Nov 18, 2001

Transformers

Romans 12

A couple weeks ago, after Wednesday night Bible study, several of us went to get something to eat. While we were at the restaurant, the kids were playing with some kind of little toy that reminded me of the Transformers toys that have been around for years.

I guess everybody knows about Transformers? They start out like one thing and change into something else. Like this thing: it starts out like some kind of little tank or something, and then you change it all around and it becomes this fighting robot. Remember the commercial? "Transformers: more than meets the eye." And that's what we are supposed to be: more than meets the eye. Transformed by Jesus Christ, we are to become more than what we appear to be.

For several weeks now we have been trying to really understand what it means to have Holy Spirit unity within our church body. We have been looking at Scripture passages addressed to believers. If there is someone here today that has never received Jesus Christ as Savior, you might think that this message today is about how to get saved. It is not. It is about how saved believers are supposed to live. If you have any questions about whether or not you are saved, come talk to me later. Because today's sermon is not about how to get saved, it is about how to live after you have gotten saved. But telling people how to get saved is something I like to do, and if anyone here has any doubts about their salvation, you come talk to me and we'll get it settled.

If you have your Bibles with you today, and I hope you do, or you can look on your bulletins, turn to Romans, chapter 12.
Verse 1: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
Rom 12:2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."

We have been thinking about the Lord's prayer, when He was praying that his disciples, His church would have the same unity within it, that the Trinity has within itself.

The Lord prayed in John 17:21 "That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
Joh 17:22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
Joh 17:23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me."

This is a concept that is staggering in it's implications. All the utopian societies, all the hippie communes, all the plans of men that have tried to build the perfect community and failed, Jesus asks for a lot more than any of those planners and dreamers ever thought of. And He gets it. In us. When we look beyond the flesh, when we live in the Spirit, and are transformed into that united body of believers that He prayed for. Jesus wants a church body of believers that patterns, demonstrates and reflects the same kind of love for each other, interest in each other, and unity of purpose among themselves that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have between themselves.

We spoke last week of how Jesus has not only made this possible, but actually attainable, and we used verses from Galatians 5. Today is the last Sunday I will be on this topic for awhile, so today let's look at the same thing in a little different way, and let's do it by looking at Romans 8:5.
"For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.
Rom 8:6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace."

Death. As opposed to life and peace. Two different ways of thinking, two different ways of living and looking at the world, and looking at the other people in our church. One way is to be carnally minded, worldly minded, fleshly minded. Living according to our old sinful nature, our old fallen nature that likes to have it's own way, to do it's own thing, to manage as much of the world around us as possible to make life more pleasant and comfortable for us. Our old selfish, scheming, manipulating nature that acts with one goal in mind: looking out for number one.

The Bible says that living that way is death. Among other things, it kills that wonderful unity in His church that Jesus asked His Father to give to Him. It destroys unity, it wipes it out. Not only that, while it is true that sometimes a Christian will slip back into carnality, fleshly living, the unsaved person lives there 24/7.
A carnally minded, fleshly minded Christian kills his or her Christian testimony, an unsaved person dwells in a state of spiritual death. In both cases it is a terrible situation. For the Christian, it ruins their ability to either serve God or enjoy Him. For the unsaved person, it fore shadows the awful, eternal death that awaits them.

Verse 7 tells why: "Because the carnal mind is enmity -hatred- against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
Rom 8:8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God."

The unsaved person has no chance whatsoever of pleasing God at all. The saved person who lives a fleshly, carnal life will discover that those fleshly, carnal things of their life will be burned up at the judgement seat of Christ. They are dead works, useless, they will get left behind when believers are glorified with Christ. Dead works; wood, hay, and stubble. Things that are dead are lifeless, useless. And not only are they useless in the future, at that judgement seat of Christ, they are useless now. The flesh contributes nothing to our life and peace right now. It does nothing to give us that peace of God in our lives that is such a blessing.

Let me ask a question: how many people in here today have all of the peace of God in their lives that they can possibly want or use? You have an abundance of God's peace and presence in your life, you have all you need and want, thank you Jesus, I don't need any more, could you please slack up a bit? Yeah, right. Me either. It goes without saying that all of us could use more of that peace than we currently have. And right here, in verse 6, it tells us that life and peace goes along with being spiritually minded.

One of the ladies made a good observation at Bible study recently when she pointed out that sometimes it helps to behave ourselves spiritually even when we don't feel in the mood, even when we feel like life is about to overwhelm us. There are times when it helps just to stay on God's autopilot, and act spiritual even when -subjectively- you don't feel "spiritual." THAT'S GOOD. God expects us to act spiritual even when we don't feel spiritual. Acting in faith according to what the Holy Spirit tells us to do can move us from a fleshly position to a spiritual position. On the other hand, acting fleshly can never move us to a spiritual position. Acting carnally can only move us to an even more carnal position.

