Turn again in the book of Romans, this time to chapter 12, at verse 1. You can find Romans chapter 12 on page 947. Romans chapter 12, read the last verse of the previous chapter, 1136, and go on through chapter 12, verse 3. We're really going to be focusing on verse 2 today. I will read from Romans 11, 36 to 12, 3. Please give your attention to the Word of God. For from Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned." I read a great line this week from Mr. Ridderbos, a Dutch theologian. He said, the entire new life is a matter of training oneself in the army of Christ. The entire new life is a matter of training oneself in the army of Christ. I thought this was powerful. I think this is helpful. And by itself there are two things missing, which he himself knows and completes elsewhere in his book. Yes, we must train ourselves for the army of Christ. And to train ourselves for the army of Christ, we must not be conformed to this world. Paul here says, nothing that Jesus has not already said. When did Jesus say, do not be conformed to this world? Well, I thought of this. Jesus said, enter by the narrow gate. For broad is the way that leads to destruction, and those who go by it are many. For narrow is the gate that leads to life, and those who enter by it are few." Yes, why not conform to the world? It's easier. Lots of people are doing it. It's the path of the lazy. Why not conform to the world? Jesus says, because it's going to be destroyed. You'll have a lot of company on that road. But it's a wrong, it's not a good road if it goes to destruction. What's more, another reason not to go with the world is because of the evil in the world. There's a verse that talks about all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of possessions. It's quite a summary of all that's in the world. It's a summary of a worldly mind. If you're conformed to the world, then your life will be dominated by the things you see, the things you want, pride in what you have, and coveting what you don't. If you conform to the world, that is how the world lives. But God calls you to independence from all that. He calls you to freedom from lusting for the things of the world. In a somewhat analogous way, in the famous movie The Matrix, early on the main character is asked, do you want to really know what's going on? Do you want the red pill or the blue pill? It's not a Christian movie, but it's an evocative, powerful movie. We have here something roughly analogous. Do you want to just be conformed to the world? Or do you want to be transformed by the renewing of your mind? In that movie, of course, our hero takes knowing reality, and of course, reality is ugly and dangerous. And he's betrayed by one who has begun on this path and then turned back. In the same way, you are called not to go with the crowd, not to go with what is easy, not to simply think what the gatekeepers tell you to think, you're called to the harder path of not conforming to the world. Now, the New Testament describes the mind that conforms to the world, the worldly mind. We read about it in Romans 1. The worldly mind knows God's there, but doesn't want to thank Him, doesn't want to worship Him, doesn't want to acknowledge Him. So God gives the worldly mind over to become a debased mind. He gives it over to foolishness. He gives the debased mind over to dishonoring the body. The worldly mind claims to be wise, but anyone with eyes sees how foolish it is. Why give God's glory to an idol? Why would you do such a thing? And why would those made in the image of God consume their lives pursuing after the items of this world and the idols, making idols of them. As the worldly mind is sensuous and futile, the worldly mind will lead you into many pointless disputes. The worldly mind defiles everything. I remember a brand new Christian I was friends with. Often brand new Christians are the most sensitive to certain things. She said, I hate hanging out with the other people in my dorm. Everything is a dirty joke for them. That's the worldly mind. Now, since we're not to conform to this world, we better know how the world gets us to conform. One way, obviously, is with laws and regulations. And since the authorities that exist are from God, we're to generally follow laws and regulations, unless they go contrary to the will of God. But, you know, some people try to use regulations to shape what is thinkable and unthinkable. And we're not to have our thoughts controlled by regulations and laws and what you can say and can't say. Our minds are to be shaped by the Word of God. The world also gets us to conform with popularity and scorn. I've been struck as I read, especially the Psalms, how much in the Psalms and the Proverbs are about the scoffer, the mocker. It's not how we normally talk. But it's how Psalms and Proverbs talks, the scoffer, the mocker. And as I've looked around, actually there is a lot of scoffing and mocking in the world. And it's powerful. You don't really like being scoffed at. You may very well not say something again after you've been scoffed at. But if we're not to conform to this world, we're not to be controlled by what someone might say or by the scoffing and mockery that we might get. whether we're going to get it face-to-face or on an online board. We're not to be controlled by stoppers and mockers. We're not to be controlled by success and money. Sometimes you talk to people, why aren't you doing the right thing? Well, I had to do this other thing. Well, why did you have to do it? Well, it was the only way we could keep our contract. Okay, you didn't have to do it