Are You Responding?
Rom. 12:1-2| NLT
“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. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”
Anti-conformity
The world in which we live is broken, empty and hollow. Creation is a fraction of what it once was. The best analogy which I have heard that I can tell you to is that creation and humanity is like a fish out of water. The fish can survive for a limited amount of time, but during it’s time out of the water, it is simply going to struggle and gasp for air. That is what life is like for us without Jesus Christ.
Without the foundation of God in our lives, we are simply struggling to survive, we are struggling to get by and we are all gasping for air. We find ourselves hoping against hope and praying against the odds as we try to fight against the tides that keep crashing against us.
We have gone ahead and rejected God as Lord, Savior, Redeemer and helper. We have turned our backs on Him and embraced sin as the answer to all of our questions. We’ve embraced sin as our savior. We allow sin to control and manipulate our lives. Our world is constructed according to the sinful nature and the sinful lifestyles which we want to engage in.
Rather than turn to God and live, we turn to sin and allow sin to implement a structure for us. We live according to the rules and regulations which sin has deemed necessary and we have adopted a new way of life. We have adopted a life that doesn’t involve God and allows us to feed our own desires and our own pleasures.
Tolerance is our religion. Our philosophy is relativity. Truth is relative to the individual. Post modern thought consumes us so that everyone is right in his or her own eyes and should live according to their own beliefs without the fear of being ridiculed or made fun of. That just doesn’t really work out that well, though does it?
The problem is, sin doesn’t care about people. It doesn’t care about feelings or emotions because sin is completely absent of God. So the furtherance of the world structure is built to promote the ideal of success and perfection based off money, power, and attraction. Think about who is influential in our world.
First you have world leaders. These people are powerful and successful because they are leaders leading countries. Most of them are rich or very well off because of their position of power. Success is seen in these people because of who they control and their pockets.
Secondly, movie stars, rock stars and models. These people are beautiful and make a lot of money. They are exalted and placed on pedestals because of their level of attraction. These people make millions of dollars every year. They are, what we call, successful. And we want to be just like them too! We want our shot at “Fame”. We want be on the center stage, singing for the rock band or the girl band. We want all the popularity, all the girls or the boys. We want to live in the mansion and we want a 3 different houses in different states. We want the glamour and the power and the money, we want it all. We want the American dream to come true for us.
That is the system of the world in which we live. That is how sin wants you to live. It wants you to gain the world. Gain the pleasures this world can offer. Do everything you can to get noticed, to get ahead and see if you come out on top. Become a superstar and gain popularity at any cost. Don’t worry about who you step on, or who you hurt or who you leave behind in the process. Don’t worry, because once you’re a celebrity or you’re in power, you are untouchable. That’s right-you can do whatever you want, whatever your heart desires and nothing will happen to you. You can get involved in scandals and live a drug infused lifestyle and it’s not going to matter. To get ahead and get on top of the world and to gain the world you have do something though-conform. Conform to the standard the world has set forth. Conform to the ways of the world and you’re in.
God doesn’t want that though for His followers. God doesn’t want his people to have to live by the standards set by this world. He wants his people to come out, get away from that and live according to his principles. Elevate your lifestyle to his standard. Why? What’s in for you?
The Bible says, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and yet lose his soul?” Do you want to trade eternity with God for momentary pleasures? Momentary pleasure that will only bring you down, cause you to hurt and hurt those around you?
One of the greatest ways to be separated from the world is to get connected to a small group. In a small group, you find accountability and people who will care about you and pray for you. That’s part of the system that God has set up. He did that intentionally-to help us out. We’re not created to be alone but we were designed to be in relationship-first with our Creator and then with others. We’ll be talking about community and relationships a bit later on in the series but it is important for us to comprehend the truth that God’s call to us includes forsaking the pattern of this world.
How do we become anti-conformists?
God’s call for us to not conform to the world involves three areas. Three areas we need to focus upon so we can become anti-conformists.
Know Your Enemy
First, know your enemy. Satan is the enemy. He is the father of evil, the father of lies, the prince of this world and the ruler of the darkness. Satan has two goals-to steal and to destroy (John 10:10)
Satan’s attempt to destroy involves the lives of those who do not follow God. His desire is to keep people away from God by seducing them and giving them a craving for the pleasures of the world.
If you’re a Christian, if you’re a believer then Christ has set you free and the devil cannot destroy you. So, his mission is to steal. He wants to steal your joy, your peace and your victory. He wants to steal anything he can so you feel like God isn’t really in your life and He really isn’t helping you out in any way. He wants to steal from you so you doubt God.
Know what the world is saying.
The second way to become an anti-conformist is to recognize what the world around you is trying to tell you. The Greek term for world in Romans 12:2 is the word, aiooni, means cosmos and refers to not the physical world but spiritual world system. This is where Satan operates.
