Be Not Conformed....

Romans 12:2 “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

Many people have a feature called P.I.P, picture in picture, on their televisions. It means that you can look at your show and at any time bring up a little screen in the corner that has another channel going. You can watch a movie on the main screen and a football game on the little PIP screen. But the PIP is not the main show. The main show covers most of the screen. The PIP is simply another show to glance at while you’re watching the main show on television.

For many of us who attend church, the service is like a PIP. People go to church and receive a PIP experience. They receive spiritual information, hear spiritual truth, and sing spiritual songs, but its not the main show. Instead when they leave church the main show begins. They go back to work, family , and life- back to day-to day struggles. Sunday morning is only PIP, something to glance at while they enjoy the main show.

What does conformed mean?

Conformed - to be fashioned, molded, and imitate the world.

To live according to the patterns of the world.

If you care for this world more then you care about God thats a problem.

1 Peter 1:14 “as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance;”

You recieved the truth of God but the answer doesn’t suffice.

Or you need more from God because logically it doesn’t sit well with me.

Gal. 1:4 “who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father,”

Eph. 1:21 “far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.”

WE look at the world as if they love us.

The world only loves you if you agree.

In John 15 the book is broken up in three parts Our relationship with Christ, Our relationship with others, and our relationship with the world

John 15:18-25 ““If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.

Friendship with God results in enduring mens hatred.

Being friends with the world is Gods enemy

James 4:4 “Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

The Bible Knowledge Commentary

“a rebellious Christian who has an illegitimate relationship with the world is at enmity with God!”

Sometimes we look at a love for the world as being mere sympathy, or compassion, but it could be compromise.

There are plenty of times I’ve could’ve made a stand, but I folded like a lawn chair.

If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates Me hates My Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father. But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’”

When you abide in Christ the world will hate you.

They hated Christ without a cause.

Why wouldn’t they hate you?

Jesus own brothers didn't believe in Him.

Just remember proximity to Jesus doesn’t guarantee faith.

Just because you are in a church around spiritual people doing spiritual things doesn’t make you spiritual.

Lets turn to John 7

John 7:7 “The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it that its works are evil.”

The world loves its own.

John 15:19 “If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”

1 John 3:13 “Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you.”

Man loves to pick and choose passages out the Bible to fit there narrative.

We love the story about the women caught in adultery

We love when Jesus fed the five thousand.

We love when Jesus healed the blind

Raised Lazarus from the dead

But we don’t love when Jesus said that marriage is between a man and a women, exclusively.

Matthew 19:1–15

Mark 10:1–12

We don’t love when when Jesus said HE is the only way to know God and the only way to heaven. And man is damned apart from Christ

We don’t love when Jesus went out of His culture out of his race to this Samaritan women . To share the love of God and the gospel with her.

We don’t love how Paul told Philemon who was a former slave owner to receive back his former slave Onesmous not as a slave but receive him as a bother .

But we dove How Jesus said if you love you family more then Him you are not worthy of Him. If you love the world more then Him you are not worthy of Him.

Paul was looking for emancipation he was looking for reconciliation.

We pick and choose what we want Jesus to be.

Verse against homosexuality

Genesis 1:14–2:25; 19:1–11

Leviticus 18:1–30; 20:1–27

Deuteronomy 23:15–25

Judges 19:22–30

1 Kings 14:21–31; 15:9–24; 22:41–50

2 Kings 23:1–25

Matthew 19:1–15

Mark 10:1–12

Romans 1:18–32

1 Corinthians 6:1–11

1 Timothy 1:3–11

Jude 5–11

Eph. 4:22-23 “that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind,”

His declaration that “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28) does not pertain to the equality of experience.

Rather it is a statement of accommodation and acceptance of personhood above the obvious differences in culture, gender, and social postion.

In the body of Christ theres gonna be different people who are wrong discriminated, accused, talked down upon, mocked. But in Christ we are equally loved.

The term we are “one in Christ” does imply that there is sufficient commonality between us to bridge the obvious external barriers of race, culture, gender, or experiential differences