Being Transformed

INTRO: The Same Sermon

When I was in seminary, I heard a story about a preacher who was just starting out at a new church.

It was his first Sunday, and the congregation was excited.

The young pastor walked up to the pulpit, opened his Bible and preached a powerful sermon that was Biblically sound, theologically accurate, and was applicable to the congregations every day life.

The next Sunday came along and people were looking forward to what was next.

Once again, the young pastor walked up to the pulpit, opened his Bible and preached a powerful sermon that was Biblically sound, theologically accurate, and was applicable to the congregations every day life. However, it was the exact same sermon as the week before. Some people were a little confused.

The third Sunday came along, and what do you know, it was the same sermon. The elder board was getting nervous. They were starting to get some serious pressure from the congregation.

After the preacher preached the same sermon on the fourth Sunday, the elder board called for an emergency meeting with the pastor.

And they said to him, “We are a bit concerned that you keep preaching the same sermon every Sunday. Our question is: Do you have another sermon?”

The preacher responded, “Yes, I do. But the congregation hasn’t started putting the first one into practice yet!”

Why am I telling this story?

Because the very first time I preached here was six years ago on 4th of July weekend.

I’ve been thinking about this recently.

Why did I choose to preach what I did on my first Sunday here? What was it about the passage that made it so important for me to choose it as the first sermon I would preach to you.

Today, I’m going to preach that sermon again.

At least that was the plan.

As I went through the sermon, I came across many, many things that I ended up changing…it proved to be a lot harder than I thought it would be. In fact, this morning’s sermon is very different from that first one.

Why? Because I’ve changed. You’ve changed. We’ve changed.

Change is what happens not only as we grow older, but more specifically as we grow in the grace of Jesus Christ.

Throughout the Bible, we see that God meets people right where they are.

God doesn’t wait for us to become perfect before revealing himself to us…and thank God for that.

God accepts us as we are, with all of our warts and wrinkles and sin and darkness.

But he doesn’t leave us that way.

As we have said here often, God loves us just the way we are. But he loves us so much that he doesn’t leave us the way we are.

And this is one of the great promises of the Gospel...

…with God, CHANGE IS POSSIBLE.

Read ROMANS 11:33-12:2 & PRAY

Do you want to be changed?

Some of you might be thinking, “Well no. Actually, it would be better if more people changed to be like me!”

What do you think would be better for this church?

IF A) people became more like you?

OR B) if you — and all of us — became more like Jesus?

We know that B is supposed to be the right answer, but often we live like A is the right answer.

At another level, it doesn’t even matter if you want to be changed, because change is inevitable…the only question that remains is whether we will become more or less like Jesus in the process.

Will we conform to the pattern of this world?

Or will we conform to the pattern of the kingdom of God?

The key word here in Romans 12:2 the NIV is “transformed.”

In Greek, metamorphōō, which literally means to change.

It’s where we get our word metamorphosis…like a caterpillar in a cocoon.

How does spiritual transformation take place?

FIRST, We are changed when we give our worship to Jesus.

When we worship, we are recognize the fact that there is something or Someone(!) who deserves a part of us, deserves our admiration…more than that, our allegiance.

At a very basic level, when we worship we are proclaiming that we — in and of ourselves -- are incomplete.

We worship what we desire.

But it’s important to note that we don’t worship God so that we can get something from God!

It’s not like we’re here keeping up our end of the bargain so that God will give us what we want…No!

When we worship God…spiritual transformation will just happen within our lives.

When we worship the things of this world, then…something else happens = idolatry.

Romans 11 ends with an incredible outpouring of worship to God.

In these final verses of chapter 11, we see an important connection...

...between Who we worship

…and what we believe

Who We Worship = Doxology

What We Believe = Theology

The subheading Rom. 11:33-36 is listed as “Doxology” in many translations. (That’s the case in the NIV.)

And then in vs. 36, we see a powerful theological affirmation. “For from him and through him and for him are all things.”

THEOLOGY (our beliefs) and DOXOLOGY (our worship) belong together!

“It is of great importance that our theology and doxology should never be separated. On the one hand, there can be no doxology without theology. It is not possible to worship an unknown god. All true worship is a response to the self-revelation of God in Christ and in Scripture, and arises from our reflection on who he is and what he has done.” – John Stott

In other words, the lyrics matter!

Or as one of my seminary professors put it… J.I. Packer

“If I want to know what a church’s theology is I listen to the songs that they sing.”

If you are here today (or at home today) and you are truly entering into the worship of the living God, you will be changed.

…it might seem like a small change, but you don’t lose 25 lbs on the first day of your diet either.

SECOND, We are changed when we give our bodies to Jesus.

This might sound strange to you.

Generally speaking, when evangelicals talk about believing in Jesus we talk about giving our HEARTS to Jesus.

And in one sense, that IS what we do in worship.

But what Paul is saying here is that our spiritual act of worship means “offering — not our hearts — but our bodies as a living sacrifice.”

We live an embodied faith.

For Paul’s first audience, this would have been a radical concept.

Gnosticism was a powerful belief system in Rome when Paul wrote this letter.

Simply put, the Gnostics believed that the body and the material world are bad, while the spiritual realm is good.

The Gnostics couldn’t comprehend of a situation where Jesus would be BOTH fully God and fully Human at the same time.

Christianity is an embodied faith. And because of this...

What we do with our bodies matters.

God is not just interested in redeeming part of you, but all of you…right down to your toes.

He is your loving Creator. He knows how many hairs you do or don’t have on your head.

