Your Mind: Conformed, or Transformed?

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Well, it's really incredible how quickly people are prone to believe a lie. You see that, especially, on the internet. In fact, the internet has either given birth to or further given credence to the scope of a number of what are called "urban legends." The Houston Chronicle identified several of those urban legends that are, frankly, head shakers. One of them is that Fred Rogers, the host of TV show Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, was either a sniper or a Navy Seal during the Vietnam War. Think about that a moment. Kentucky Fried Chicken, the Chronicle says, changed its name (This is the urban legend.) to KFC, because it manufactures mutant chicken that can't legally be marketed as chicken. That may be true of McDonald's' McNuggets, but I'm not sure that's true of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Another urban legend says that the seven dwarfs in the animated Snow White classic represent the seven stages of addiction: Sleepy, Sneezy… I don't know. Anyway, you figure it out. New York City's sewer system is infested with alligators. That's been a common one for many, many years. Rice thrown at weddings kills birds, and seagulls explode when eating Alka-Seltzer. Kids, don't try this at home. And we've all heard and read about the urban legend of the guy who goes into some bar somewhere for a drink and wakes up in a hotel bathroom covered in ice with a scar on his side having one of his kidneys removed. Those are urban legends. And they're constantly recycled. And people believe them!

About once a month, I get the Christian version of an urban legend. Someone will forward me an email that's popular among Christians, that will be promoting some idea. In some cases it's been around for many years. I remember the first sort of Christian urban legend was that Madalyn Murray O'Hair was trying to get Christian radio taken off the air. This was after she was dead, which would be quite a feat.

As Christians, we have the truth, and we have come to know the truth. But tragically, we can still be tempted to believe a lie, not urban legends, but lies that are truly, spiritually lethal. Today, I want to begin a series (for the better part of the summer, probably) that I've entitled "Lies Christians Believe." That's the title of the overarching series. We'll be looking at a number of things in the flow of that thought. But, lies that Christians believe. Lord willing, next Sunday we'll begin to look at some of those lies that we as Christians can be tempted to believe. Again, not urban legends, but rather, truly damaging spiritual lies.

But today, I want you to understand a little bit of a foundational view. Why is this so important? Why is it so important that our minds are captivated by, captured by the truth rather than the lies that are all around us? And to do that I want you to turn with me to Romans 12, and we're going to look at verses 1-2. But before we read those verses, let me just give you the context. Romans 12:1-2 are really like hinge verses for Paul's letter to the Romans. Like Ephesians, the first half of Romans has to do with what God has done for us in the gospel; the second half of Romans, beginning after these verses, are what we are to do in response. So Romans 1:16 (after his introduction) all the way through the end of chapter 11 contains only a handful of imperatives or commands. Instead, it is primarily instruction about justification by faith alone or the gospel, about the righteousness that comes from God to us as a gift.

Let me just say, if you're here this morning, that is the good news, that is the gospel. You can never ever stand before God and be accepted by Him by your own efforts or your own merit. In fact, you and I are sinners, and God is compelled by His justice to condemn us to eternal hell. But the good news of the gospel is that Jesus came and did for us what we could never do for ourselves. He lived a perfect life, and then He died a death that satisfied the justice of God for the sins of all of those who will ever believe. And we receive that by placing our faith in Christ alone as our only hope of salvation. That's the good news, and that's the first half of Romans.

But Romans 12-16 are primarily imperatives or commands, and that's where 12:1-2 come in. These two verses are the hinge between what God has done and what we are to do in response. They are the foundation or the ground of all the practical commands that flow out in the second half of this letter. Now, with that background, let me read for you these two verses. Romans 12:1:

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Paul says, in response to what God has done through the gospel (the first half of the letter), you owe God your body and your mind. Notice, he begins with word "therefore." As a practical application of all that I have just written to you about the gospel and its ramifications, "Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God." Here is the ground of Paul's exhortation in these two verses. He's appealing to us on the basis of all of those expressions of God's mercy that He has delineated in the first half of this letter. By the way, Paul is not urging us here to somehow try to pay God back for all of the mercies He's shown us. That is impossible in a million lifetimes. Instead, we are to respond to God's mercies as a simple expression of our love and our gratitude.

