Do Not Be Conformed

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Turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 12.
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We'll be looking tonight at verses 1 and 2.
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Romans 12, verses 1 and 2.
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It's impossible to overstate the importance of those two well-known verses.
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Every Christian who desires to live a God-honoring life needs to have a proper understanding of them.
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What was Paul urging those Christians in Rome to do, and what was he warning them not to do? What he told them is the subject of tonight's lesson, and it's just as important for Christians today as it was for those first-century believers.
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Follow along as I read Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2.
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I'll be reading from the New King James Version.
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I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
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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.
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I beseech you therefore, brethren, beseech is a word that we don't use much anymore.
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It means to ask someone urgently or pleadingly to do something or give something.
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For example, they beseeched him to stay.
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Or I beseech you to lend me $5,000.
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More commonly we would say, I beg you, I plead with you, I urge you, or I appeal to you.
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And so when Paul says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, it's clear that Paul is about to make an urgent and emotional appeal to the Christians in Rome.
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He just laid out 11 chapters of doctrine, and now he's going to tell them that in light of all that he's presented to them, there's only one proper way for them to respond.
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Paul, as well as any of God's servants, understood the importance of doctrine.
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He knew that what a person believes influences how they live.
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And he knew that when sound Christian doctrine is understood and bound up in the heart, it always leads to holy living.
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That's why Paul in his letters would present doctrine first and then say, therefore, this is how you should live.
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If Paul were alive today, he might say something like, Doctrine is the fuel for the engine of Christian living.
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Since this letter to the Romans has more doctrinal content than any of his other letters, Paul doesn't get to the therefore until chapter 12.
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But before he gets to the application of the doctrine, the therefore, he closes chapter 11 with a magnificent hymn of praise to God.
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So follow along as I read verses 33 to 36 of chapter 11.
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O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become his counselor? Or who has first given to him, and it shall be repaid to him? For of him, and through him, and to him are all things, to whom be glory forever, Amen.
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Those heartfelt words were written by a man who considered himself to be the chief of sinners and an undeserving recipient of God's grace.
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After writing about that grace for 11 chapters, he was compelled to express his amazement and astonishment of a sovereign God who redeemed him and an admiration of a sovereign God whose judgments are beyond human understanding.
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In verse 1 of chapter 12, Paul refers to that grace as the mercies of God.
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His response to God's mercies was one of great gratitude and humbleness.
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Gratitude and humbleness should be the response of every Christian, but how do we as believers express our gratitude to God? How do we even begin to do that? There is, of course, no single answer to that question because God abounds in such mercy to us that there is no limit to the ways we can express our gratitude to him.
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Paul does, however, give us the general principle in verse 1.
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I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
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Then in verse 2, Paul tells us how this is possible.
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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.
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What is Paul getting at in those two very familiar verses? I believe this is essentially what Paul is saying.
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Because of all the mercies of God that I have been writing to you about in this long letter, there is only one proper response you can make after having been so blessed by God.
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Instead of giving a sacrifice, be one.
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Just as the animals used to be laid on the altar, put your body at God's disposal.
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Let your bodies which once served sin now serve God.
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Commit yourself to holy living and pleasing God.
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This is your reasonable service.
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This is your spiritual worship which has replaced the former way of sacrifice.
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It is because of God's mercies that you are God's people.
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If you are one of God's people, live like you have been blessed by God and are God's people.
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Do not live as if you are not.
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Do not live like those who are not God's people live.
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And do not let unbelievers pressure you into being like them.
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You are the Ecclesia, the called out, the church.
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Concentrate on being like him who is head of the church.
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To do this will require more than just outward conformity to certain standards.
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It will also require nothing less than the transformation of your mind.
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By being different in your thinking, you will be different in your living and doing.
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And if you put into practice what I'm saying, if you put God's will to the test in this way, you will prove it to be good, acceptable, and perfect.
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Well, that's the general principle by which we're to live our lives.
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Beginning in verse 3 and continuing through chapters 13, 14, and 15, Paul tells specifically how we are to put this general principle into practice.
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For example, he will tell us how we are to use our spiritual gifts in the church, how we're to develop those gifts in our personal life, how we're to live as a member of society and as a member of a church, and what should our attitude towards government be, towards other believers, towards unbelievers, and so on.
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Tonight our focus will just be on verses 1 and 2 of chapter 12.
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In verse 1, when Paul says, By the mercies of God, he has in mind everything he has taught about salvation.
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The mercies of salvation include election, calling, justification by faith, adoption, sanctification, glorification.
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All those are mercies of God, and those mercies are our motive for serving God.
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When Paul says, Present your bodies, he has in mind our entire self, our whole being.
