and we are frustrated.
When you start to realize that you did not take time to celebrate and to worship and to really reinforce God's work in and through your life, you miss something vital. Every blessing that does not turn back to praise has the potential to turn into pride. Before long, we go through life not living active, worshipful lives toward God. We just develop an ego that assumes anything good in our life is our own doing, and we edge God out.
Worship is our way of reminding our soul of who our God is. Prayer and praise are the bookends to a lot of this. They are spiritual disciplines that if you are truly going to follow Christ, you have got to have rock solid.
When we say worship, it does not mean you need to show up every single day with both hands raised, singing at the top of your lungs. It is not how you express it; it is to whom you address it. That is what matters in worship.
If a bride walks in the room and you stand, or if the president walks in the room and you stand, but when Christ comes into the room and you don't change your posture at all, consider what that communicates. At some point your hands have got to come out of your pockets. At some point it is like, I actually believe that he did this for me, so I might want to change my posture for him and live a life of worship.
Worship magnifies in our heart and mind God's work, his promises, and his work of redemption. It is a wonderful thing to say, "I want to live a worshipful life that praises God and does not lose sight of his grace and his work in my life."
What worship does is make a big deal of our God, which is so much better than worry. Those are your options: you can go through life worshiping, or you can go through life worrying. You can go through life with the victim's mindset, or you can go through life with the victor's mindset.
A worshipper says, "No, I know who my God is. I adore him, and he deserves all my praise and all my adoration."
There was a man named William Borden in 1904. His family owned the Borden milk empire. For his high school graduation gift, his very affluent parents gave him a trip around the world. When he returned, his entire family was surprised that he did not return with a dream to take over the family company. Instead, he returned with a calling on his life to share the gospel around the world, specifically to individuals of the Muslim faith.
He enrolled at Yale University, which at the time had about 1,300 students. He decided to start a prayer meeting during the week. Every single week, he would gather with individuals for prayer. At one point, they had over a thousand kids praying every single week at Yale University with a student body of only 1,300. This guy was a force.
When he decided to go out on the mission field, he wrote two words in his Bible: "No reserves." In other words, I am giving it all. I am not holding anything back from God. I am giving him my all.
As he jumped into this and headed out onto the mission field, he began to face trials. He actually came down with an illness on his way to his destination. He wrote two more words in his Bible: "No retreat."
Tragically, his illness took his life at the age of 25 before he ever even arrived at the place he was going. Before he passed, he wrote two more words: "No regrets."
This story is talked about and discussed in circles of missionaries and has been for years. Here is an individual who had an encounter with God. God stretched his perspective on things, and he said, "You know what? Moving forward, I am not living with any reserves. I am done holding back on a God who doesn't hold back on me."
If I could be your friend and your pastor, I would say this: get off the fence. Not for my benefit, not for our church's benefit, but for your benefit. Going through life shallow, uncommitted, lacking devotion and commitment to your faith—you only rob yourself.
Learn to say, "No, I am going all-in for Christ. I am not operating with some cultural, shallow form of Christianity. This actually matters to me. This carries substance in my soul. This is the anchor of my life. It is not only what starts this new beginning; it is what steers my life and sustains it the entire time. I am giving him my all. I trust him fully. There are no reserves, and in addition to that, there are no retreats. There is no plan B. The cross before me, the world behind me, no turning back."
Christ was never trying to get anyone to make an impulsive decision. He was never trying to dupe someone into quickly deciding, "Okay, I am in." He would say, "No, no, no, no. You need to pump the brakes. You need to count the cost." No one builds a tower without a blueprint. No one goes into war without a strategy. You need to think about this decision, and when you get into it, you don't quit.
As you find yourself at that place of saying, "Okay, he went all-in for me. I am going all-in for him"—do it with a resolve that says, I am not quitting. I am going after God, and there are no retreats.
William Borden's story for some might be depressing. This guy passes away on route to his destiny, where he was feeling called. We would think that is a tragedy. For him, he was like, I don't have a single regret. What you discover in the life of William Borden is that though it didn't play out the way he thought it would, God still did amazing things in and through his life.
Still, here we are all these years later talking about the influence of this guy who said yes to God. Just don't underestimate how God might choose to use your yes. Just saying to God, "You deserve all of me. My full devotion to you, be the glory forever and ever. Amen."
The book of Romans addresses one of the most paramount questions within every human heart: How do we get right with God? While not everyone verbalizes it in those exact words, we wrestle with deeper questions: Is there a point to this life? What is the meaning of existence? Is there truth? Is there a God? Deep within each of us lies an unsettled feeling that whispers there must be more, and perhaps there is a God behind it all.