So what is it that we're to do in response to God's mercies in salvation? Well, what follows are two exhortations. Notice in verse 1, literally he says, "present your bodies a... sacrifice." That's what the Greek text says. Present your bodies a sacrifice. What does that mean? It means that we are to intentionally determine not to live any longer for ourselves and for sin, but instead to live for Christ. That's what it means. If you want a commentary on this, at some point go back to Romans 6 and read verses 11-13, where Paul says now that you have died with Christ, yield your members, yield the members of your body no longer as servants of sin but as instruments of righteousness to God. That's what he means

And notice, we are to present our bodies, verse 1 says, not as a dead sacrifice, but as "a living… sacrifice." Not dedicated to sin, but consecrated to God, or holy. And we should do this, notice verse 1 says, because it is "acceptable." That is, it pleases God. And it is reasonable. The Greek word that's translated "spiritual" is actually the word logikos. You recognize an English word in that? Logikos. That's the Greek word that's translated "spiritual." It's the word from which we get the word logical. This response is logical. It's reasonable. It's rational. And it is, notice the end of verse 1, our "service of worship." It's an expression of our lives worshiping God for what He has done. We sacrifice our bodies. We no longer do what we want to do with our bodies, we do what God wants us to do. That's the first exhortation. Present your bodies as a sacrifice.

The second exhortation (that's kind of a hinge for the rest of this letter) comes in verse 2, and this is the verse I want us to consider more carefully this morning. Look again at verse 2: "And [in addition, in response to the mercies of God] do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect." Folks, the sacrifice that we owe God in response to His gospel and His salvation is not only our bodies but our minds, our total selves. Mind and body are not our own. Christ bought them. First Corinthians 6 says He bought us. We belong to Him mind and body. Our minds aren't our own either. We are not just to think what we want to think. Our minds are now Christ's, and we're to think as He wants us to think.

So in verse 2, you have one basic exhortation about our minds. But it's expressed negatively and positively. In the first half of the verse it's expressed negatively: how we're not to think. In the second half of the verse it's expressed positively: how we are to think. And I want us to take this apart now and look at it carefully, to look at these two commands about our minds.

First of all, we are to resist the thinking of our age. That's the negative side of it. This is what we are to put off, if you will. Notice the first half of the verse: "Do not be conformed to this world." The Greek word that's translated "conformed" there means "to form something according to a pattern or a mold." To shape or form something according to a pattern or mold. When I was a kid I loved to build things—still do. But when I was a kid I had all the latest things at that point. I had nine siblings in addition to my parents, so Christmas was a wonderful time around my household. And so I had a large set of Lincoln Logs. And I had a large Erector Set. You know, the metal pieces you put together and build things with. I also had a large collection, when I was younger, of Play-Doh. And one year for Christmas I got one of those Play-Doh machines. You know, where you put the Play-Doh in it, and you pulled this lever, and as you pull the lever it forces the play dough into a mold. And if you used enough force on that lever, then when you were done, the shape of the dough perfectly matched the mold into which you put it. Paul is saying here, don't let that happen to your thinking. Do not be shaped by, conformed to the mold of, this world. That's what we're not to be conformed to: this world.

Now, there are two primary Greek words for "world" in the New Testament. One of them you're probably familiar with. You've heard it if you've been in Christ any time at all. It's the word cosmos. That's not the word used here. The other word is aion, and it's the one that is used here. And it means and is often translated as "age." So Paul is saying do not allow your mind to be shaped by, conformed to, this age. Now, by this age, Paul means this age as opposed to the age to come; that is, the time between Christ's first coming and His second coming. That's this age. But the word age also is used more specifically than that. It's used to describe the age at any point in time, the world as it exists at a particular point in time. For example, in history you talked about the Age of Enlightenment or the age of industrialization. This Greek word is also used in the same way. It's a period of time and its prevailing mindset. That's a definition of this word "world" or age: a period of time and its prevailing mindset. One Greek lexicon defines aion, or the word that's translated "world" here, or age, this way: "All that floating mass of thoughts, opinions, maxims, speculations, at any time current in the world." So that sort of groupthink that is a part of the age in which we live, that's what Paul is saying. Every age, every period of time in human history is dominated by certain ideas. If you've studied history at all you understand that. And here Paul is saying don't let that happen. Do not allow your mind, your thinking, to be pushed into the mold of the groupthink of the age in which you live.

