How Can We Be Transformed

[SP Note: tell a story about somewhere that people get varied results based on what they put into it. Could be the golf course, could be the gym, could be the basketball court, a bank account, grades etc.]

Does anyone in here go to the gym? I go to a gym that’s right around the corner from my house, and something that I’ve been noticing lately is how many DIFFERENT looking people are there.

Some people look like me…which means they go to the gym a few times a week and they visit Dairy Queen on their way home

Some people look like they go to the gym less often.

And some people, like this guy from my gym named Andrew, look like they literally never leave the gym. I’m being so serious, he’s the most shredded human being I’ve ever met. I’m certain he doesn’t know what a carbohydrate tastes like. And it doesn’t matter what time of day that I go to the gym, Andrew is there!

There are all kinds of people who go to my gym, but some have been more transformed by the gym than others.

And I actually think that’s a good picture of following Jesus. Following Jesus is like buying a membership to a gym – the moment you buy your membership you belong to the gym. But not everyone who belongs to the gym has been transformed by the gym. And not everyone who follows Jesus has been transformed by Jesus.

TENSION.

Have you ever found yourself thinking, “I’ve been following Jesus for a while, but nothing seems different?”

Maybe you still struggle with the same sins that you did before you started following Jesus.

Maybe your faith is still inconsistent.

Maybe you were told that following Jesus would transform you, but you mostly feel the same.

Anybody else, or is it just me?

So why do we feel stuck at times? If we believe in Jesus, why aren’t we changing?

The Apostle Paul is going to give us the answer to that question tonight in Romans 12. In fact, if you brought your Bible, you can go ahead and turn there. Here’s what Paul is going to teach us: transformation is possible, but it isn’t automatic.

The problem that I’ve seen in myself throughout the years, and maybe you see it in yourself too, is that I want to be transformed, but I don’t want to do what’s required to get there.

What we’re going to see tonight in Romans 12 is that salvation required the work of Jesus, but transformation will require some work from us (with the help of the Holy Spirit).

And that’s what we’re going to be talking about with Pastor Dave. So, grab your Bible, grab something to take some notes with, and let’s jump in to this week’s teaching.

So here’s the question we’re going after: how can we be transformed to be like Jesus?

TRUTH.

Take a look at Romans 12:1-2:

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. 2 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.

Paul gives us the process of transformation. This is how transformation happens:

Physical sacrifice + mental renewal = transformation.

But before we can go any further into that, we have to go backwards. Do you know why?

The passage starts with a “therefore.” And anytime there’s a “therefore” you have to go back and see what it’s there for.

In this case, Paul uses the “therefore” to connect what he’s about to teach in Romans 12 to what he just finished teaching in Romans 1-11. So, what was Paul teaching in Romans 1-11? Any guesses?

The gospel! Romans 1-11 is the fullest explanation of the gospel story in the entire Bible. There had been some disagreements in the church in Rome about what the church believed and practiced because it was a melting pot of Jews and Gentiles (or people who weren’t Jewish and didn’t grow up under the Jewish religious system) who had begun to follow Jesus. Paul was trying to make the gospel as clear as possible so that they could be unified.

Then he hits them with the “therefore.”

He says, “in view of God’s mercy,” or, “knowing what you know about the gospel story,” here’s how you now should live. That’s what the rest of the book of Romans is all about – now that I know the gospel story, how should I live?

What’s interesting is that THIS is where Paul starts to talk about transformation and how it happens.

Paul is communicating something about following Jesus to his people – believing in Jesus is not the end goal, it is the starting point.

It actually makes me feel better that Paul said this, because it means that his people even then fell into the trap of believing that once you believe in Jesus and become one of His followers, you’re done! For a lot of us, that’s something that we still tend to believe, and Paul’s saying that there’s a whole lot more on the other side of your decision to believe in Jesus. Following Jesus isn’t just about making Him your Savior and getting baptized to tell everyone. Following Jesus moves from the decision to believe in Jesus into a lifetime of being transformed to become like Jesus.

And now we can ask, how does that happen? It is even possible for us to become like Jesus? And if it is, how would we do it?

That’s what Paul is laying out in Romans 12:1-2:

Physical sacrifice + mental renewal = transformation.

Let’s talk about physical sacrifice.

This is a picture from the Old Testament. Remember back to what we talked about in week 1? Ever since the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, physical sacrifice has been something that the people of God have participated in, because it costs something to be holy (or like God).

It used to be that a perfect, spotless animal would be sacrificed to cover the cost of Israel’s sin. But in the gospel story, a perfect man, Jesus, was physically sacrificed on a cross to cover the cost of all of humanity’s sin. He offered His body as a payment for our sin.