then. You were controlled by the love of money. And the basic way that the world tries to get us to conform is by misusing good things. The world will set a beautiful thing before us. Whether it's a thing, or a person, or a goal, or a career, or an idea, the world will set beautiful things before you. and say, bend all your efforts to this. Bend all that you have to the career, or to the gold medal, or to the beautiful person, or whatever it may be. Each of which may be good enough in itself, nothing wrong with it. But the world will try to seduce us away from the Lord by getting us to put that beautiful thing and make it our number one thing. A Puritan once said, the way to deal with that is to show your mind a more beautiful object. By which they of course meant Jesus. Show your mind Jesus Christ. Show your mind the love of God that is in Jesus Christ. Show your mind the peace of conscience that you can live with in Jesus Christ. Show your mind this goodness and this purity that is yours in Jesus Christ. Show your mind the power of a renewed life in which your old addictions no longer control you and your old bad habits that destroy things are no longer destroying you. Show your mind a beautiful thing, an open life where we have no secrets, for we are not afraid. Show your mind a more beautiful object, so as to not be conformed to this world, but to be independent of it, to be free from it. Now, when we talk this way, we're talking about free to it, so that we are oriented towards God. The point is not to not be conformed to this world, so that you can be a cool non-conformist. It's not, don't be conformed to this world so that you can be an ornery individualist. It's not to God be conformed to this world so that you march to the beat of your own drum. That's idolatry. No. It is, don't be conformed to this world so that you can, to verse 1, you can present your bodies to God as a living and holy sacrifice. God is to be at the center. We're not to be conformed to this world, not so that we can replace the world with ourselves, but so that we can replace the world with God. And so, we go on to the next part. It says, do not be conformed to this world, which is hard, because it's where we live. It's all that we see. But it says, be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Now, I had to smile when I read the Greek, because the Greek behind the word transformed is metamorphosis. And I think of a kindergarten song. In another setting, I'd have my kids sing it, but not here. But my two oldest kids have learned the song about metamorphosis. What it means is this. The animal goes through different stages. It keeps changing as it ages. Metamorphosis. The most famous animal that goes through metamorphosis, of course, would be the creepy, crawly caterpillar that sits still for a little bit and comes out as a butterfly. Now, there's a change for you. It goes from this thing that you want to squash, that can only inch along a branch, to this thing that is gorgeous and flies around freely. That's a change for you. That's a transformation. That's a metamorphosis for you. And we likewise are being called to undergo a metamorphosis, a transformation, so that we also may not be held down to the world the way a caterpillar cannot get off the branch. We're called to be set free, beautiful, and able to rise up to God. And we're to be changed from the inside out. This is a speech of the renewal of the mind. This transformation is to make us more glorious. Another place we get this word is with Jesus' transfiguration. Now, by tradition, we always use the word transfiguration, but the word is metamorphosis again. Jesus was metamorphosed before them. He was transformed before them, and they saw His glory. Or again, we see it in 2 Corinthians 3.18 about us. We all, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed. are being metamorphosed from one degree of glory to another. That's why I can compare it to a butterfly. It's transformed into a much more glorious thing. And so are we. We may look the same. We may look worse. But we are a more glorious being as we are transformed into the image of God. And this comes about by transforming the mind. You know, the first time we read about the word mind in the New Testament, it's Jesus opened their minds. Alright? Opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. Luke 24. First time you get this word mind, this particular word for mind in the New Testament. Jesus opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. So the transformed mind is, first of all, opened by Jesus. We need God's Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit, our worldly mind will remain worldly. That's why we talk about needing a new birth, needing new eyes. We need the Holy Spirit from God. And the transformed mind is guided by the Scripture. Jesus opened their minds so that they could understand the Scriptures. We need to be able, by the Spirit, to read the Scripture and be transformed by it, as we read it with Jesus, the way He taught us to interpret it. The transformed mind struggles with the flesh, but with the help of the Spirit gains the victory. Yet that in Romans 7, the law of my mind is that I want to obey God. So the transformed mind wants to obey God. The transformed mind should be individually convinced. As we'll see in Romans 14, we do not all need to think alike on all matters, only the crucial matters. There are other items that we will need to be convinced on. And it says, let each one be convinced in his own mind on these other matters. So we do not all need to think alike. And the transformed