When things get frustrating and difficult, the flesh would like to take command, and try to manage the world around us for our own purposes. The flesh tries to make us think carnal behaviour will solve our problems. You know the routine; "God is a long way off, I can't see Him, I can't hear Him, and meanwhile my problem is here, now, right in my face and the flesh has an instant solution, so why not just go ahead and use it? I mean, maybe it's not the most spiritual solution in the world, but hey; at least it will get me through the day, right?" Wrong. No. The flesh can never fix your problems, the best thing it can offer is to hide a few of your symptoms.

Let me ask a question: If your car had a rod knocking, would you go get some soundproofing and put under the hood so you couldn't hear it? If your plumbing had burst, would you deal with it by just wearing your bathing suit around the house? If you had a skin cancer, would you try and find a better kind of make up to cover it up with? Of course not. In the same fashion, a fleshly solution to your problems will do nothing to solve those problems, it just hides the symptoms. Temporarily.

God has the cure and He gives it to us freely, even though it cost Jesus Christ His death on the cross. The flesh has nothing to give us, and we don't owe it a thing, look at verse 12: "Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.
Rom 8:13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live."

We have been talking recently about mortifying the deeds of the body, putting the carnal nature to death, and the best way to do that is to aggressively pursue what we want a whole lot more; a life that genuinely experiences the presence of Jesus Christ. There is nothing this world can offer that compares with experiencing the touch, hearing the voice, being in the presence of Jesus Christ. We see and hear Him in His Word, the Bible. Sometimes we hear and experience Him in prayer, alone with Him, in those times when we stop talking and listen, and He speaks to us. And sometimes we experience Him in His people, when we see Him ministering life and peace to us through others. When we hear Him speaking love and peace through the kind words and loving actions of other believers toward us.

Experiencing Jesus. That is so wonderful that it lets us see the world for the transient thing that it is. Experiencing Jesus makes everything else seem worthless. Experiencing Jesus makes us able to crucify the flesh and be glad to see it go. Experiencing Jesus in our lives, and in His church. God intends for that to be normal, Jesus asked for that to be the standard that all His people would live up to, to live in, and enjoy. Some times it happens, some times it doesn't.

Some churches seem to be able to live that way more often, and some don't. Some churches seem to be alive and full of the Holy Spirit of love and peace, somehow they caught the vision and wouldn't let it go. Others seem to be content with something less.

Something that helps make the difference is when we make a choice to walk in the spirit even when we don't feel spiritual. Even when we feel like walking in the flesh, even when we feel about as spiritual as mud, we can still choose to believe God, look beyond our circumstances, and look for Jesus in the other believers around us.

Like I said last week, Jesus has given us the other members of our church to help us, to heal us, and to minister to us. And to teach us how to love and minister to God, by ministering to them. That's one of the reasons why we're here. That's what we're supposed to do. That's what we are supposed to exhibit to the world, so that they might realize that Jesus really is who He says He is.

Maybe this all sounds very spiritual or like some kind of wishful thinking, but God is very practical. God would not give us a vision of such a great possibility without giving us a way to get there.

Over in Romans chapter 12, God tells us what a healthy Christian church is like, how it works, and how the members of that body are supposed to work with each other. How we take this vision and make it a reality.

It starts out "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." Our bodies, yours and mine, are supposed to be a living sacrifice to God. Alive, but dead. Put on the altar and killed, yet alive.
This sounds like what we read a minute ago in chapter 8: carnally minded equals death, spiritually minded gives life and peace. Look at the contrasts that we see here: Live after the flesh and die, but if you mortify the flesh, crucify, kill that old fleshly nature; then you can turn around and live a new life in the Spirit.
Those that are in the flesh cannot please God, those that are holy are acceptable to Him. Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, - sounds like a contradiction in terms, but it's not- crucify that old fleshly nature and then discover a new life, look at verse 2:

"Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." When believers mortify that old fleshly nature and way of doing things, that enables the Holy Spirit to transform us into what God wants us to be. We get changed from what we were into something totally different, renewed, transformed, and not like little robot toys, either.

I want us to read through Romans 12, see what God has to say about it, and then come back and look for specific, down to earth applications that we can use on a daily basis to put this into practice.
Verse 3 "For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
Rom 12:4 For as we have many members in one body," -in the local church- "and all members have not the same office:
Rom 12:5 So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another."

The church body is like our physical body; the finger bone connected to the hand bone, the hand bone connected to the wrist bone, the wrist bone connected to the arm bone, the arm bone connected to the shoulder bone; every part of the body is a member of all the other parts.
Everybody in the local church body is related or joined together just like all the parts of our physical body are joined together.