Paul’s saying, in view of Jesus doing that for you, offer YOUR body as a living sacrifice each day. Here’s what that doesn’t mean and what it does mean.

IT DOESN’T MEAN that you need to be sacrificed on a cross or even physically hurt yourself. That’s not what Paul is saying.

IT DOES MEAN that your belief in Jesus has to move into an attempt to live like Jesus. Transformation requires more than just correct theology, it requires you to sacrifice your actions, your habits, your comfort, and your preferences.

Before a person decides to follow Jesus, their actions, habits, comforts, and preferences are determined by them. But after a person decides to follow Jesus, our life no longer belongs to us – it belongs to Him! We surrendered our lives to Him and made Him our Lord…not ourselves. So, everything that we do – our actions, our habits, our comforts, and our preferences are now decided and determined by Him.

Paul says it like this in 1 Corinthians 10:31:

31 So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

And since our actions, habits, comforts, and preferences happen every day, transformation requires that we sacrifice daily. We have to wake back up and sacrifice it again. That’s what it means to be a living sacrifice. The Old Testament sacrifices were only good once. They couldn’t be re-sacrificed because they had been sacrificed already. A living sacrifice requires us to get up and sacrifice again every day.

Now let’s talk about mental renewal.

Paul tells the church in Rome, when the gospel gets in my mind and my heart, it leads me to physically respond. Right belief should lead to right action.

He’s making the connection between what’s in our mind and what we do with our body.

But he also introduces the idea that our minds can drift. For him to say “do not conform to the patterns of this world” indicates that we can indeed be conformed to the patterns of this world. I like the way that the Message paraphrase summarizes this thought:

Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God.

Mental renewal is necessary to keep us believing the gospel so that we can continue living the gospel.

Left to ourselves, we will drift back into the patterns of the world, even after believing in Jesus.

There’s a principle from Alcoholics Anonymous that I find helpful here.

If you were to attend an AA meeting and ask two alcoholics one who had been sober for 30 years and one who had been sober for 2 days, who had been sober the longest, do you know what they would tell you?

The person who woke up the earliest that day.

The idea being that you have to be vigilant about staying sober even after you decide to get sober. So it is with following Jesus – we have to be vigilant about keeping the gospel in front of us each day because we are prone to drift.

So what does it look like to renew our mind?

Spiritual disciplines become a great help here. We renew our mind by reading God’s Word. We renew our mind by being part of and gathering weekly with God’s people. We renew our mind by speaking to God and hearing Him speak to us in prayer. We renew our mind by reminding ourselves what is most important in our lives through worship and tithing. We renew our mind by serving other people.

The spiritual disciplines help us renew our mind by tangibly reminding us and bringing us back to the gospel story.

Physical sacrifice + mental renewal = transformation.

APPLICATION.

Let’s have a moment of honesty. Some of you are frustrated with your faith because you don’t feel like you’re changing.

You’ve been coming to church, you believe in Jesus…but nothing really feels different.

And I think for many of us, it’s because we’ve thought that believing in Jesus was the end goal, not the starting point.

What I hope you can walk away with tonight is some right expectations of what it means to follow Jesus, not just believe in Him. Believing in Jesus is the starting point, but transformation is the goal.

And let me remind all of us: transformation is possible, but it isn’t automatic.

So, let’s start here. What do you need to sacrifice?

Is it a habit? A couple examples could be:

Your screen time every day

Some obviously toxic entertainment that you mindlessly go back to

A pet sin that you keep hidden, not because you don’t want it to be found out, but because you don’t want to have to give it up

Is it something that you find comfort in? A couple examples could be:

Blending in with the crowd to avoid your fear of standing out

Staying quiet to avoid your fear of rejection

Hiding sin instead of confessing sin to protect your pride and reputation

Is it a distraction? A couple examples could be:

An unhealthy friendship or dating relationship

A sport that you’ve turned into an idol

Is it a behavior? A few examples:

Lying

Gossip

What do you need to sacrifice?

And if you feel like you have been making an effort to sacrifice, then what is shaping your thinking most right now? Is it your music? Your feed? Your friends? What does the soundtrack of your mind sound most like?

What is something that you can pick up instead of that thing to help you renew your mind?

Reading God’s Word? Being with God’s people regularly? Talking with and listening to God in prayer? Practicing Sabbath.

If you don’t like what you’re seeing on the inside, be intentional about what you’re letting in on the inside.

Hear me, it is God’s goal for every Jesus follower to be transformed to be like Jesus.

And my prayer for you is the same prayer Paul prayed in 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24:

23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.

Amen.

Related Media

Related Sermons

Earn an accredited degree from Redemption Seminary with Logos.