You and I are fallen individuals in a fallen world. This isn't meant to be insulting but insightful. We look at the brokenness, wickedness, and evil around us, yet true humility requires us to look in the mirror and acknowledge that these broken tendencies also exist within us. Our human nature places us at odds with our Maker.
When we wrestle with our options, Paul's answer in Romans is clear: there is only one option, and that is Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world.
Romans is written in the form of a debate. Paul goes to the marketplace of ideas, inviting everyone to reason together—bringing all their suspicion, accusations, objections, and questions to the table. What makes Paul compelling is that he is not defensive. He is patient, gentle, and persuasive. He lays out the gospel with such clarity and concise terms that you begin to realize: Christianity, the gospel, is historically sound, philosophically sound, theologically sound, and academically defensible.
It is worth your time to kick the tires and ask: Who is Jesus? Does He truly have a plan for my life? What has He already accomplished that changes everything when I place my faith in Him?
After Paul exhausts Jewish history and answers all the pressing questions in chapters 9–11, he breaks into a doxology—a word of glory. This section is the most personal to Paul; it is the part of his letter that would have come with tears, with relational impact and consequences. It is his story.
"Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out. Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen."
The word doxology comes from two Greek words: doxo (glory) and logos (word)—essentially, a word of glory.
Throughout this series, many have raised questions about the tension that arises in chapters 7–11, where different theological camps and traditions emerge. We can exhaust these debates and even take on irritation with other believers who view things slightly differently.
But here is the critical point: if you get to the end of chapter 11 focused only on the tension between Arminian and Calvinist perspectives, you have missed what Paul is saying. The appropriate response to understanding the gospel is not doctrinal debate—it is worship.
The fundamental tension Paul addresses is this: Who are God's people? Will God choose the Jew or the Gentile? Who does God love?
Paul's answer swings wide open: the gospel is good news for all. Anybody who places their faith in Jesus Christ will be saved. It does not matter who you are, where you've been, or what you've done. It is all about His performance and His accolades.
This is good news for all of us.
Throughout this series, we have established that grace can be understood as God's riches at Christ's expense. Paul sets the gospel apart from world philosophy, from religion, and in fact, takes a wrecking ball to religion itself.
You have two options:
The gospel can be summed up in two words: grace and peace. Peace is where we're going. Grace is how we get there. Grace is the vehicle; peace is the destination.
Paul has established three essential truths about grace:
Grace favors like a parent. Just as you favor your own child over any other child, God extends His unmerited favor to His children. God loves all of us as if there were only one of us. He goes above and beyond and is a better parent than any earthly parent. His favor is extended abundantly—as David would say, "My cup runs over."
Grace flows like a flood. When a river exceeds its banks, the flood spreads everywhere. Similarly, grace overflows into every area of our lives. We come to Christ for different reasons and discover that God met us where we were. But eventually, this grace jumps out of that one isolated situation and starts flowing into other areas—our marriage, our career, the way we steward our finances, how we manage illness. It has an abounding effect.
Grace fits like a glove. God's grace is tailor-fit to every single one of us. God is aware of your brokenness. He doesn't run from your mess. He's not intimidated by all the things you and I do wrong. He leans in with extreme adoration and an unyielding devotion to you and I. Even when we go sideways, turn our back on Him, and swell up in pride assuming we can do it on our own, He stands ready every single day of our lives to work in us and through us. Even when we're running in the wrong direction, He stays in pursuit of us.
This grace is an absolute game-changer.
In his overwhelming response, Paul worships three things:
The person who doesn't actually praise God is the person who hasn't accurately appraised God. It's the person who has taken Him for granted, jumped on the spiritual treadmill, and is going through the motions—settling for some surface version of God without realizing His magnitude, riches, greatness, and mesmerizing, wonderful attributes.
Even if all God did was die on a cross to pay for our sins, we would be spoiled rotten. The fact that He does immeasurably more is staggering. This is Him favoring like a parent.
Here is where many of us get exposed for unwarranted pride: the person frustrated with God being mysterious is trying to reduce God to something or someone that cannot provide what we need. We do not want a God who fits into the confines of our limited minds. We need a God who is so much greater, a God who is beyond our comprehension.
This doesn't mean God is hiding or keeping secrets. God is infinitely comprehensible. You can wake up every single day of your life discovering something new about God. You can do the same thing the next day. God is such a big deal that there is always more to discover. Be glad this God is beyond your comprehension. Be glad there's still more you can learn.
Paul asks: "Who has counseled God?" This is a comical question because most of us initially assume prayer is us going to God to inform Him of our plans. But the reality is that we don't have the control we think we have.
We are control seekers by nature. We set a budget, and our car breaks down. We start working out, and we get a terminal illness. We make plans, and our kids disrupt them. We start to realize there is so much outside of our control, and this creates agitation and anxiety in the soul.
