Sermon from September 15, 2002

Several years ago, between Washington and Richmond I found myself behind a guy with an irritating bumper sticker. It said, "I am happy with exactly who I am." It was the word exactly that provided the irritant. I wondered if he was married, and if he was married, had the spoken to each other in years?

It is a tricky business. If he had left out the word exactly, it would have softened but not removed the irritation. I don't know what purpose it serves to announce to all your fellow travelers on I-95 that you are happy with what you are. Why say it? But to add the word exactly conveys the conviction that there was just no room for improvement. On reflection, I hope he was not married. Pity the woman who had to endure his insufferable self-righteousness day after day. He was also driving in the middle lane, oblivious to the other cars passing him on either side, which did not endear him to all drivers.

I wonder, did that man have any conception of his capacity for evil, any awareness of the untamed part of his soul? Even more, did he not aspire to anything greater than what he was at present? Had he never caught a glimpse of a future for himself that would take him beyond the man he was that day?

Most of us dimly that we might have room to improve our character. The text we look at today suggests more than improvement. It calls for the renewal of our minds and the transformation of our character. That is, it does not merely suggest the demolition of bad habits; it offers the vision of another quality of life. It gives us a vision of what we might bcome in Christ. We find it in Romans 12:2.

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will.

For most of us the desires of our secret heart are like a dog kennel, full of yelping, yapping, barking, baying hounds, all wanting to be turned loose. If we turned some of them loose, they would tear our lives to pieces. If we turned loose too many of them at one time, our lives would become unmanageable. Some of them, turned loose at the same time, would turn our lives into a civil war.

A wise spiritual director said one time, "I am only facing the two quite general, but quite sufficiently rousing facts: that we all of us have 'selves' (the enemies of our good true selves) to fight, and that only so fighting are we adult, fruitful and happy," (von Hügel, quoted in Howatch, Glittering Images, 181).

That fight begins with a commitment that I talked about last Sunday. I challeneged you to place your body at God's disposal. I said not to be hasty; this is for thoughtful people. I said to not be half-hearted, sacrifice requires your whole being; not to be afraid, this action does not turn people into religious freaks; it turns them into something beautiful and winsome. You should count the cost of doing this. That does not mean that anyone can anticipate all that lies ahead; it does mean that we can have a reasonable idea of what it means to live at God's disposal. We will start to see that today.

The decision to place your body at God's disposal and all that goes with it is inviolably personal. It is also inescapably communal in its context and in its impact. We are in this together. We can help each other in this process. So, talk with each other about what you are being asked to do. Place your body at God's disposal. Doing this makes possible the renewing of your mind and the transformation of your character.

So, let me extend the challenge I issued last week. Make it your lifelong ambition to be renewed in your mind. Today, I want to define further what you and I are going to have to do to work with God in the renewing  of our minds. But I want you to be realistic about several things. The first thing is that we get outside help for this process, and second, the process is going to take a while.

The outside help introduces the mystery of this matter. Verse two does not say, "Transform yourself by renewing your mind." I don't mean to be subtle, but if we miss this, we jeopardize the renewal of our minds. The apostle says, Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. I hate to interrupt all this golden rhetoric with a reference to English grammar, but the clause, be transformed, is passive. That means not that I am doing something, but that something is being done to me.

In this case it is done with my consent and with certain cooperation on my part. However, the transformation of my character is the result of forces greater than myself that are at work in me. For now it is enough to say that God is at work in us. Without violating the sovereignty of our free will, God is at work in our being to influence our choices and to release within us the power that will transform our character. We can count on that. Our task is to stay in step with our divine Partner in this mysterious dance. And that brings me to a cautionary word about the time all this is going to take.

Renewal of mind and transformation of character always proceed slowly. Some of us have been at it for a long time, others of us are new at it. Most of us sense that human beings just do not suddenly turn into different personalities. There may be moments of dramatic change, but even then a person has to assimilate the change into his habits, and that takes time. Renewal of mind and transformation of character require years, even decades, not days and weeks. Any effort to go too fast or to coerce someone in these matters cna set back and even destroy the renewal of a person's mind. The slow pace of change leads to another important corollary.