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This means our physical body and our spiritual body.
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Our spiritual body is our mind, our heart, our soul.
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A Christian may not say, It's true that I use my body sinfully, but I have a good heart.
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Bodies used in the service of sin are not fit to be presented to the Lord as a living sacrifice.
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Our bodies must be holy or set apart from sinful purposes to be acceptable to God.
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If you have a King James or New King James translation, you'll notice in verse 1 that Paul says, Presenting your body as a living sacrifice to God is your reasonable service.
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Instead of reasonable service, other translations say spiritual worship or spiritual service of worship.
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What does Paul mean by reasonable service or spiritual worship? Think about the Old Testament system of worship.
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The Old Testament practice of sacrificing an animal to atone for sin was instituted by God and accepted by God, and was therefore reasonable service.
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It was reasonable because God instituted it, but it was not according to reason.
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It was not according to reason because killing an animal, no matter how free it is from spot or blemish, cannot atone for sin.
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The Old Testament sacrificial system of worship was therefore not reasonable in that way.
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Although it was not reasonable, it was not established by God because of its excellence.
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It was given as a shadow of the good things to come.
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Presenting ourselves as a living sacrifice, however, is reasonable.
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It is logical.
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It makes perfect sense.
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To give to God only with our checkbook does not interest him.
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It is putting ourselves entirely at his disposal, which is our only proper response to all he has done for us.
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Now, it is possible that an objector might say it is not reasonable that we have to give our all, at least not until we are ready to do that.
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Paul would answer that objection by saying that God never demands more of us than is reasonable.
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Whatever God requires is right and perfect.
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Therefore, giving ourselves completely to God is our reasonable service, even if we have to go out of our comfort zone, even if we are inconvenienced or laughed at or ridiculed.
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It is reasonable service, even if it costs us our job, our friends, or results in persecution.
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Jesus said, whoever will save his life will lose it, and whoever will lose his life for my sake will find it.
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And so, in response to God's great love to us, we are called to present ourselves a living sacrifice.
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That is to say, we are to serve him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
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To serve God like that, we have to be instructed by the word of God.
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Therefore, in verse 2, Paul tells us that we must not be conformed to this world, but we must be transformed by the renewing of our mind.
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That is an admonition.
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An admonition is a strong warning, and Paul considers it to be so important that he puts it first in negative form.
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Do not be conformed to this world.
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Then, positively, he says, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
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Do not be conformed.
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To conformed means adopt, imitate, or copy the form or appearance of another.
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It may refer to anything pertaining to the habits, dress, lifestyle, philosophy, or belief system of someone else.
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Do not be conformed to this world, says Paul.
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Do not copy the world.
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The Greek word that Paul uses here for world literally means a period of time.
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The world has had different periods of time or ages.
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For example, we speak of the Middle Ages, the Age of Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, the Atomic Age, the Space Age, the Information and Communication Age, and so on.
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Some of you may recall that in the late 1960s, some people whose minds had not been transformed became beguiled by something called the Age of Aquarius.
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When the Bible speaks of the world, it often means something different than the Bronze Age or the Atomic Age.
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For example, Isaiah 1311.
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I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity.
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John 7.7.
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The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify of it that its works are evil.
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1 Corinthians 2.12.
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Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God.
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It is clear that the world used in those verses refer to those in the world who do not acknowledge God as God.
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Those of unredeemed humanity who have lived at enmity with God during every age of human history.
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That is the meaning of the world that Paul has in mind when he says, do not be conformed to this world.
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Paul gives that warning because the agenda of the world is enmity against God.
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Synonyms of enmity include hatred, animosity, hostility, ill will, hard feelings, bitterness and opposition.
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Always, in every age, even the so-called Age of Enlightenment, the world is at enmity with God.
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The world is bitterly opposed to God.
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Sin is always opposed to God, and sin is the controlling principle of the world.
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With its agenda of opposition to God, the world engages in a pattern of life consisting of sinful works, sinful speech, sinful amusements, and sinful pleasures.
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We see the world's enmity for God tear a family apart.
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Adultery, divorce, disrespectful and rebellious children.
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We see it in society.
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Abortion, drugs, disregard of authority, and criminal behavior.
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We see it in TV sitcoms and movies which encourage viewers to laugh at and make light of sin.
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Because we live in the world and we are not immune to its influence, Paul warns us not to be conformed to it.
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The Greek that Paul uses in his warning literally says, Do not copy the world in your walk and in your conversation.
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Do not copy the world and do not let the world shape you into its form.
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Do not take on its ways and values.
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This is a strong warning and a timely warning.