Before we came to Christ that was absolutely the reality. We were controlled by the mindset of the age. Look back at Ephesians 2. You remember, when we went through this we discovered in this passage that before Christ we were all slaves walking in lockstep with powerful forces, forces that enslaved us, that controlled our thinking, that directed our decisions, that dominated our lifestyles. Those three forces were the world, verse 2; the devil, verse 2; and Ephesians 2:3, the flesh. The world, the devil and the flesh. Those three forces absolutely dominated our lives. Notice, back in Ephesians 2:2, he says we walked in lockstep with "the course of this world." The word "course" is the same Greek word aion, age. Paul meant that before we came to Christ, we walked in lockstep with the worldview, the mindset of the age, the groupthink that was a part of the culture around us. By the way, the New Testament says—guess who controls the aion? Satan is called, in 2 Corinthians 4:4, the god of this age, the god of this aion. What that means is, he is the one in control of that groupthink at any time in human history, the one who directs the prevailing thoughts and opinions and maxims and speculations, the philosophies current in the world.

So back in Romans 12:2, Paul says don't allow your thinking to continue to be shaped by, as it was before Christ, the spirit of the age, the prevailing thoughts of your time. I like the way J. B. Phillips, in his kind of paraphrase translation, puts it: "Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its mold."

So what are the implications of this negative command to resist the thinking of the age? Several come to mind. Let me just share them with you. First of all, there are no truly independent thinkers. Do you understand that? Your thinking will always, always, always be shaped by outside influences. Either it will be God and His Word, or it will be Satan and the ideas that he directs and controls in the culture. That's it. Those are the only two alternatives. There are no independent thinkers. There's God and Satan, and all the ideas (as we talked about even in Ephesians 6) ultimately trace back to one of the two of them.

Second implication of the first half of this verse is that our age, like every other time period in human history, is dominated by certain prevailing ideas. And those ideas are, normally, contrary to God's Word and ultimately traced back to Satan himself. He is the god of this age. Let that sink into your mind. The prevailing attitudes and mindsets and thoughts of our time come ultimately from Satan himself. If they are contrary to the Word of God, they're contrary to the character of God, then they are from Satan.

Third implication we need to note is, the prevailing mindset of our times is constantly, constantly assaulting us, and it is trying to push us into its mold. And it does so in a lot of different ways. Media. We're constantly bombarded with the mindset of the age, aren't we? Newspapers and magazines, the internet, wherever it is you get your news. We're bombarded with that. Entertainment. Whether it's video games or movies or whatever other form of entertainment. Surfing the internet. Social media. The people in the culture are informed by this same mindset; we are constantly bombarded by their ideas and caused to wonder if our own ideas are correct. Whether it's Facebook or Twitter or text from friends, there's this constant onslaught of ideas. It's part of the groupthink of the world in which we live. Even in everyday conversations with friends or acquaintances, those prevailing ideas keep coming up and keep coming back and keep washing like dirty waves over our souls.

A fourth implication is that God holds us responsible to identify the flawed thinking of our times and not to be shaped by it. In view of God's mercies to us in Christ, our minds belong to Him, and to honor Him we must resist the thinking of our age. We must put off those things and refuse to be shaped by and squeezed into the mold of the age around us. Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its mold, its way of thinking. That's what Paul is saying. That's the negative command about our minds: resist the thinking of the age.

