Sermon Tone Analysis

Turn to Romans 12

The vision for our church that I’m asking each of us to assimilate into our thinking, our lives, our prayers, our strategy is that we become a church that Helps People Reach Their Full Potential In Christ: Physically, Spiritually and Emotionally.

Now, I believe each person has a God-given potential.

We are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139).

We were created to do good works in Christ (Eph.

2).

We have a potential to reach for – a fullness in Christ, and Christ’s fullness in us.

Now, God’s idea of potential and the world’s idea of potential are significantly different.

The world’s potential is primarily self-centered.

It’s about what I want, what I feel, what I believe, and what I can get.

The world wants to influence us that way - The world says that we are the masters of the universe.

The world wants us to believe in our own sovereignty and that we can be free from the tyranny of a sovereign God.

However, the world’s freedom is no freedom at all.

What good is it to gain the world’s ideology, but forfeit your very soul?

Freedom from sexual boundaries leads to promiscuity, destruction of the family, disease, physical and emotional pain.

Freedom from truth and from right and wrong leads to anarchy.

Freedom from God leads to Hell.

Think about it – what is the world’s potential and philosophy of freedom based upon?

Upon finite, imperfect and faulty ideas.

Some are godless and evil ideas.

God’s potential and freedom, however, is based upon Himself – it’s based upon His infinite perfect, good and all-knowing character.

So, which do you prefer?

Perfect or imperfect?

If we have a full potential to reach, where do we begin?

It begins with being born-again – by putting our faith and trust in Jesus Christ and who He claims to be.

We confess that He is Lord, we receive His love and sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin, we believe in His Word and then we obey His Word.

But that’s just the beginning.

We covered this last week, that to offer ourselves to God is to offer our entire lives to Him - nothing held back.

And so we pray, “God, I offer everything to you – I lay myself upon your altar to be at your disposal.”

But then Monday rolls around – and we kind of slide off the altar.

That is the problem with living sacrifices, right, they have a tendency to crawl off the altar.

So how do we resist this temptation to slip off the altar?

How do we navigate this internal conflict that desires to offer to God and withhold from God?

The Bible acknowledges that we will be pulled in two different directions.

We will be pulled toward God and away from God.

And we, through the power of God’s Spirit and His Word must manage this conflict.

But how? Verse two.

1) Prevent Conformity

Do Not Conform in the Greek is written in the present passive imperative.

Listen - if you take your relationship with Christ seriously, and if you take the Word of God seriously, this is important to know.

Present tense means this is an ongoing issue – no regard to time – it’s always now.

The Passive voice means something done to the person.

It’s something the person allows to happen – intentionally or unintentionally.

And an Imperative is a command - it’s not optional.

So, the application means

We are commanded to prevent ourselves from being conformed.

God will help us, but He will not do what we are capable of and required to do.

Now, the word

“Conform” (συσχηματίζομαι, syschēmatizomai) (root is where we get our modern word schema), means to be shaped or molded by the schema or plans of an external source.

It is to assimilate the behaviors and appearances of someone or something else.

Here specifically, it means to model one’s behavior or life according to the plans and schemes of the world – intentionally or unintentionally.

But what is the world?

The world does not refer to people or the planet.

It’s not the world in the sense that God so loved the world.

Whenever we see “world” in a negative context, as in “Do not love the world,” we’re talking about a system of values, and beliefs and morals that are contrary to God’s system of values and morals.

The world is any ideology, influence, or system that is in opposition to Biblical principles and truths.

This world system wants to form us into its own image so that we think, look and behave like it wants us to.

This world system has an agenda - and it’s to lure us away from God, away from righteousness – and ultimately to lead people to captivity, destruction and death.

Now, why is that?

Who’s behind the world’s system?

Who is the god of this age who has blinded the minds of unbelievers?

I’ll give you a hint – first name is Lou.

Middle initial is C.

Last name?

Fer.

Lucifer – bearer of light - Satan.

Remember when we talked about the elohim, the gods - the spiritual principalities and powers of this dark age?

They are behind atheism, false religions and any system that sets itself up against God and they have an agenda - and God says, don’t conform to it.

So who do you want to follow?

God or Satan?

Not only is the world’s system destructive to the individual, but it’s destructive to God’s redemptive purposes.

You and I know we can’t serve two masters.

I like what Rick Warren says, “You can only have one number one.”

So let me ask this – why are you on this earth?

You and I are here to glorify God, and to be a part of His mission to redeem the world.

And here is a truth we need to take seriously -

You cannot conform to this world and redeem it at the same time!

We were not saved just to go to Heaven, we were saved to be on mission with God in redeeming and healing a broken and lost world.

The more we can prevent ourselves from being conformed to the world, the greater the possibility we have to redeem it.

God’s people are called to be different to help the unredeemed understand God and His love.

If we are we are commanded to prevent ourselves from being conformed, the opposite is true, so we are to

2) Permit Transformation

Rather than an outside job, this is an inside job.

Transform is metamorphoomai (εταμορφόομαι) –

Metamorphosis: to be changed in outward appearance and behavior by an inward transformation.

It’s a change in the actual nature or essence of a person.

In other words,

The internal work of Christ produces external changes in behavior and thinking.

Matthew Henry says it’s not a change in substance, but of the qualities of the soul.

“Be transformed” is also in the passive present imperative.

Transformation of the believer is not optional.

We are commanded to allow the Holy Spirit to transform our nature and character.

But know this, God doesn’t force transformation – He won’t do this without our permission.

A good image of this is that picture of Jesus knocking on the door.

Notice there is something vital missing from this picture.

There is no handle on the outside.

Jesus is knocking, He wants to fellowship with us, but we must open the door from inside - we must allow Jesus and His Spirit to enter our hearts and lives.

This is

Rev. 3:20 is not necessarily a salvation verse – it’s written to believers.

Believers are told to allow Jesus unhindered access to our hearts and that’s when real transformation begins to take place.

There will be little to no transformation until you do that because we can’t change ourselves.