Ephesians 6:10-17 is about spiritual warfare. Our battle is in our minds. Our battle is against the evil one who operates in the spiritual realm and seeks only to distract us from God. The battle occurs in our minds and is centered on this, “Who do you belong to?”
If you’re a believer in Christ, you belong to him. You don’t need to sin anymore. In fact, your sinful nature is dead! DNR your sinful nature.
Recognize the Battle
The third way of becoming an anti-conformist is to recognize the battle which is taking place around you. This battle has to do with fighting against your flesh. Please pay attention to his. Galatians 5:17 says this, “For the flesh sets its desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things you please.”
We’ve talked before about the internal civil war. The flesh is always fighting against the soul. Jesus said that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. In the context of that Scripture, Jesus was essentially saying the Spirit is willing to become obedient to God and do the things which He asks of us, but it is our flesh that fights against the obedience and the discipline that God is seeking after.
So many Christians come to God, only to find out that following Him is hard and frustrating because they want to trust him, they want to surrender and follow but it’s not easy in the broken world in which we live in.
Romans 12:2 is all about the process of being a disciple. It paints the very picture that we are on a journey and that journey is a transformative journey. We must constantly bring ourselves before the very throne of God and allow Him to change us. We need to step away from ourselves and allow God to come into our lives and perform a miracle. Let God change your life! That is the only way you will ever be a disciple. Let God change your life.
Transformers Transforming
So, now we face a positive command, to be transformed. The pervious command, do not conform is negative. So, the writer of Romans moves beyond the negative to the positive. This command means to allow God to work in your life, in such a way that transforms your inward thinking and outward behavior to allow you live your life demonstrating and experiencing his perfect will for you.
God wants you to experience his will for your life, your marriage, your relationships your job, your school, your college, everything. God’s desire in the transformation process is for you to know Him better. What God is attempting and challenging you to do by being transformed is to allow you to take a test drive.
Test Drive (transformers movie clip)
I once had a medical appointment in Boston. I went down there to see some specialists so they determine the severity of a ligament injury I had in my wrist. One of the cars that I’ve always wanted to have but knew I could never afford with my salary was a G35 Infinity. Those are some of the nicest cars I’ve ever seen. Well, there was this Infinity car dealership on the way so I figured, why not go for a test drive. Sure, I can’t afford it but they don’t know that. So, I went there and took the car for a test drive and I loved it!
You see though, God wants that for us as well. In this life, right here and now. God wants us to live our lives and be transformed by the renewing of our minds so we can test drive his will for us. It’s for our benefit. The difference is that the test drive will reveal Christ in us, empowering us, being the strength that we need when we are weak. He will lift us up, He will care for us.
The world around us is constantly molding us to their way. They stop at nothing to get a hold of us, distract us and try to make us look the way they want us to look. The world wants us to feel the way they want us to feel. they want us to follow the lies being spoken to us and begin thrown at us. God, on the other hand, says conform to my way, my standard, my lifestyle. He wants what is best for us.
There’s a movie called Transformers and one of the transformers named, Bumble Bee, is this classic 1976 camera but he upgrades himself into a 2006, 5th generation camera. Bumblebee never returned to his former, old 1976 self, either. From that moment on, he continues to be newer version and updated version of himself.
That is preciously how God wants us to live our lives. His desire is that we download the upgrade that he has for us. The upgrade that only we have by the renewing of our minds. We are transformers, transforming into the image of Jesus. God’s will, God’s desire, God’s heart, God’s cry and God’s call to us is that we forsake the world around us and start living our lives in such a way that we begin looking like Jesus.
Stop allowing yourself to be modeled by the world and the influences that come from it. stop allowing Satan to con you, to use you, to seduce you and deceive you into believing he has something better for you. Let God change your life, let HIS LOVE IN! Be transformed by allowing your mind to be renewed by looking to Jesus, by striving to be like Jesus, not in your strength but in his.
How can you test drive God’s will is by renewing your mind. Renewing your mind contains 4 areas.
Renewing your mind is a continual refocus of the Romans 12:1 perspective. Live in Christ everyday by surrendering to him as the CEO of your life.
Renewing your mind involves a battle. Your flesh and your enemy will fight against your identity, which is now hidden in Christ Jesus. As a believer, you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, you belong to Jesus, your sinful nature is dead.
Renewing your mind is a supernatural work of the Spirit of God. The transformation of your mind is the work of the Spirit, your and my responsibility is to set our minds on things above. To take our thoughts captive in obedience to Christ. (2 Cor. 10:4-5)
Renewing your mind is always with a focus on your relationship with Christ. Renewing your mind is always about the desire to know and enjoy Jesus.
Hear God’s Word (Rom 10:17), Read God’s Word (Rev. 1:3), Study God’s Word (2 Tim. 2:15), Memorize God’s Word (Psalm 119:9,11) and Mediate on God’s Word (Joshua 1:8)
Are You responding to the conformity of this world or to the renewing of your mind?