The second half of verse 2 introduces us to the positive command about our minds. And it's this: embrace the thinking of our God. Instead of the age which is ultimately the thinking of Satan, embrace instead the thinking of our God. Look at verse 2, the second half: "Do not be conformed to this world, but," rather, on the other hand. Paul uses a strong adversative. There are different kinds of words for "but" in the Greek language, and some of them are very strong. This is a strong one. "But [rather, on the other hand, on the opposite side] be transformed by the renewing of your mind." The Greek word for "transformed" is a Greek word that's made its way into the English language. The word itself is metamorphoo. Do you recognize anything in that from English? Metamorphosis. That's this word. Experience a metamorphosis. Be changed inwardly in your fundamental character. Be radically altered in who you are.

The men who used to do the Moody Science films—Some of you are old enough to remember those.—they have just come out with a new documentary entitled "Metamorphosis," in which they study the amazing reality of what happens in the life cycle of a butterfly. The producers write this:

The transformation from caterpillar to chrysalis to adult butterfly defies Darwinian evolution. In fact, some evolutionary biologists have called the process of metamorphosis "butterfly magic." That's not surprising [listen to this] given that inside the chrysalis, the cells of the caterpillar break down into a chemical soup. Then new cells, butterfly cells, form from those molecular components. In just a few days, these cells are reassembled into an adult butterfly that has virtually no resemblance to a caterpillar.

It is a metamorphosis. It is a radical change in the character of that insect. We are supposed to experience, Paul says here, just that kind of radical change in our character, in who we are. We are to be transformed.

And notice, this metamorphosis is to happen because of what happens in our minds. Verse 2 says, "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind." For us to be radically changed in character, to experience this metamorphosis, our minds have to be renewed. The command, though, is not to us to renew our minds. You can't renew your mind. The command, instead, is to allow ourselves to be renewed. We are to allow someone else to renew our minds. Who is that? Of course, it's the Holy Spirit. You see that in a number of texts in the New Testament. Titus 3:5 says that we are renewed by the work of the Holy Spirit. Only God can do the renewing. You and I can either hinder that process, or we can encourage and promote it. And Paul is telling us here to facilitate the process of renewal that the Spirit wants to do within us. By the way, in Ephesians 4:23, you remember, we're told to be renewed, and we're told to be renewed—how? "In the spirit of your mind." That is, your way of thinking, the grid through which you see and interpret everything. Let that grid be renewed. Total transformation of our thinking. And it's the work of the Spirit.

How does He do it? How does the Spirit change the grid of our minds through which we see and interpret everything in our lives? He does it through the Word. That's what our Lord said in John 17, the verse you've heard me quote so often. John 17:17, "Sanctify them [make them internally holy, change them through the Word]; Your word is truth." First Peter 1:21, "[We] have in obedience to the truth purified [our] souls." That change, that internal renewal takes place through the work of the Spirit by the Word, and we are to allow the Spirit to transform us by renewing our minds with the Word of God. When that happens, we stop thinking like we used to think. We stop thinking like the age in which we live thinks, and we start thinking like God thinks.

That's what Psalm 1 says. You remember? As it sets forth the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked, the way of the righteous is—what? "How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scoffers!" That's the way of the wicked. That's the wrong way. That's the way of the world. That's the mindset of the age. Instead, Psalm 1:2, the blessed man delights "in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night."

Listen folks, there are no free thinkers. There are no self-made men, no people who truly think outside the box. Don't believe for a moment that you are unique, that you are a true nonconformist. There is no such person. Here's the bottom line: either you will be in lockstep with the Bible, or you will be in lockstep with the spirit of the age inspired by Satan himself. That's it. It's just that simple. Either you delight in the Bible and meditate in it day and night, or you are walking in the counsel of the wicked.

In Romans 12, Paul explains what happens when the Spirit renews our minds with the Word. Notice the end of verse 2: "So that you may prove what the will of God is." The word "prove" means "to test and approve, to draw a conclusion about something because you've tested it." When the Spirit renews our minds with the Word of God, we come to a conclusion about the value or worth of the will of God. Here he's not talking about the will of God in the sense of what car you ought to buy or where you ought to live. He's talking about the will of God in the sense of the revealed will of God, the Word of God.