mind is guarded by the peace of God, so that it is not easily shaken. That's a theme in scripture. Now, as we are transformed, it's as if we are more stable. We're not tossed here and there by every wind of doctrine. We're not easily shaken. by some new teaching, we calmly evaluate it. Transformed mind has this clarity and this peace. And I want to remind you that in many ways your thinking drives your life. To say your mind drives your life. I remember, I spoke a couple weeks ago about another pastor, Christian Ajemian, and how powerfully he preached at White Lake Camp on Romans 12.1. I also remember Rich Gantz speaking powerfully on the thinking there at White Lake Camp. Rich Gantz was saying, you know, a big book when I was young, he says, is the power of positive thinking. But let me tell you, he says, as a PhD psychiatrist, negative thinking is powerful too. You know why both positive thinking and negative thinking are so powerful? Because the power is in the thinking. Not in whether it's positive or negative. Thinking is what is powerful. Whether it is positive or negative. You think, and so you do. You think, and so you don't do. You think, and so you don't. It isn't even concerning. It doesn't even occur to you what should have been thinking. Thinking is crucial to your life. And so it says, as you try not to be conformed to this world, that will only happen if you're transformed by the renewal of your mind. And please keep in mind, beloved, the change we seek is not from negative thinking to positive thinking. It's from a worldly mind to a godly mind. From a mind that is focused on this world and its things, its desires, transformed to seeking after God. Now, how can your mind be transformed? There's something very odd in verse 2. It says, be transformed. Now, the reason I think that's strange is that it's clearly a command. He's telling us to do something. It's a command, but it's a passive voice command. He didn't say, transform yourself. He didn't say, transform your mind. He didn't say, transform your neighbor's mind. He said, be transformed. Now, how could you give me a passive command? If I say, James, stand up. He knows who he's been talked to, and he knows he can do that. He knows he has the power to stand. But if I say, be transformed, you sit there. What am I supposed to do? I'm supposed to be transformed, but you're telling me in a passive voice. How does that work? The answer here is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is necessary for our transformation. We are to listen to the Spirit. We are to seek to be filled with the Spirit. We are not to quench the Spirit. We are not to substitute for the Spirit. I think you see this in Romans 7. Romans 7 He's talking about his life. He says, you know, my mind wants to obey God, but I see another power at work in my members. And people say, is this the Christian or the non-Christian? And the key point is the word that's missing in that chapter. Nowhere in Romans 7 do you have the word spirit. You have the word spirit over and over again in Romans 8. And here's where you are. Without God's spirit, you are at best paralyzed, if not running into evil. But with God's Spirit up, now you can put to death the deeds of the flesh. So we are transformed by the Spirit. That's why it says, be transformed. It's passive because we need God at work in us for this to happen. And yet we're not to be passive in it, for it says, set your minds on the things of the Spirit, or walk according to the Spirit. There are active commands here for us to follow. And yet here we're reminded, nonetheless, the power is of God, not of ourselves. So be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Don't block, but cooperate with the Spirit, as the Spirit transforms your mind. This is put together in Philippians 2. where the Apostle says, work out your salvation in fear and trembling, that's plenty active, for it is God who works in you, both to do and to will for His good pleasure. There you have it. You're to do something. But how can you do it? You can only do it because God is working with you. God is working, His work is underlying your work. His work came first. And so He brought you to life so that you can then work with Him. Yes, your mind is transformed by the Holy Spirit. First, He moves in you and works faith in you. He gives you the new birth. And then, being alive, spiritually alive, then you work with the Spirit. You cooperate with Him. The Holy Spirit lives within us, but He doesn't replace us. He aids our prayers, but they're still our prayers. He supports our faith, it's still our faith. He prompts us to repent. we thought through. To be transformed by the renewal of the mind can only happen by the power of the Holy Spirit. And so that is the first thing wrong, if we take that opening quote by itself. Again, the entire new life is a matter of training oneself in the army of Christ. True, but we don't do it alone. The Holy Spirit works with us. Now, what are we to do so that we are doing our part of the Holy Spirit's work in our life? How do you work with God? It's a great question, right? How do you, mortal, fleshly, so powerfully influenced by what you can see, how are you to work with the infinite, immortal, all-powerful and unseen God? God has given us various, what we call, means of grace. Various instruments or channels or things that the Spirit uses in our lives. And so, where to diligently use them? We begin with the Word of God. Where to read it? We're not just to read it. We're to think, so, how am I to be different based on what I read today? Not just to think