But here is the good news for the believer: we know the One who is in control, and He is so much better than us. He knows all things. He's all-powerful. He's always present. He's absolutely brilliant. And folks, He never lies.
Before long, you start to realize: "I'm glad I don't have control. I'm glad someone of His pedigree and uniqueness has control."
God doesn't need our advice. He is already proactively working in our lives.
Paul quotes Isaiah and Job when he asks: "Who has ever given to God that God ought to repay him?" In both questions—"Who has counseled God?" and "Who has given to God?"—Paul is emphasizing the consistency of God's character throughout Scripture. God doesn't owe you anything.
This may sound harsh, but it is actually merciful. Throughout his entire letter, Paul has been taking a wrecking ball to performance, to religion. He wants us to know that our pardon and God's grace are not compensation. They are not a wage. They are a gift.
We have not manipulated the heartstrings of God. He is simply proactively saying: I love you so much. Even when you were unaware of it, I made this available to you. There is an incredible, tender, intentional mercy in God, and He is consistent through it all.
Paul concludes: "From him are all things. Through him are all things and to him are all things."
He is referring to grace's work in our lives. Grace is the vehicle that carries us through life and accomplishes God's plan and purposes in us and through us.
Grace starts. Grace is the initiator. You and I don't become Christians by any other means. It is simply by the grace of God and our faith in Christ that we are grafted into the family of God.
Grace is the fuel in the tank. If we as Christians try to live out a life for Christ that is not initiated by grace and sustained by grace, we will not only miss the mark and throw in the towel—we will exhaust our faculties trying to manufacture something we cannot produce on our own.
The power required to live out this life for Christ is beyond us. Yet now that we have received Christ, we have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This grace continues to carry us forward, and it is available not just for our past or present, but for our future.
When you become a Christian, God does not wave a wand over your life and make you perfect overnight. God is not making robots; he is raising children. He is not concerned with the speed of our growth but with the strength of our growth. He takes us one step at a time, knowing we will make more mistakes.
The person who is not rooted in grace cannot shoulder the shame that comes with their pitfalls. It brings too much self-sabotage, too much self-loathing, too much self-deprecating thinking that trips us up. If you are not sustained by grace, if you are not anchored every single day in God's redemptive work in your life, you will run out of gas.
When you live a life anchored in grace, it gives you a compass to help you navigate the complications of our world. You start to gain clarity: this steers my life. I take my cues from Christ, not from culture, not from my peers, not from Google, not from ChatGPT. I am taking my cues from the one who offered me this life-altering grace.
Paul wants us to know that it is in grace that we discover our person—your identity. If your identity is not rock solid, your activity is going to be bizarre. Who you are determines what you do, not the other way around.
We live anchored in grace, understanding that by what Christ has done, he said: "I'll take your brokenness and I will give you my righteousness." Now you are a child of God—a son, a daughter, an heir to the kingdom. This is the mindset and identity that you live within every single day.
You do not approach life as just some broken-down sinner without hope. You approach life as a child of God, growing as a saint with the imputed righteousness of Christ, reflecting him to the best of your ability.
Grace is the power and energy that carries us through. When you give your life to Christ, there comes a driving force in your life. You discover you are suddenly empowered. Your life has been altered. You now live with new desires, a new devotion. Your life is aimed in a new direction. You walk with a new demeanor. There has been a shift, and it is all because of the power of grace at work in your life.
Grace is also the motivation and purpose. You wake up every single day with this mindset: Wait a second, he did what for me? Why would I not go all-in for the one who went all-in for me?
This is where you find individuals who show up to church and sign up for things before a campus pastor ever gets on the platform asking for volunteers. Individuals who are anchored in grace don't need the prompting because they already have the purpose.
In chapter 12, Paul will shift into what is referred to as marks of maturity. As you live for Christ, you take on a different substance evident in the maturity of your life. Paul moves from theology to doxology—from teaching to worship and praise—and then he moves from doxology to duty.
Serving Christ is such a delight and such a privilege, an honorable duty that we get to be part of the cause of Christ. In the same way God knew when the world would need a Mother Teresa and when it would need a Billy Graham, God knew when the world would need you. God places us in the positions we are in for such a time as this. It is a wonderful heavenly duty that we get to reflect Christ in our spaces.
Why is this worship component so important? Worship is catalytic. It is instrumental to your growth. It is not just so you can show up on a weekend and have 15 minutes of inspiration to give you some emotional high so you can walk out the door and live as a supercharged Christian for the next three hours. That is not worship.
Worship is not a feeling. There will be times you show up to church and you don't feel like worshiping. It has been one of those weeks. You are not showing up full of joy. But it is in these moments that you make an active choice: despite what you are facing, despite what you are carrying, you know your God is faithful, and so you are going to worship him.