Of course, he cares what we do with our bodies.

There is nothing abstract about a body becoming a living sacrifice…it is a physical action.

And Jesus himself showed us how to do this.

READ Rom. 3:25

Romans 3:25 NIV

God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—

Jesus Christ became the perfect sacrifice for us.

When he died on the cross…his physical body actually died.

And through his Resurrection he became THE Living Sacrifice…as his physical body actually resurrected.

And Jesus is inviting us to do the same!

READ Rom. 6:5

Romans 6:5 NIV

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.

Are you worshiping God with your body...your whole body?

Are you giving God ALL of yourself?

When we offer our bodies, not just our hearts to God, we will be changed.

It might seem antithetical to say it, but when we offer our bodies as physically to God we are changed spiritually.

THIRD, We are changed when we give our minds to Jesus.

Even though this is third on the list, this is really the starting point.

“Do not conform to the patter of this world, but be transformed…HOW?…by the renewing of your mind.”

Or as we read in Phil 4:8-9...

Philippians 4:8 (NIV)

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—THINK about such things.

…and then...

Philippians 4:9 (NIV)

Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

Proper Thinking leads to Proper Doing

There has been an anti-intellectual strain in many parts of the Christian church for the past several decades.

And this anti-intellectual strain has only intensified through the rise of social media.

Who needs experts when we can hear what Uncle Jerry has to say on the twitter. (Apologies to any Jerrys out there.)

We want to just pretend that everything in the Bible is so simple…so black and white…that we don’t even need to think about it.

YES...the love of Jesus can be shared in the simplest of ways to anyone at all.

But the message of the Bible is so incredibly complex that none of us will ever master it.

The question is, will we let God’s Word master us?

HEAD and/or HEART?

When I first started preaching as an associate pastor at Maple Valley Presbyterian Church, there was a man there who always gave me a hard time about my preaching.

He was from South America and he would say to me, “What’s with all the big words? You need to preach from the Heart. That’s all that matters!”

And we talked about this a lot…literally every time I preached.

And I regularly quoted Romans 12:2…I would say, “Our hearts are changed through a renewal of the mind.” But he didn’t get it. Or he simply refused to get it.

He also thought the shirts I was wearing when I was preaching were not nice enough, so he bought me some new — more flamboyant — ones.

Billy Graham

Billy Graham is a good example of a great preacher who preached in a way that reached both the head and the heart.

He could take a very complex topic and make it accessible to a wide audience.

But it’s interesting that when he had the opportunity later in his ministry to speak to six hundred ministers in London he said that if he had his ministry all over again he would study three times as much as he had done.

“I’ve preached too much and studied too little,” he said.

He then quoted Dr. Donald Barnhouse, who said… “If I only had three years to serve the Lord, I would spend two of them studying and preparing.”

The great evangelist Billy Graham would rather have spent more time in his study than speaking to MORE people.

Spiritual transformation happens when we submit ourselves to the Way of Jesus Christ…

…with our worship

…with our bodies

…with our minds

…with everything

But why does it matter at all?

What is the result of this change, this spiritual transformation?

“Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

How often have you looked to God in order to know what to do?

For some people, that may be your entire prayer life.

God…what am I supposed to do???

The change that God is inviting us to is a change that allows us to understand, to know what God’s will is.

It requires coming before the Lord in prayer.

It requires silence before the Lord.

It requires solitude.

Jesus is our example here. How often in the Gospels did Jesus steal away by himself in order to pray to his Father in order to know what was next for his ministry? We see it so many times.

Finally, the spiritual transformation that God is calling us to is NOT an individual effort…it happens in community.

Let’s read the next three verses of Romans 12....let’s read this together.

READ Romans 12:3-5

Romans 12:3–5 (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. For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.

We are one body with many parts.

We have spent a lot of time in forced separation over the last year+. It is time for us to find new and creative ways for us to be together again on this journey of faith.

What better way to demonstrate this than for us to share in communion together, which we are going to do in a moment.

Where are you longing for spiritual transformation today?

…is there an aspect of your worship, your body, your mind…that you are not fully submitting to the Lord?

…can you truly say that you have fully surrendered to the God who loves you more than you can imagine?

It takes time.

This kind of spiritual transformation takes time. In fact, it takes God’s Timing.

And there is something mysterious about it.

It is not a one-size-fits-all kind of venture.

Do you remember what we read earlier?

“How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! ‘Who has known the mind of the Lord?’”

The process of spiritual transformation takes time and it is mysterious.

And it’s easy to become skeptical.

I think there is some truth in the saying, “People change, but not much.”

But there is much more truth in this… “God is in the business of changing people.”

God loves you just the way you are…but He loves you so much, he is not going to leave you just the way you are.

PRAY

As we close, I’m going to pray a prayer written by Ted Loder...

Oh God, of such truth as sweeps away all lies, of such grace as shrivels all excuses,

come now to find us, for we have lost ourselves, in a shuffle of disguises, and in the rattle of empty words.

We have been careless for our days, our loves, our gifts, our chances...

Our prayer is to change, O God, not out of despair of self, but for love of you,

and for the selves we long to become, before we simply waste away.

Let your mercy move in and through us now... Amen.

As we prepare for communion, let us quiet our hearts before the LORD.

Let us confess our sin and brokenness.

Let us do this in silence.

THE LORD’S PRAYER

Our Father, who art in heaven,

   hallowed be thy Name,

   thy kingdom come,

   thy will be done,

   on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

   as we forgive those

   who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

   but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,

   and the power, and the glory,

   for ever and ever. Amen.