that, we are then to go out and to do it. We're to hear it preached and do the same things. Yes, after you leave here today, it is good to recall, what was that all about? That's one of the reasons I put an outline in the back of the bulletin. Partially that's for mothers with children who get distracted and three minutes later are trying to pick it back up again. All right, here's where we are. OK. But it's also for you all to bring home. As you say, what was that all about? Oh, yes, there it is. Yes, we're to be transformed. We are to work with God. Diligently use the means of grace together with the church. When you're at church, you hear the word of God. When you're at church, you see examples around you. Let us hope of godly living. When you're at church, you're supposed to be thinking, of your brothers and sisters, how to stir them up to do the will of God, and you are to be open to them stirring you up to do the word of God. So this is the second thing wrong, although Mr. Ritterboss is excellent, he knows this, I'm just picking on this one sentence, by itself, the trouble is saying the entire new life is a matter of training oneself in the army of Christ. So we don't just train ourselves, we are part of a church, And we train one another within the Church. And as we seek to have our minds transformed, we must not neglect praying. You know, when we pray, we're not informing God of things He doesn't know. But we are humbling ourselves to ask. We are reminding ourselves not to just fret, but to actually ask the One who is able to give us all things. We're disciplining our fretting. We're humbling our pride. And as we come before the majestic maker of all things, we also learn how to hold those desires differently. You might really, really want a candy bar. You might be consumed. Mine is, I want the Trader Joe's Pound Plus chocolate bar. I can really be focused on that. But if I had to go in and it was like, good, go in and ask the president for the chocolate bar. Well, I would feel a little differently. Now, there are things I would go and ask the president for. But even then, I would begin to think about them differently based on who I was asking and how much more. As we go and we pray to God, we are to ask God. Go before God. Pray. Ask for your daily bread. But you are transformed in the asking, if you have any idea who you're speaking to. There's ways that we are to be transformed in the renewal of our mind. We're to use the Word of God and live by it. We're to live with the Church, taking an active part in encouraging one another. We're to pray. And as a further refinement of these, or a further new idea, let me tell you about something that I had to do as part of a class in seminary. It was a counseling class. And so we were each assigned to do a self-counseling project. That is to say, we were each told, think of something that you do on a regular basis that's either a sin or appears to you to be related to sin, something that needs to change or that you'd like to change. And start to keep track of it, asking yourself the following questions. When do I do this? What is happening around me when this happens? What is happening to me just before I do this? What am I thinking when I do this? What am I really wanting when I do this? And what are the results when I do this? And then think, and what does Jesus have to say about this? What does Jesus have to say about what I should be most wanting? What does Jesus say about how I should conduct myself? What does Jesus say that directs me, reorients me, comforts me? And what will be the results of listening to Jesus? I remember the professor said that one of his all-time favorite self-counseling projects had been the young woman who did her project on chewing her nails. Let me be abundantly clear. There is nothing sinful about chewing your nails. If you wish to chew your nails, as far as I'm concerned, as far as God is concerned, chew away. But she didn't want to keep doing it. And she had a sense that she was chewing her nails when she was anxious or when she was fearful, when she was not trusting God in the situation. So she did a project on that. And he said, it was great. Just thinking about the chewing the nails and what is going on with me when I chew the nails opened up for her just huge areas of trust or fear, anxiety or peace. She learned so much about herself and about God. Simply she examined this one otherwise unobjectionable behavior. You don't have to take this class to do a self-counseling project. You also can think, there is this thing I keep doing that troubles me. I've told myself to stop it, and that has not worked. You can study yourself and the Word of God more deeply. If you think, all right, when do I do it? What do I do? What's happening around me? What's happening before that? What are the results of this? What am I really craving and most valuing? What am I worshipping at that moment when I do the wrong that I would not do? What am I worshipping? What am I consumed with? And as I'm supposed to be presenting my body to God, how does He console me? How does He advise me? How does he come and show himself to be the one who actually can help my anxiety when other things do not help my anxiety or my craving or my anger? Now, why? Why do we want our minds to be transformed? Is it so we will be richer? No. Is it so we will be more powerful? No. Is it so we will be happier? No, that's not exactly the right focus. Why do we want a transformed mind? Well, what does it say? That by testing you may discern what is the will of God. That by testing you may discern what is the