Verse 6: "Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith;
Rom 12:7 Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on teaching;
Rom 12:8 Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness.
Rom 12:9 Let love be without dissimulation." - or hypocrisy- "Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.
Rom 12:10 Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another;
Rom 12:11 Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord;
Rom 12:12 Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer;
Rom 12:13 Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality.
Rom 12:14 Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not.
Rom 12:15 Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.
Rom 12:16 Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits."
And we'll stop there for today, because the rest of the chapter is mostly about how we should deal with people who are outside of the church.

What are some examples of bringing this down to a practical level? When I look for Jesus among the members of my local church, what would He look like? How can I show Jesus in me to others that are looking for Him? How can I make a difference in my church?

Look at verse 6: "Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us." All the members of every local church have spiritual gifts. But not everybody in the church is using their gifts. Paul told Timothy that he needed to stir up the gift of God that was in him, and we have some folks in here that have a spiritual gift from God, and they need to stir them up. They are asleep. Nothing's happening with them.

On the other hand, we have several people in this congregation with readily apparent gifts from the Holy Spirit, some of the ones that come quickly to mind are mercy, helps, prophecy; we have a couple people in this congregation with the prophetic gift. Also, we have those with teaching, discernment, faith.
Maybe you are sitting out there and nobody ever told you that you had a spiritual gift. Well, you do. Every Christian does. Some of you may have more than one spiritual gift. And the more that you mortify the flesh and allow the Holy Spirit to move in your life, the more your spiritual gift will become apparent.

God has a lot of things for all of us to do, but He has some special gift that He has given you, and it is not just for your own good. It is to be used in His church, the church that you are in, to build up and encourage the rest of that church body. If you are not using it, then it needs to be stirred up. There are other believers in your church that you could be a real blessing to, but they are missing the blessing, because you are not being what God intended for you to be.

And most of these gifts are very practical, very down to earth types of things. I have even seen that a lot of times during this building project. This project has used a lot of different people with a wide variety of different skills. Several people have shown the gift of helping. Willing to take time to make time and do what is necessary. Some have helped when it has cost them time and money, and they had other things they needed to be doing. That is an example of mortifying the flesh and releasing a spiritual gift.
Helps make themselves apparent in a lot of different ways. During this project, we had some folks who were good at doing some things and not any good at others. Some had abilities in some areas and not in others, but all were necessary and God used them all.

Some built up, some tore down. Some fixed food, some dug holes. Some drove nails, some pulled nails out. Both ways, God gets the glory. Several times God sent wonderful help from places where we hadn't looked for it. In the storage area, there was literally tons of stuff that needed to be moved, and moved again, and rearranged during different phases of the project.

On a couple different occasions I mentioned that I needed things rearranged. Guys, let me tell you, God has a sense of humor. When a man asks for help rearranging stuff, God will send him one or more women, and son, stuff will get rearranged. You will never know what it is to work until you get a woman helping you move stuff, and then you will learn about work. Just keep your head down and keep moving, and God will see to it that the need gets met.

God likes to use His people to meet each others needs in a lot of different ways. Verses 6 & 7, where they speak of prophecy, ministry, teaching, exhorting. Those are all spiritual gifts, and they are all opportunities for us to minister to each other.

When someone in our assembly has a trial or a burden, do we keep that in mind when we sit down and read God's Word? Do we look for an opportunity for Jesus to minister to that hurting person through us?
If we would do that, God will use His Word to help that brother or sister. He will give us verses to encourage them and lift them up. When you are spending time in the Word, and God brings some brother or sister to mind relative to what you are reading, make a little note and then just share that Scripture verse with that brother or sister. You may not know how it will apply at all, that's fine, but if those verses are from the Holy Spirit, they will bring a blessing and encouragement to that person that will surprise you.
See; that is not anything incredibly miraculous, or hyper spiritual, it is intensely practical, but that is exactly the sort of thing that the Holy Spirit loves to do. And He uses us to do it. And if we aren't available, then it won`t get done, will it? And then the blessing gets missed.

Look at verse 10: "Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love, in honor preferring one another." This word preferring is one of those Greek words that has no real English equivalent, it means to go in front of somebody and lead, to go ahead and show the way. Think about how some other brother or sister has encouraged you in the past, or maybe there was some time in the past that you really wanted someone to encourage you, and they did. You were in a dark place, and you wanted someone to lead you out, and maybe somebody did. They preferred you. They honored you as Jesus would, by going ahead and showing you the way out of the situation.

Can you do that for someone? Can you prefer them, honor them by taking the time, and trouble and giving attention to their problems and needs? To take an interest in their situation and lead them out?
There is a guy at Lowe's named Butch, and any time I ask him where something is, he always stops whatever it is he's doing and takes me right to what I need. He is preferring me in honor. He doesn't just tell me it's on aisle 22, good luck, he leads me there and finds it for me. Can we show Christ to others by doing that for them? Can we stop what we are doing and make a difference in someone else's life? Can we honor them, and honor God, by preferring them?