One thing all of us will struggle with—seen throughout Scripture and evident in the nation of Israel—is developing spiritual amnesia. We have a tendency to experience God's goodness, to experience his faithfulness, to walk in his purpose and plans for our life, to see his provision and his power, only to get down the road and forget it all happened. Suddenly we are irritated with God and we are frustrated.
When you start to realize that you did not take time to celebrate and to worship and to really reinforce God's work in and through your life, you miss something vital. Every blessing that does not turn back to praise has the potential to turn into pride. Before long, we go through life not living active, worshipful lives toward God. We just develop an ego that assumes anything good in our life is our own doing, and we edge God out.
Worship is our way of reminding our soul of who our God is. Prayer and praise are the bookends to a lot of this. They are spiritual disciplines that if you are truly going to follow Christ, you have got to have rock solid.
When we say worship, it does not mean you need to show up every single day with both hands raised, singing at the top of your lungs. It is not how you express it; it is to whom you address it. That is what matters in worship.
If a bride walks in the room and you stand, or if the president walks in the room and you stand, but when Christ comes into the room and you don't change your posture at all, consider what that communicates. At some point your hands have got to come out of your pockets. At some point it is like, I actually believe that he did this for me, so I might want to change my posture for him and live a life of worship.
Worship magnifies in our heart and mind God's work, his promises, and his work of redemption. It is a wonderful thing to say, "I want to live a worshipful life that praises God and does not lose sight of his grace and his work in my life."
What worship does is make a big deal of our God, which is so much better than worry. Those are your options: you can go through life worshiping, or you can go through life worrying. You can go through life with the victim's mindset, or you can go through life with the victor's mindset.
A worshipper says, "No, I know who my God is. I adore him, and he deserves all my praise and all my adoration."
There was a man named William Borden in 1904. His family owned the Borden milk empire. For his high school graduation gift, his very affluent parents gave him a trip around the world. When he returned, his entire family was surprised that he did not return with a dream to take over the family company. Instead, he returned with a calling on his life to share the gospel around the world, specifically to individuals of the Muslim faith.
He enrolled at Yale University, which at the time had about 1,300 students. He decided to start a prayer meeting during the week. Every single week, he would gather with individuals for prayer. At one point, they had over a thousand kids praying every single week at Yale University with a student body of only 1,300. This guy was a force.
When he decided to go out on the mission field, he wrote two words in his Bible: "No reserves." In other words, I am giving it all. I am not holding anything back from God. I am giving him my all.
As he jumped into this and headed out onto the mission field, he began to face trials. He actually came down with an illness on his way to his destination. He wrote two more words in his Bible: "No retreat."
Tragically, his illness took his life at the age of 25 before he ever even arrived at the place he was going. Before he passed, he wrote two more words: "No regrets."
This story is talked about and discussed in circles of missionaries and has been for years. Here is an individual who had an encounter with God. God stretched his perspective on things, and he said, "You know what? Moving forward, I am not living with any reserves. I am done holding back on a God who doesn't hold back on me."
If I could be your friend and your pastor, I would say this: get off the fence. Not for my benefit, not for our church's benefit, but for your benefit. Going through life shallow, uncommitted, lacking devotion and commitment to your faith—you only rob yourself.
Learn to say, "No, I am going all-in for Christ. I am not operating with some cultural, shallow form of Christianity. This actually matters to me. This carries substance in my soul. This is the anchor of my life. It is not only what starts this new beginning; it is what steers my life and sustains it the entire time. I am giving him my all. I trust him fully. There are no reserves, and in addition to that, there are no retreats. There is no plan B. The cross before me, the world behind me, no turning back."
Christ was never trying to get anyone to make an impulsive decision. He was never trying to dupe someone into quickly deciding, "Okay, I am in." He would say, "No, no, no, no. You need to pump the brakes. You need to count the cost." No one builds a tower without a blueprint. No one goes into war without a strategy. You need to think about this decision, and when you get into it, you don't quit.
As you find yourself at that place of saying, "Okay, he went all-in for me. I am going all-in for him"—do it with a resolve that says, I am not quitting. I am going after God, and there are no retreats.
William Borden's story for some might be depressing. This guy passes away on route to his destiny, where he was feeling called. We would think that is a tragedy. For him, he was like, I don't have a single regret. What you discover in the life of William Borden is that though it didn't play out the way he thought it would, God still did amazing things in and through his life.
Still, here we are all these years later talking about the influence of this guy who said yes to God. Just don't underestimate how God might choose to use your yes. Just saying to God, "You deserve all of me. My full devotion to you, be the glory forever and ever. Amen."
