In Romans 12:1-2, Paul writes, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

In this passage, Paul identifies a basic challenge that every believer must overcome: being conformed to the pattern of this world. The phrase “pattern of this world” was Paul’s way of identifying cultural context.

Understanding cultural context is valuable in every aspect of life. But when it comes to offering God our true and proper worship, understanding it is vital. Here’s a quick tutorial on cultural context:

Con means with and text means the narrative or the story. Putting something in context means placing it properly within the text of story that came before and after it. Has someone ever taken something you said out of context? Doing so can completely twist the meaning. Context is always important.

Cultural refers to the ideas, customs and social behavior of a society. To make sense of why someone has done or said something, you must place their actions within their cultural context. Cross-cultural experiences help us to understand people who are different than us — while also helping us to understand ourselves.

There are two words that aptly describe our cultural context: consumerist and self-reliant.

The American way of life is built on consumption. Free market capitalism requires it. From the moment we are born, we are bred to consume. Consumerism naturally results in self-centeredness. That’s not a judgment, it’s simply a cultural observation. We Americans are bred to be self-centered.

Our way of life also values self-reliance. This is especially true in rural and mountainous northcentral Pennsylvania. We take great pride in our ability to take care of ourselves. People living in the vast metropolitan areas on the east and west coasts do not understand our culture — and frankly, we don’t understand theirs. This cultural divide has much to do with the political divide of our times. It’s all about the differences in cultural context.

The cultural context of the Kingdom of Heaven is also much different than our cultural context. This is why Paul commanded us “to no longer be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Kingdom culture is the exact opposite of our culture. It is selfless and interdependent and built on servanthood. It is very hard for us self-centered and self-reliant consumers to adopt a selfless and servanthood lifestyle.

For example, when we think about worship, we generally picture going to the church of our choice and consuming the kind of worship we like or are accustomed to. We pursue worship when we want it, where we want it, the way we want it, and with the people we want. We measure the value of the service by whether or not it met our spiritual needs. We have strong opinions about the music and the sermon and the parking lot and the comfortableness of the chairs and the temperature of the room. We give our tithes and offerings, but truth be told, we actually see them as membership dues — the price we pay to get the church experience we want. We self-centered and self-reliant consumerist Americans worship exactly the way our cultural context bred us to worship. It’s all about us.

It is the sin of idolatry. Self-worship is no different than the worship of some wooden or stone idol. It breaks the first command “You shall have no other gods before me.” Many Christians get hung up on the sins they see in others, while completely overlooking the obvious and primary sin in their own lives. It’s why Jesus warned us about pointing out the speck of sawdust in someone else’s eye while living with a big piece of lumber stuck in our own. See Matthew 7.

The culture of the Kingdom is vastly different than our culture, and if we’re not careful, we will claim to worship God while actually worshiping ourselves.

If you want to offer pure worship to God, then place your self-centered consumerism and independent self-reliance on the altar and let it die there. It is the only way to offer God pure worship. Jesus commanded it, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.” Luke 9:23-24.

My dear friends, we cannot allow our cultural context to define our worship. The culture of the Kingdom of Heaven is different, and it is only in selfless service and sacrifice that God receives our worship.

If you want to offer to God true and proper worship, then climb onto the altar and give yourself as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. Die to your self-centered consumerism and self-reliant independence and adopt the other-centered and servanthood culture of the Kingdom of Heaven. It won’t be easy for any of us, but nothing of true value is ever easy to gain. By God’s grace, we can do it. Amen.