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We live in the world and there is much of the world living in us.
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We don't like it because we want God to be honored in our lives.
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When we were justified by faith, we were given a double cure.
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We were saved from the eternal consequences of sin and we were also saved from the controlling influence of sin.
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In principle, we have been delivered from the power of sin.
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In principle, we are children of God, adopted as sons and daughters into God's family.
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In principle, we are a new creation.
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A new creation in principle, but in actuality there is just a small beginning of new life in us.
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We are much different than we used to be, but we are still only a little bit Christian.
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And what new life we have, the world desires to snatch away.
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The world desires to snatch away our new life and so it preaches to us nonstop regarding how we should live and walk.
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It exerts relentless pressure to conform us to its wicked way of life.
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And unfortunately, our natural tendency, the tendency of our flesh, is to take the path of least resistance, to go with the flow.
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Paul is aware of this inclination and so he issues a warning.
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If we don't heed his warning, if we don't resist the influence and pressure of the world, we'll do exactly what he warns us not to do.
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We will copy the world.
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Our walk and our conversation will mirror the world and we will not be salt and light.
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What good is salt that has lost its flavor? How often do you suppose a person who was open to Christianity had second thoughts when he saw a professing Christian living just like everybody else? The issue for us, then, is how do we react to Paul's warning not to be conformed to this world? Do we understand that it is God himself who is warning us? Will we take the warning to heart? The warning is not hard to understand.
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It's not written in Da Vinci code.
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Neither is it hidden in one of those long, complex sentences Paul sometimes wrote.
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The warning is crystal clear.
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Don't copy the world.
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We must not conform to the world, but the world does everything in its power to make us conform to it.
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Young people, young impressionable people, are especially pressured to conform to the culture around them and are especially susceptible to peer pressure and the attraction of the world.
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It's always been this way throughout every age of history, but in this present age, computers and other electronic devices bring the world right into a person's home.
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To illustrate exactly what the world would like to do to a Christian, I'm going to relate to you a story.
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It's a true story, a true horror story.
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It comes from a commencement speech given by the late John Robbins.
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Robbins was the founder of the Trinity Foundation, an organization that is a staunch defender of biblical Christianity.
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He was addressing the graduating class of a college, a Christian college.
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Presumably, the graduates were grounded in the word of God and aware that the world is not their friend.
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Nevertheless, Robbins felt that those graduates needed a strong warning about the influence of the world.
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Listen to a portion of what he said to them, but be advised that what he told them is disturbing to hear.
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This is what he said in part.
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Hundreds of years ago in China, the art of molding men was developed.
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Those who practice this ancient art would take a child two or three years old and place him in a porcelain vase.
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Sometimes it would be grotesque in shape.
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The vase would have no top or bottom, and only the child's head or feet would be visible.
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The child would be kept in the vase for years, standing in the daytime, reclining at night to sleep.
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All the while, the small pliable body would be growing and filling the contours of the vase with flesh and bone.
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After several years in the vase, the child's body took on the shape of the vase, and the child became a grotesque, misshapen human monster.
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The child was as twisted as the vase, and the damage to the body was irreparable.
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When it was thought that the child's shape was permanent, the vase would be broken, and the child, now eight to ten years old, would be removed to reveal a helpless, misshapen child, a source of endless amusement for the noble men of China.
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When we learn that there could be men as cruel as that, we recoil in horror and disgust.
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We're angered by the idea of forcing helpless children to become human vases to be ridiculed and mocked by rich men and rulers.
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Now, at this point in his address, Robbins said very emphatically, But hear me.
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The world does something far worse to children than deform their bodies.
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The world's work is not so obvious, and it doesn't offend our sensibilities.
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The world does not put little children in the vases to mangle their bodies, and so almost everyone, including many professing Christians, either are not aware of the evil of the world, or underestimate it, or are not concerned about it.
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The world does not deform bodies.
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It deforms minds.
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The world creates monsters of the mind.
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It pulls and twists and exerts great and unrelenting pressure on all of us.
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Robbins continued by saying, The entire world is a great vase, and we are all in it.
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While the Chinese sought to twist the limbs of children, the world seeks to twist their thoughts.
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While the Chinese sought to keep the children imprisoned until their deformity was irreparable, the world seeks to keep us in our sins until the last great judgment.
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By ourselves, in our own strength, we are like helpless children in resisting the intellectual vase of the world.
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Worst of all, because the vase of the world is not visible, but invisible, not physical, but spiritual, we frequently don't even realize that we are being misshaped and deformed.
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And because we are sinners, we may even come to love our deformity, even come to believe that we are supposed to think as we do.