How about verse 12? Notice the part about continuing instant in prayer. That is another one of those Greek words that we really need about three English words to make it clear, but it means to stay on top of it, do it constantly and diligently, and it means to pay attention to how we do it. That is why we pass out prayer request lists. That is why you will see some people writing the prayer requests down.

How often have we had a time of prayer requests and we say; "Remember this, and remember that, and remember the other thing," and then comes time to pray, and what do we say? "Lord, please remember all these prayer requests, because I can't remember them" Excuse me? What's wrong with this picture?

The verse is telling us to be conscientious in prayer and pay attention to what we are doing: be instant. If we are ignorant of what to pray for, then the best we can do is to be instantly ignorant. Somehow, I don't think that's what God has in mind. All of us probably know that Matthew, the writer of the first of the four Gospels, was a tax collector. Did you know that tax collectors back then used a form of Aramaic shorthand to keep track of their transactions? There is a better than excellent chance that Matthew took notes on what Jesus said, and referred to them later on. He probably believed that what Jesus said was worth keeping track of.

Certainly the Holy Spirit brought to mind everything that happened that God wanted recorded in the Bible, but if Matthew could be diligent about spiritual things, maybe we can too. How can we be diligent or instant and stay on top of other people's prayer needs if we don't know what they are?

Part of being diligent is following up later on. Was our prayer a quick post-it note to God, and then forget about it? It is good to get back later with someone and ask "What about the such and such? Did God answer that prayer? Has the situation changed, do we now need to pray in a different way?" Now that other person will know that you really did care. Can you imagine what an encouragement that would be for the person that asked for that prayer? That is one way that we let others see Jesus in us.

How about verse 16? "Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits." Are you a good listener? Most of us are a lot better at talking than we are at listening. Something the flesh loves to do is talk. We even say; "I think I'll go over and talk to so-and-so." When was the last time that we said to ourselves: "I think I'll go over and listen to so-and-so?"

How many of you know somebody that you can't communicate with, because they are in such a pucker to tell you what they think, that they can never wait to hear what you think? They don't know what you think. You have never had a chance to tell them; they won't shut up long enough! Or how can we be like minded with someone else if we don't know what they think? How can we know what they think if we don't listen to what they say?

Normally we think more highly of our own opinions than other peoples opinions, but what does this verse say to us? "Be not wise in your own conceits." Do we listen to other people and consider what they say? Jesus did. Look at how He answered people in the different gospel accounts, and you can tell that He was not being superficial or just fluffing somebody else off; He listened. He gave them answers that showed that He knew their hearts. Do we? Are we good listeners?

There was a study done recently in Europe, comparing the results of trained psychiatrists and psychologists with the results of people who had no training in those fields at all, and guess what?
They found that old women who had learned to listen, get involved, and care about what another person was really saying and thinking, had the same success rate helping people with mental problems as the trained professionals did. And all they did was listen and care. They condescended to the other person's needs. The key was not the training, it was the willingness to be of the same mind as the other person.
To not be hung up on your own agenda, but to involve yourself with whatever it was affecting that other person. Not being wise in your own conceits. Condescending to the level of that other person.
That is something that everyone of us in here can do. Learn to listen and care. And the Holy Spirit can use us and move in our church.

Maybe you don't always feel like doing these things. Maybe you don't always feel spiritual. Do them anyway. Do them because Jesus said to do them, because He said that if we do them, things change, just watch and see what happens.

You and me, all of us, have lots of practice doing fleshly, carnal things, and all it ever got us was fleshly, carnal results. Fleshly behavior will never produce spiritual results. It never has and it never will.
Do you want to see Jesus? Would you rather feel His presence around you? Look for Him in the other believers that you know, and let them see Him in you. Want Him bad enough that the flesh seems worthless, to where we can let it die and good riddance, that the Spirit might be manifest in us.
Behave in ways that gets the flesh out of the picture, and let the Holy Spirit make the Lord Jesus Christ manifest in our midst.

He asked His Father for it, it is possible to have it, the Scripture sets it forth, and therefore it must be real. Therefore there must be assemblies of Christian believers where this is happening in a powerful way.
Why not here? Why not with us? Why not now? The only thing standing in our way is our old fleshly carnal nature.

We have a choice: we can continue our old way of doing things, with mixed success, or we can make a real consistent effort to do things in the power and the energy of the Holy Spirit. When that starts to happen on a regular basis, then we can expect to see Jesus in each other a lot more often, and the world will be able to see a church that looks like Jesus' church is supposed to look like.