ROMANS 12:1: “And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.”

OBSERVATION: What does worship have to do with the Hokey Pokey? As I thought about this verse in Romans, I immediately thought about the Hokey Pokey. My wife and I love to visit Antique Stores, and there was an old sign hanging on the wall that showed two people dancing that said,

“The Hokey Pokey! What if that is what it’s all about?”

Paul calls us to worship at the beginning of Romans, Chapter 12. It is not the usual call to stand up and get ready to sing. Today, we view worship as the 30 minutes of singing before a time of prayer and the sermon. When we hear of a worship revival, it is usually focused on extended times of singing and prayer. Is this what Paul had in mind?

In the Hokey Pokey, you start putting your right hand in. Then you take your right hand out, put it back in again, and shake it all about. You do the Hokey Pokey, and you turn yourself around, and everyone sings…

“That’s what it’s all about!”

The song progresses until you get to the part when you put YOUR WHOLE SELF IN. So, when is it really the Hokey Pokey? When is it really worship? Is it worship when we put our singing in and take our singing out? Is it when we put our prayers in and take our prayers out? Is it when we put our message in and put our message out?

Are any of these truly the way to worship?

Jesus addressed these questions when He quoted Isaiah concerning the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and Scribes.

“Jesus replied, “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote, ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’ For you ignore God’s law and substitute your own tradition.” (Mark 7:6-8 NLT)

The religious class in Jesus’ day was doing the Hokey Pokey, and they thought they were truly worshipping God. The only problem was that they never got to the end of the song. They were satisfied with the mechanics of worship but missed the heart of worship. In fact, their heart, their “whole self,” is exactly what they left out of their worship.

Paul is very clear as he calls us to worship. God desires ALL of us. We are to bring ALL of us, our bodies, as a living sacrifice. If we bring our songs but our actions are left to our own choosing, we are not truly worshipping the Lord. Everything else is merely a warm-up if we don’t put our …

“Whole Self In!”

“…I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.” (Romans 12:1 NLT)

Our bodies, our entire life, our actions, our attitudes, our hearts, this is the sacrifice God is looking for. It is a complete and absolute surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. If we sing songs but hold back other areas of our life from the altar, we are only in the preamble of worship. If we continue this way, we are in jeopardy of becoming lip worshippers.

God is looking for those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. This is both a call to give our hearts and our bodies to the Lord. Our heart (spirit) is to be in submission to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Our body is to be obedient to God’s Word (truth). If we give Him our heart but leave other areas of our lives outside the truth, we are not worshipping the Lord the way He desires.

If Paul were leading the worship service on any given Sunday morning, he would not say, “Okay, let’s all stand and put our right hand in!” No, Paul would call us to put our “whole self in!” Worship is a call of absolute surrender. It is a call to give everything I know and even those I am unaware of to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the leading of the Holy Spirit. Only when I do this am I truly worshipping God in spirit and in truth!

Heavenly Father, bring about a revival of worship in my life. Search me and know me. Reveal to me any area of my life that I am withholding from You. May I surrender all. May I offer my body, soul, mind, and strength to You as a living sacrifice, as my true and acceptable worship.

In Jesus’ Name!