Supernatural Relationships

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Romans 12:1–2 NIV

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. 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.

Maybe you’ve heard this phrase before, about offering yourself as a living sacrifice.

And the method Paul talks about doing this is in verse 2 - do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by renewing your mind

And this is an obviously spiritual activity. Offering ourselves fully to God, we allow him to transform and renew our minds.

And the end result is, being able to test and approve what God’s will is - AKA, you’ll know what God wants you to do.

Now, we could honestly just cut right there, and talk about this idea for a long, long time. But I think we can learn something about God’s view of our relationships with other people by continuing to read.

Now, here’s something crazy. Paul begins the next verse with this phrase - ‘for by the grace given by, I say to every one of you’ - now, With such a HUGE beginning like this - paul is basically saying, give yourselves fully and completely to God, he’ll transform you, and you’ll be able to know God’s will - and now he’s saying, ‘by god’s grace, i have something to tell every one of you’ - what does Paul talk about next?

Paul could launch into a talk about what worship really is. He could talk about the nature of sacrificing our lives towards God. He could talk about the holiness and majesty of God. He could talk about taking up our crosses.

But after saying something this big, this is what Paul leads into:

Romans 12:3 NIV

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.

After telling the believers in Rome - and us - that we needed to give ourselves fully and completely to God in worship, Paul feels like the next thing he needs to talk about is our relationships with others.

In fact, Paul takes the next 3 and a half chapters - almost the entire rest of his letter to the Romans - to talk to the believers in Rome about their relationships with each other.

The book of Romans changes focus from chapter 12 on towards the importance of our behaviour towards other people. And it all hinges on Romans 12:1-2

Now, here’s why I think this is so important to relationships:

Healthy relationships aren’t natural - they are supernatural

And over the next 3 or 4 chapters of Romans, Paul goes to great length to demonstrate just how much supernatural relationships differ from how we expect normal relationships to function.

Now, I want to clarify something at the beginning here. I think how we USUALLY understand this is like this - God has forgiven us, God has given us a new understanding of what is right and wrong, he’s taught us about sin - and being healthy means applying that new knowledge to managing our relationships.

But the problem is, when we say that, our approach to healthy relationships is informational. It’s about knowing more. But that’s not the word paul uses. He doesn’t say, ‘offer yourself as an open book, writing down and understanding all the stuff God says, and he will fill your mind with better information’.

He says, ‘offer yourself as a sacrifice’ - the image is literally, something that gives it’s life and it’s freedom to fulfill a spiritual purpose - ‘ and GOD will TRANSFORM your mind’.

We can’t do relationships right without a transformation of the mind

And paul starts off with some qualities of what that person looks like. Now, if I ask you to picture a person who is a strong church goer, someone who knows the bible well and stands up firmly for the truth, what would you describe that person like? Unfortunately, sometimes a bad picture comes to mind.

Maybe it’s someone who is judgmental towards others, because they know God’s standards. Maybe they cause division, because they know that the church will have some genuine christ-followers, but may also have some that aren’t. Maybe they aren’t willing to put up with the problems from other people, because they know what sin is.

But those are all information pieces. We know this, we know that, we know this. That kind of person is what happens when we accept God’s information without allowing God’s transformation. James had strong things to say about that. He said that listening to the word without doing it is just lying to yourself.

It’s easy to repeat information, or to make the bible say what you want it to say - it’s not so easy to live the way God wants you to live.

So what does spiritually empowered relationship transformation look like? There’s a ton to that idea, but I want to highlight a really big one.

Romans 12:9–10 NIV

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.

And let me tell you, we’re on board with this idea of ‘hating what is evil’. But I wonder if we understand what ‘cling to what is good’ really means.

And I believe Paul gives some examples of what ‘clinging to good’ looks like in the context of a transformed mind. I want to spend some time talking about them, but this week, we’re going to highlight just one.

Romans 12:12 NIV

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

paul says, a transformed mind is hopeful - and beyond that, JOYFULLY hopeful.

And a transformed mind is patient in affliction- that literally means, when things are going wrong, they practice patience.

A transformed mind is joyfully hopeful about others, and willing to put up with their problems

This is one of the things that clinging to what is good means. We allow God to transform us, to understand the good he is trying to draw every person towards. We need to hate the bad things, but we can’t forget to cling to the good things.

Maybe that person is disruptive and causes a distraction in church. Sure, that’s a bad thing. But God created them, loves them, and is trying to draw them into a deeper relationship with Him. What does it look like to CLING to that idea? To do whatever you could to make sure the good thing - that they are here, they are hearing the gospel, they are drawing closer to God - to make sure that we never lose that?

Maybe that person disagrees with you on something. And maybe it’s important. and maybe you’re fully right (spoiler alert - that never happens). That is a bad thing. But they are your brother, your sister, God has fully forgiven them, and they are part of your family. What would it look like to CLING to that idea? To fight hard for the fact that we can’t allow division to take root, and that God put us together as a family for a reason?

But instead, in relationships, we often simply apply the information and knowledge we have and love takes a back seat.

Information causes divisions. Love causes relationships.

and Paul knew this. And believe me, he was a smart man. He knew information. He had knowledge.

Now, I hear what you’re saying. There has to be a line somewhere.

In Corinth, the believers started to get into a bit of a spat regarding the practical application of some of the teachings they had received. In 1 Corinthians 8, they were specifically talking about eating food sacrificed to idols.

1 Corinthians 8:1 NIV

Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that “We all possess knowledge.” But knowledge puffs up while love builds up.

and this phrase, puffed up, you know what it means? Think about a blowfish. They puff themselves up to do what? To seem bigger, more threatening. Knowledge makes us seem bigger to ourselves. and it makes us seem more threatening. When we wield information like a weapon, without love, we think we may be cutting away the bad things. We think we may be even doing God’s work. But without love, God says, we’re just trying to make ourselves look bigger and more important. We’re just blowing air.

We may THINK we’re doing good. But if we aren’t lining up what we think with what the bible teaches, then we haven’t allowed God to transform our minds.

And here’s a scary truth. God asks us to give up the using knowledge against each other piece, and focus on love. and that’s hard for us. And if we’re really honest with ourselves, the reason it’s hard for us is because

We naturally want to be in control. We supernaturally need to give up everything to God.

And here’s the thing - when the only thing we wield is information and knowledge, we’re not building up. Love is what actually builds things up. That verse, when he says ‘knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.’ That ALSO means - if you want to build something - pick love instead of knowledge.

A transformed mind understands that love is the biggest thing that will build up supernatural relationships

And I really do think that’s what Paul is trying to do throughout the rest of the book of romans. He is showing us what it looks like to be a transformed mind, that approaches all of our relationships through this lens of transformed, sacrificial love.

And believe me - this really IS supernatural. And the reason is this - Paul has a way higher bar for us than we could imagine when he says ‘Be devoted to one another. Honor one another above yourselves’.

So next week, I wanted to just highlight some practical situations that Paul talks about in Romans about what kind of transformational choices we can make. But this week, I just want you to sit on that one idea - the idea that our relationships need to stem from a transformed mind filled with the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.

So when you go through your week, I want you to ask yourself this simple question.

What can I do to love someone more?

If love is what God uses to build things, then living in love is how you get things built. I want you to pray and ask God this. And he’ll answer you. And whoever comes to mind - work on doing something to show love to that person.

AFTER PRAYER:

We’re going to hop on the after party now!