will of God. It's a God focus again. We want our minds transformed in a Godward direction, so that we understand God better, so that we can do what he said in verse 1. Verse 1, he said, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. But how will I know what God wants? There's a church of people called Westboro Baptists. They go and obnoxiously protest at veterans' funerals because of our nation's sins. Now, our nation does have sins. But is this the way to do it? Does this please God? Is this the right way to present your body as a living thing? Because they're doing it in service to God, they think. Is that correct? We need a transformed mind so that we will know what is the will of God, be able to discern. So how should we respond to our nation's sins? And we need our minds to be transformed so that we can present God with acceptable sacrifices. If you have a formidable boss, you study the boss. What does he want? If you have a formidable drill sergeant, you study the drill sergeant. Does he care about the quarter on the sheets? If he does, I better focus on making my bed. If he doesn't care about that, I better focus on my shoes. I was talking to my son this morning. He's on a travel soccer team. It's split between 6th and 7th grade. So some of his teammates have tried out for the 7th grade school team. Some of them made it. Some of them were good players, didn't make it. Well, OK, what was the coach looking for? Oh, he made them all run two miles. I said, OK, William, if you want to make that team next year, I know what you need to do in July and August. Do a lot of long running. That's what that coach wants. Now, all these are trivial examples. If we are to present an acceptable sacrifice to God, who is our Heavenly Father, loving and good, and far more formidable than any of these examples, then we must study Him, so that we can discern what He wants, what is the will of God. And He gives us clues here. His will is what is good, and acceptable, and perfect, If you think about the will of God, you should be thinking along those lines, things that are that. If you think about some behavior that doesn't seem to match that, that's not the will of God. Now someone might object, wait a minute, wait a minute, Paul is all about faith, he's not about works, you've been talking with too many commands today. Well, look at Romans 1.5. Romans 1.5. Here's Paul speaking of himself. Through Jesus, through whom, we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among the nations. The obedience of faith. He never drops the word faith. It all starts with faith. But what does faith do? It obeys. You say, a throwaway phrase. OK. Turn to the last page of Romans. Romans 16, 26. It says, through the prophetic writings now known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith. In the great book that tells us that we are saved by faith alone, we are also exhorted to obey. Because if you really believe God, you'll do what he says. And the book begins and ends with faith, the obedience of faith. So be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you can know and do God's will. Neither God's law, certain things are out of bounds. But you're not done at that point, because there's so many situations that require more than a knowledge of God's commandments. OK, I know what I'm not supposed to do, but what am I supposed to do? I know I'm supposed to love, I got that. How do I express love in this situation? So we need a transformed and renewed mind. Now how long is that going to take? Dr. Fu, how long does it take a drug to be tested on average before it is approved for the American market? 10 or 15 years. It's his field, he knows. 10 or 15 years for a drug to be approved for use in the American market. Yes, testing to discern the usefulness, the effectiveness, the appropriateness of something takes a while. And so we have a lifelong task to discern the will of God. Now, many decisions you've got to make quickly. So you pray and you consult what you remember of the Word of God. If you've got time, you get advice, and then you go forward. You make the decision. And if you sin, you ask for forgiveness. Not to be paralyzed by this, but you to seek the renewal of your mind so that you can make the right decisions faster. You can discern God's will and live by it. Yes, the new life is training yourself for the army of Christ. Because in our battle, it's not a simple cowboy movie. You don't always look out and see the white hats and the black hats. and know who's who. The decisions that come your way are not marked good, bad, good, bad, because our enemy is a master of disguise and seduction. We're to be renewed in our minds so that we can know the will of God. It's a glorious task. It leads us to glory. Through this, we are all being transformed from one degree of glory to another. be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may present your bodies for living in holy sacraments. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that your salvation is total, that you not only lead us out of slavery, but you also give us direction. We thank you that you not only forgive us let You transform us. And so help us to walk by Your Spirit. And we pray that You would transform us by renewing our minds so that we would think with Your Spirit, and we would know Your will. And we pray, Lord, that You would give us great encouragement and power and help in this. Lord, we know that we cannot do this without You. And so abide in us, and help us to abide in You, that we may bear much fruit. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.