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At the end of the age, God will break the world vase and we will all emerge in plain view.
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For those who have been conformed to the shape of the world, those will resemble vessels of wrath fitted only for destruction.
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But for those who believe in his name and do not assume the shape of the world, God gives them the right to become sons of God.
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Paul himself, as we know, once walked according to the course of this world, so much so that at one time in his life he was zealous to exterminate those who followed after Christ.
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Because he knew personally that a person's thinking can become deformed, he pleads with his Christian brethren, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed.
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To be transformed is the opposite of being conformed.
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We don't want to go where the world is going.
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Whichever way the world is headed, we want to go in the opposite direction.
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In the 1970s, Charles Dunn wrote an evangelism book entitled The Upstream Christian in a Downstream World.
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Being an upstream Christian is essentially what Paul is imploring believers to be.
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That's because the influence and the nature of the world are like the current of a powerful river which flows towards a mighty waterfall.
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The world would like nothing better than to entice everyone into that river than pull them downstream to eternal destruction.
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Picture in your mind a river like the one in upper New York State near the Canadian border, the one that flows towards a tremendous waterfall.
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I believe you know the name of the river and the name of the waterfall.
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If you're boating on that river, it's not wise to go too far downstream because the current becomes increasingly powerful as it flows towards the falls.
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There comes a point when it becomes impossible to turn back or even to make it to shore.
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Long before the danger point is reached, however, signs are posted to warn boaters to go no further.
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The Niagara River may seem peaceful and tranquil and non-threatening where the warnings are posted, and a boater might be inclined to ignore those warnings and continue to drift.
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But that's a very foolish and dangerous thing to do.
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Likewise, the world may not seem threatening or dangerous to a Christian.
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Some aspects may even seem pretty cool.
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But a Christian must not just drift.
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A Christian must go upstream.
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But how is it possible to do that, to go against the prevailing worldview of a person's culture, to go upstream when it seems that most people are going downstream and seem to be having a great time doing it? For sure we can't do it in our own strength, unassisted.
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Paul says we don't have to do it without help.
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He says there is something that will empower us to go against the current of the world.
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That something is the renewing of our mind.
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We might say, great, I want that power, but how do I get it? How do I renew my mind? There are only two ways.
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One is through the study of the scriptures.
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God has given us 66 books to study which will help us to take on the shape of Christ rather than the shape of the world.
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All scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
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H.H.
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Haley, who wrote the popular Haley's Bible Handbook, said one of a pastor's chief goals should be to encourage his congregation to become a Bible-reading people.
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Through expository preaching on Sunday and Bible studies every Wednesday, that's exactly what Pastor Keith is encouraging us to be.
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Prompted by his encouragement, we must study scripture, learn scripture, and then obey scripture.
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If we do that, our minds will be renewed and not be conformed to this world.
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The other way we renew our mind is by prayer.
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Our prayers must be prayers that seek first after God's kingdom, prayers that seek after his will and his glory.
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His glory, that is the chief end of man.
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The world tries to convince us that man's glory is the chief end in life.
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We must resist the temptation to make us and our happiness the focus of our prayers.
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Studying the Bible is hard work.
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Prayer is hard work.
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Going upstream in a downstream culture is hard work.
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But God never said being a Christian is easy.
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However, if we persevere in prayer and study, our minds will be renewed and we will be transformed, not conformed.
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God's grace will see that it happens.
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The result will be that we will prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
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By God's will, Paul means God's will for us.
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God's will is good.
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It's healthy.
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It's acceptable.
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And it is well-pleasing to God that we do his will.
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God's will is also perfect, and doing it always has a good end.
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Those who desire to do God's will must never forget that the world is at enmity with God and it desires to conform his people to its wicked way of life.
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The world hates Christ and it hates all who are friends of Christ.
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If we forget that and just drift along with the current of the world, ignoring all the warnings in Scripture about where the world is headed, we will not prove that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
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Proving the will of God is experiencing that the will of God is good.
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When we do his will, when we're in the center of his will, we know in our soul that it's the best thing we can do.
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We would be foolish indeed to kick against the goads, to prove, to taste, to experience what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God is a blessing that, once known, we would not exchange for anything in the world.
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I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
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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.
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Let us pray.
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Our gracious Father in Heaven, we confess that often we look more like a son of Adam than a son of God.
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By your grace, conform us to the image of your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who became the Son of Man so that we could become sons of God.
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For his sake, help us to renew our minds so that we could be transformed in our thinking and our doing and become like him.
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Give us the grace we need each day to resist the relentless pressure of the world so that on the final day we will have proven what is that good and acceptable and perfect will for our lives.
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In Christ's name, amen.