Sermon Tone Analysis

Core Value of this Church: Transformation

Tonight will be heavy on the teaching side of things/with leadership in the background as we go.

Book of Romans:

Romans is Paul’s fullest, grandest, most comprehensive statement of the gospel.

Its compressed declarations of vast truths are like coiled springs—once loosed, they leap through the mind and heart to fill one’s horizon and shape one’s life.

Working definition -

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.

Transformation is about renewing your mind, redesigning the way you think, challenging the existing thoughts that you have had, about yourself, relationships, and God.

Transformation is about not conforming to the pattern of this world.

What is the world we are talking about in which not to conform to?

The World: a particular stage of history understood according to its values, beliefs, and morals in distinction to God’s.

Think spirit, not flesh.

Think eternal, not temporary or momentarily.

Think sacrifice, not giving in to temptation.

Think about things that are unseen, not seen.

Think about light, not darkness.

Think about life, not death.

This world will snatch the life right out of you if you let it.

The world is passing away right before us, and what will remain is God’s Kingdom.

Questions about the world in which we are not to conform to?

Let’s go back to our working definition:

Romans 12:1–2 (ESV)

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Be transformed by the renewal of your mind.

Transformed, here and in what we are talking about with the core value of our church:

to be or become change in outward appearance or expression as manifesting a change in nature or essence

This is the path we spoke of the other week of needing to be re-born again in the spirit of God.

We are helping people change in their nature and essence in Christ!

How awesome!

Now, for the hard part:

Renewing the mind.

Renewal of your mind

Renewal - the act of reestablishing something in a like-new and often improved manner.

Re-new - we are to re-new our mind.

How on earth do we do that?

We must begin to challenge existing thoughts.

We have to know what is there, governing us, running our thoughts and attitudes.

You cannot change and adjust what you do not see.

As with all things, we have to be firmly grounded in current reality.

In order to renew the mind, we must know what old thoughts, behaviors, patterns of thinking have had us on autopilot that need readjusting and re-designing.

The external world is a resource that points back to you what is happening in your inner world.

Leadership Transformation at our Church

We are going to explore this a lot in our community.

I have set a lot of my focus and energy in understanding how the human being changes and transforms, all beginning with Christ as the initiating and ongoing cause of transformation.

AND, at the same time there is a lifetime of the human experience we all go through that we are going to explore here at our church.

This will unfold over time.

I am simultaneously launching a Leadership practice as we launch this church that will be heavily focused around renewing our mind and how we go about it.

We will be doing deep dives into belief systems we have about ourselves and God to help us understand what patterns we have conformed to, out of survival instinct or cultural, or whatever, and begin to shift and adjust those beliefs.

Beliefs that are now blindspots.

A lot more on this later.

For now, let me offer one path toward transformation as we close here tonight, found in our working definition transformation in scripture:

Present your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which is your worship.

Present - to make yourself available or accessible for God; to put yourself at His disposal.

To offer yourself to Him in mind, body, spirt, behavior, and action.

Living Sacrifice - fluid, dynamic, taking on its own shape each and every day as you offer yourself to the Kingdom of God.

Beautiful thing about transformation