2/19/23 True Transformation

True Transformation

Romans 12:1-2

The year was 1923. Historian Doane Robinson had a big idea…a very big idea. Mr. Robinson wanted to promote tourism in the western part of the United States and felt as though something on a grand scale would be needed to persuade people to drive all the way out to South Dakota in their model T automobiles.

Model T’s topped out at around 40 – 45mph. Consequently, for someone living in New York, the trip of 1,500 miles to South Dakota would require 3, 12-hour days of driving…4 days if you lived in Florida. Not to mention, of course, the return trip of the same time and distance.

Whatever this attraction would consist of, it would need to be awe-inspiring in order for people to sacrifice a week of their time traveling through the relatively boring landscape of the Midwest and Great Plains. Flat, endless fields of crops and grassland aren’t exactly eye-candy for most people! This attraction would need to be epic in order to entice people to such a remote part of the country.

But, as was mentioned earlier, Mr. Robinson had a big idea. He just needed someone to transform his idea into reality.

Enter Gutzon Borglum. Mr. Borglum was a sculptor by trade and was known for his recent work on a stone memorial down in Georgia. Mr. Robinson met with Mr. Borglum and persuaded him to begin working on this big idea of his out in the Black Hills region of South Dakota.

Robinson’s big idea was for a mountainside to be transformed into an art sculpture depicting great American heroes. After some discussion, four US presidents were chosen to be immortalized on the sheer face of this 5,700’ granite cliff: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. These men represented the first 150 years of American History. It would be a super-sized homage to our country’s liberty, independence, and prosperity.

After 4 years of planning and securing federal financing, the project finally got underway. Borglum oversaw 400 laborers who began carving the mountainside into what we of course know today as the Mt. Rushmore National Memorial.

The transformation to the South-East face of Mt. Rushmore didn’t happen overnight. Fourteen years, 3 presidents, and 140,000 tons of blasted rock later, the monument was finally completed in 1941 amidst the shadow of WW2.

Lasting transformation takes time and effort. Whether it involves carving out rock from the side of a mountain or carving out worldly desires from a human heart.

Our passage today is about transformation – spiritual transformation.

For some context, last week we looked at verse 1 of Romans Chapter 12. We talked about true worship – what it is, and what it is not. We saw how the Bible defines worship as the continual process of sacrificing our sinful nature on the alter of obedience to God. This obedience is motivated by gratitude to our Heavenly Father for sending Jesus Christ to the cross for our sins thereby providing a path to eternal salvation.

Today, our focus will be on verse 2 of Romans chapter 12.

In full disclosure, outside of the Gospels, Romans 12:2 is my favorite verse in the Bible – I’m very partial to this passage. I have a band on my wrist that I wear everyday reminding me of its importance in my life.

To me, this single verse contains the key to successfully living out the Christian faith. Some days I’m more successful at it than others, but no matter how a particular day is going for me, this verse continually reminds me of what a Jesus follower ought to look like and how he ought to live.

What should my relationship to the world look like?

What should I be spending my time doing?

What should I be thinking about?

What is God’s Will for my life…and how do I find it?

These are all practical questions for how to live as a follower of Christ, and they are all answered by this one incredible verse.

Romans 12:2 is comprised of 3 distinct sections that we will be taking a look at this morning.

The First section is this: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world.”

The Greek word for ‘Conform’ (suschematizo) literally refers to “An outward expression that does not reflect what is within.”

Remember that Paul is speaking to believers here. He is warning them against putting on a false front (Or façade) in order to better fit in with society’s expectations – many of which are in opposition to God’s Word.

J.B. Phillips paraphrases it this way: “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold.”

The art of making an acoustic guitar (like the one you see behind me on the stage) is a very intricate process. In one of the initial stages of production, the builder (Called a Luthier) will take a thin piece of wood and begin to steam it. Eventually, the wood becomes saturated to the point where it becomes pliable. It is then bent into a mold that will make the wood stay in a curved shape while it begins to dry. Once the drying process is complete, the wood stays in the curved shape of the mold, making the shape that you see on the sides of a guitar.

