SERMON BRIEF
Date Written: December 28, 2000
Date Preached: December 28, 2000
Church: BBC (Wed PM)
FOUNDATIONAL ELEMENTS
Series: Great Imperatives for Christian Living
Title: An Imperative Regarding the Negative and the Positive
Text: Rom 12:1-2
“Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
INTRODUCTION:
As we approach the year 2001 we need to realize and fully understand the opportunities that we will have to share Christ with others through the ministry of this church and living our life in this community. As we look at these opportunities we need to rejoice that God has chosen us to be his vessels…messengers in this world!
So that we may do a BETTER job for God, for our church, for others and for ourselves…I want us to take a few Wednesday nights to look at some of the great imperatives found in the writings of the Apostle Paul as he wrote to the churches that were near and dear to his heart.
The greatest challenge that Paul had for the church at Rome provides us with a very appropriate imperative with which we can seek to begin a new year! The imperatives in our text require that we give careful attention to the forces at work that affect our lives negatively and positively.
The negative imperative in this passage calls our attention to a great danger that we all face, and that is the danger of being contaminated by our environment in which we live. Now I am not speaking of our physical environment, but of the spiritual environment which spills over into the physical environment.
The positive imperative in this passage calls upon the believer to experience a personal, inward spiritual transformation that will produce a radical change in that believer’s conduct in the middle of the negative environment in which we live!
If we view verse 1 of chapter 12 we can see Paul issuing…
1. The Bold Challenge to Full Commitment:
Here we find Paul issuing a challenge to all disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ. The challenge is simple…present you own body as a living sacrifice in service to God and others.
In the Phillips translation of this passage it reads, “With eyes wide open to the mercies of God, I beg you, my brothers, as an act of intelligent worship, to give your bodies, as a living sacrifice, consecrated to Him and acceptable by Him!”
Now this is a very pivotal verse in Paul’s letter to the Romans. Previously in this letter to the church at Rome all of Paul’s writing had been doctrinal in nature, however in this one statement he has transitioned from theory to practice.
Paul is wanting the Christians in Rome (and all disciples of Jesus) to begin to put into practice all that Christ taught. In other words, Paul was saying if it is real to you…it will show in your lifestyle. Paul had dealt with BELIEFS in the 1st part of Romans, but here he was beginning to deal with how each believer should and must express those beliefs!
Total commitment in each believer’s life was not the only message Paul was trying to get across in this letter to the church at Rome. He also had…
2. An Imperative Regarding a Great Danger
In v. 2 Paul exposes a danger to all believers when he wrote, “…Do not be conformed to this world…” Again I would like to use the Phillips translation of this verse to illustrate just what Paul was getting at here…“Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold”
As the saved and redeemed children of God, we have been made into new creatures in Christ. We have become something entirely new from what we used to be, something entirely new from what the world expects of us.
This world is under the dominion of the Evil One, Satan, the Enemy…and his intentions are NOT passive and unconcerned. He is very aggressive in his approach and attack on all of this world. His aggressiveness will require an effort on our part to prevail against it…to keep it from squeezing us into HIS mold.
God calls his children to be different! We are dead to sin and alive to God. Instead of responding to temptation, as Satan would have us respond…we should respond as a DEAD person responds. No response. Why? Because we are dead to sin and temptation!
We cannot permit either our evil nature/old nature or the evilness of the world surrounding us to dominate our lives. We are to conduct ourselves as children of a Holy God! Walking in light and not in darkness!
Paul told the Colossian church to put to death that which was earthly and evil in their nature (Col 3:5-9) and to put on the new nature and live as God’s chosen ones (v.10-17)
But Paul’s challenge to the disciples in Rome and ultimately to the disciples throughout the ages is…
3. An Imperative Regarding a very Exciting Possibility:
Paul tells us, “…But be transformed by the renewal of your mind…) Now Paul is describing a change from the very core of one’s being. The word he uses for ‘transformed’ is metamorphosis and it means that there is a change of the very nature of the being. A caterpillar undergoes a metamorphosis and changes completely into another creature, and one even more beautiful – and that is the butterfly.
Paul is urging his readers to experience the remarkable transformation that is possible by renewing one’s mind…and this only comes by being born again and being filled with the Holy Spirit.
It is the work of the Holy Spirit using Scripture and a responsive heart that can bring about an inward mental and spiritual transformation that is manifested on the outside in one’s conduct.
If you would change your conduct, you must also change your creed. If you would change your behavior, you must 1st change your beliefs.
If you desire to become truly Christian in your conduct, you must become truly Christlike in your thinking.
For only by a revolutionary change in your thoughts can you experience a revolutionary change in your actions.
The call to repentance is in all reality a call to a complete and total change in the way one thinks and acts.
• In your thought patterns,
• in your decision making processes,
• in your reference to God,
• in your outlook towards sin,
• in your outlook towards yourself,
• in your outlook toward the ‘things’ of this world,
• in your outlook toward others.
Be honest and ask yourself this question, “How much change has taken place in my thinking about these things?” Have I really changed or have I only ‘said’ that I have changed. Your change will be shown and brought to light in your actions.
Paul challenged the Philippian Christians to have a mind like that of Christ, because he realized that only when we have a mind sensitive to the Holy Spirit can our thinking be changed to cause us to think like Christ. Only when we allow Christ to have control can this transformation that Paul wrote about take place in our lives.
CONCLUSION:
The glorious end result of refusing to be conformed to this world and to allow this transformation that Paul says we must undergo is to prove in our own experience that the will of God is good and acceptable and perfect.
We can never really know that God’s will is best for us and for those around us until we make this complete and total transformation, this complete and total commitment of ourselves to God’s will as He reveals it to us.
So as the Phillips translation has already shown us, “…so with eyes wide open to the mercies of God, present yourself to Him…”
Do it today, become the new creature in Christ that He desires for you. God will not force this transformation on anyone, only you can allow it to happen in your life. Salvation is only the beginning. The saved soul must still fully and totally commit to God for this transformation to be completed.
How about you tonight? Have you made that transformation? As we go into our prayer service and begin to pray for those in need. Lift yourself up to God in prayer that you can be transformed like Paul was speaking about here!