When the Spirit renews our minds, we give hearty approval that the will of God revealed in the Word of God is, notice, "good." It's beneficial. It's useful for us. It's "acceptable." That is, it's pleasing to God. And it is "perfect." It is perfect in itself. Those are descriptions of the will of God, really the Word of God, which contains His will. It is beneficial or useful, it is pleasing to God, and it is perfect in itself. And when our minds are renewed, we take the Word of God which contains the will of God and we say that's true, amen and amen. It is good and it is acceptable to God and it's perfect. It's what I need. So instead of allowing the mindset of the age to push us into its mold, we are to allow the Spirit of God to transform us by renewing our minds. Then we will be able to conclude that the will of God found in the Word of God is good and acceptable and perfect. Let me give you J. B. Phillips translation of the whole verse. I like this.

Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold. But let God remake you, so that your whole attitude of mind is changed. Thus you will prove in practice that the will of God is good, acceptable to Him, and perfect.

Now what are the implications of this positive command to embrace the thinking of our God? Let me give you a couple here to think about as well. Number one: the only way to keep from being conformed to the thinking of the age is to learn and embrace God's will that's contained in His Word. That's the only way. There are the two alternatives. Either you're going to be conformed to the spirit of the age, or you're going to be transformed to think God's thoughts by the Word of God. That's it. Number two: the Spirit alone can do this work of renewal. Drives us back to prayer, doesn't it? Drives us back to dependence. We can't do this. I can't change the grid through which I see and interpret everything. Only the Spirit of God can do that. And number three: I do have a part to play. The renewal occurs through our knowing, understanding, and applying God's revealed will in Scripture. That's how the renewal takes place. Psalm 1:2, "His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night." You want to facilitate the renewal of your thinking? Then read the Bible, study the Bible, meditate on the bible, listen to the Bible taught, pray the Bible. Live in the Word of God, and then we'll be transformed.

Now, beginning next time and for a number of weeks, I want to look at the specific ways that we as Christians allow our minds to be pushed into the world's mold, its way of thinking—lies that Christians believe. But as we finish our time this morning and prepare our hearts for communion, I want to show you how our Lord is involved in this process of change. He is actually the One into whose image and thinking we are renewed. Look over at 2 Corinthians 3:18. Paul makes this monumental statement. Where the Spirit is, where the Spirit is present in the life, where a person (verse 16) "turns to the Lord," here's what happens. Verse 18, "We all, with unveiled face [every believer], beholding as in a mirror the glory of [Christ]." So we look in the Scripture, and what we see there is Christ and His reflection. And as we behold that, notice what happens. We "are being "transformed. We are being or experiencing the process of metamorphosis. Same Greek word. "Into the same image." Whose image? The image of the Lord, whose glory we are beholding in the Word. "From glory to glory." It's a gradual process, and it happens by the work of the Spirit. But the renewal that we're talking about in Romans 12 is a renewal to be shaped like Jesus Christ, to change in every way.

So again, Jesus Christ is everything. It's into His image that we are being gradually changed, and that change comes by looking at Him in His Word. And what happens when we look at Him in His Word? First Corinthians 2:16 says we get "the mind of Christ." We begin to think like Christ thinks. And what is the motivation for pursuing a transformed mind? Back in Romans 12:1, it's the mercies of God shown to us in Christ and in the gospel. So, it all comes back—doesn't it?—to the sacrifice of our Lord and to our celebration of the Lord's Table. Let's bow our heads together.

Our Father, we thank You for the blood of Christ that seals the promises You've made us, that makes forever permanent and clear and inviolable those precious promises, that You will be our God and we will be Your people, that You will promise to forgive our sins and to remember them no more forever. We thank You that in His blood poured out there is forgiveness of sins. Lord, we rejoice that though we are sinners, You have redeemed us; and now we stand before You as saints, as those set apart to You, consecrated to You through the sacrifice of Your Son. Lord, help us to live in a way that honors You. Help us, even as we're reminded this morning, in response to Your great mercies, to present our bodies as a sacrifice and our minds as well. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.