In the same way, if we saturate our minds with the ‘steam’ of the world, we will become bendable to the point that we will ‘fit the mold’ of secularism and worldliness. If we choose to make this kind of living a lifestyle, we will find that our shape – our desires and cravings – will begin to naturally accommodate the mold in which we have grown accustomed to. In other words, the drying process will begin, and we will start to feel comfortable in a worldly “shape” of sinful disobedience – A shape we were never designed to take on.

This is what it means to be conformed to the pattern of the world around us.

We have to remember that Jesus has called us out of this world.

1 Peter 2:9 says “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.”

God says that we do not belong to the pattern of this world, therefore we should avoid the temptation to conform to its image.

James 4:4 says it a bit more bluntly: “You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.”

“Enmity”, by the way, means “hostility” or “animosity” – if we live no differently than the world lives, we will be at odds with God….and that is not a place any of us wants to be!

Non-conformity can be difficult, but it’s something that every Christian is called to do.

Remember that one kid in school who was the non-conformist of the class? He or she would always do or say things that went against the prevailing ideology of pretty much everyone else….maybe YOU were that kid! 😊 

Even though the motives behind most middle-school non-conformity is, well, less than righteous (usually it’s a desire for attention) I always kind of admired a kid willing to stand up for what he believed, knowing full well that a detention, a black eye, or public ridicule of some kind was sure to follow.  

I sometimes ask myself, if a 7th grader isn’t afraid to fall on the sword of public humiliation for a silly misguided belief of some kind, why am I (An adult) sometimes afraid to take a little heat for proclaiming the name of Jesus in word or deed?

As believers, we carry the most important message that the world will ever know in the pages of this book (the Bible)

We are called to non-conformity. We are called to be salt and light – we are called to be different. We are called to stand out from the crowd. We are called to be holy as he is holy. We are called to tell others about salvation found only in Jesus Christ.

Will you answer that call?

Will you express your opinion at that school board meeting where Biblical morality is under attack?

Will you write a letter to the editor when the newspaper aligns itself with an ungodly position?

Will you inform that coworker who continually uses God’s name in vain that you find their speech offensive?

Will you get up and walk out of that movie or school play when an LGBTQ agenda begins to be promoted or celebrated?

Will you stop patronizing businesses and companies that openly and actively promote anti-biblical agendas?

Will you agree to hold an anti-abortion sign along a busy highway?

Will you agree to stand out from the crowd?…and Yes, you will receive a certain amount of public ridicule, maybe even hatred from certain people. This is part of being a follower of Jesus.

John 15:18 says “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.”

There is a sacrifice that we make when we accept Jesus as Lord & Savior of our lives. In exchange for receiving the unfathomable blessings of sonship into God’s Kingdom, we willingly give up the right to pursue our own will, our own desires, our own comfort, and yes, in some cases, our public image.

Luke 9:23-26: “Then he said to them all: ‘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. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.’”

What a tragedy it would be for someone to live their entire earthly life chasing the things of this world only to then appear before God and be denied entrance into His eternal Kingdom.

Please, DO NOT let that person be you!

The second section of Romans 12:2 says “But be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Do any of your children or grandchildren like to play with Transformers? You know, the action figures that can change from the shape of a robot into a car, or a truck, or an airplane, etc.

There is something fascinating about watching something change from one form into another right before our eyes.

For me, the caterpillar to butterfly transformation in nature is probably the most amazing part of God’s creation. It’s almost as if God provides the butterfly for us to tangibly visualize the change that he can make inside the human heart. It is a truly amazing and inspiring process.

When Paul talks about being transformed by the renewing of our mind, he is describing an inward process of change – one that takes place on a daily basis, and has as its goal, our maturing into becoming more like Jesus every day.

The theological word for this process is called sanctification. Sanctification means to be ‘set apart’ and involves 2 parts: a completed component and a procedural component.

When someone comes to faith in Christ, they are ‘set apart’ in the sense of being adopted into the family of God. This component of sanctification is completed in full upon one’s coming to Christ – In theological terminology, upon one’s ‘regeneration.’ In other words, one is ‘Saved’.

The other component of sanctification is a life-long process. It involves the believer becoming more mature in his or her faith each and every day. This is what Paul is referring to when he talks about being “transformed by the renewing of our mind.”

The two components of sanctification are similar to someone’s lifespan in which one’s birth is an event, and the rest of one’s life is a process.

When Lisa & I were in Mexico a few weeks ago, we went for a walk along the beach and came to a place where there were numerous rocks along the shoreline. We were barefoot and at first, we thought that we would need to turn around as rocks and bare feet typically don’t get along too well.

But these rocks were different. These rocks were very smooth and easy on the feet. Years and years of waves crashing into them had eroded all of the sharp edges away, leaving many of them with a smooth ‘walkable’ surface. All of these rocks were in the process of being transformed. Some were smoother than others, but they were all undergoing a similar process.

So it is with us. Some Christians are a bit ‘smoother’ than others, but we are all undergoing the process of ‘spiritual erosion’ to take away the rough edges of our lives.

This is the process of sanctification. This is the process of spiritual transformation.

Sometimes it may feel as if your rate of erosion isn’t going as fast as you’d like, right?...I have that feeling - Often.

Well, there are some ways to ‘Expedite the process’ of sanctification.

It’s really no secret. It’s what children learn to do in Sunday School:

Read God’s Word and Pray.

The answer is so simple and yet its seemingly so difficult to fit these two activities into our busy lives, isn’t it?

Change can happen. Transformation can happen. When we immerse ourselves in Scripture and prayer, transformative change WILL happen - But it does require time, effort, and willingness on our part.

The mind is a battlefield. Paul reminds us in chapter six of the book of Ephesians that we need to pray for spiritual protection every day. The armor of God protects us from Satan’s deception, lies, and diversions – and it also provides us with the offensive weapon of scripture to slay the constant temptations that come our way.

2 Corinthians 3:18 says: “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

It is the job of the Holy Spirit to work transformation in our lives. He is the one who gives us strength to persevere in living a life of righteousness. He is the one who provides guidance from God’s Word and discernment while in the world.

That feeling in your gut that tells you something is not aligning with God’s Word? That’s not indigestion, that’s the Holy Spirit speaking to you.

Sometimes anti-biblical activities are easy to spot – like, say, a performance on the Grammy’s that honors Satan. That one was obvious wasn’t it.

Many times, however, recognizing sin is much more subtle and difficult to spot. Maybe it’s a disguised theme in a movie that runs ‘under the surface.’

Maybe it’s the infusion of subtle Eastern religious practices in an otherwise beneficial exercise technique.

Maybe it’s an idol such as wealth, something our society tells us we must have a large amount of in order to be happy.

Practicing Discernment can sometimes be difficult in our world, that’s why it is essential that we get to know the Holy Spirit – and remain obedient to him.

When our minds are continually renewed, the train of transformative sanctification continues down the track at full steam ahead.

The 3rd and final component of Romans 12:2 is summed up with these words: Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Have you ever asked yourself: “What is God’s will for my life?” or for those of us with a few miles on our odometer: “What is God’s Will for the REST of my life?”

Scripture tells us that God is completely sovereign. There is nothing outside of His knowledge. Because He is outside of time, he is as present tomorrow as He is today.

This means that God sees and ordains what you will be doing tomorrow….next week….next year.

The hard part from our perspective can sometimes be anticipating the who, where, when, how, and why related to our future.

Obviously since we are finite creatures who cannot see into the future, we will never know the specific events of tomorrow.

That being said, however, if we remain in God’s Word and regularly communicate with Him in prayer, we will be able to much more easily identify doors in which to walk through in life and doors that would best remain unopened.

If we are being continually transformed through the spiritual disciplines of scripture and prayer, the ‘sanctification train’ of your life will remain on the right track.

Or if you are currently on the wrong spiritual track in life, engage in saturating your mind with God’s Word and ask Him to reveal to you His will for your life going forward.

Years ago, railroad companies would hire a person called a switchman to oversee the points where train tracks met. When a train would be headed toward a point where the tracks crossed, it was the switchman’s responsibility to make sure that the incoming train would leave that area on the correct track.

God is the master switchman. He knows exactly which track your train needs to be on. When you are in radio communication with him through prayer and understand your surroundings through His word, you will always be on the track that your train is meant to be on.

Brothers & Sisters, Romans 12:2 sums up the Christian life in a way that few other passages do. Read it often. Meditate on it. Let its timeless truth saturate your mind.

Allow this verse to be the key that opens the doorway to a confident, joyful, peaceful relationship with God. Let it provide True Transformation in your life!

Let’s Pray.