We do not all progress at the same pace, and therefore, we need to cut each other a lot of slack. For example, people are often reluctant to come into a church, because they feel ignorant or unworthy. They don't know the Bible. They don't know the jargon. They may have personal habits that seem out of place. A careless comment may stifle that person's fledgling interest in seeking God.

Cutting each other slack also means we give each other the benefit of a doubt, even at the risk of seeming unrealistic about human nature. One person may seem to make little progress or even to have little interest in the renewal of his mind, but that person may have begun the process at a greater disadvantage than someone else, who seems to progress more quickly. Understanding, not criticism, marks the pateince of God's people with each other in this slow process of renewing their minds and transforming their character.

This long process by the way does not stay fresh. There will be times when you begin to lose interest, when you don't see any difference in your life, and when you get tired of the process. That is perfectly normal. I will help you along the way to keep matters fresh. And now I need to lay some groundwork for what lies ahead.

The apostle says, Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. When the apostle talks about our minds, he is not talking about being a scholar. He is talking about the most natural thing in the world: our attitudes, beliefs and fantasies. He is saying that they have beomce disordered, and need to be put right, renewed.

If we stay within the letter of Romans itself, we can discover the apostle's grasp of that disorder that affects us all. In Romans one, which we will read more closely during the next two Sundays, he makes the following statement. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools (Rom. 1:22). Self-deception of that magnitude points to a serious disorder in our attitudes, beliefs and fantasies. Here is another example.

Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done (Rom. 1:28). There is danger here, because the English word depraved seems to go too far. Serial killers are depraved. Child molesters are depraved. Traitors are depraved. I don't do those things, so I am not depraved. If you think that way, your point is well taken. It is the first part of verse 28 that makes the essential point.

The did not think (There is the crucial act - think); They did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God. The depravity the apostle had in mind was another form of self-deception - the arrogant conclusion that knowing God is not worthwhile to human life. So, we have to say that if the exclusion of God from reason leads people away from God and into self-deception and folly, then reversing that state of existence requires a renewed mind. Please look at another reference to mind in Romans 8:6-7. It leads to the same place.

Paul writes: The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. From the mind that thinks it can do without the knowledge of God comes a mindset that tends toward death in its many manifestations. From the renewed mind comes a mindset that tends toward life and peace. Moving from one to the other requires the renewal of our minds.

Now, we are ready to consider what makes it so hard to renew our minds. The opening statement of verse 2 tells us. The apostle says, Do not conform any longer to the patter of this world. What is "the world?" In the Bible and in ordinary sppech the world means nature, what God created. That is a good thing and is not what the Bible has in mind, when it speaks disparagingly about the world.

Verse two is speaking disparagingly. When the Bible does that, it is referring to the world of human beings in its opposition to God. Its opposition can take two forms: one is persecution, and the other is deception. That brings us to the heart of our question.

What is it about the world that makes it deceptive and dangerous to our faith? We feel its power to deceive in ideas and desires as they are embodied in cultural trends and reinforced by peer pressure. For example, a cultural trend that can be deceptive is politically correct thought and action. Insofar as it helps people to respect those who differ from them, it is good. But when it causes a Christian to think that the ideas of a Buddhist, Muslim or Hindu are just as valid as those of Christianity, it has begun to deceive people and to undermine the mutual respect it professes to want. In this and many other respects political correctness corrupts not only Christian faith but democracy as well. And this is only one cultural trend.

Of course, we can't blame all our moral failings on cultural trends and peer pressure. They have inside help. There is a part of every human being that more or less finds the non-Christian world's attitudes and beliefs appealing; I want certain things that are wrong to have. I am perfectly capable of undermining my own faith and integrity by following the desires of my own heart.

Peer pressure does not affect only adolescents. Everyone seeks the approval of some group of their fellow human beings. A person who says he does not care about that is most likely deceiving himself or just lying. Most of what we believe and most of our habits have credibility with us because those beliefs and habits are shared by other people. This is true of Christians and atheists, of agnostics and Muslims. This social conditioning is a good thing. God made us this way. It is only a bad thing if it encourages evil. The influential people in your life really matter.

So, personal desires and cultural trends, reinforced by peer pressure can squeeze us into a mold that is contrary to our calling to be followers of Christ. When the apostle tells us not to conform to the pattern of this world, he is warning us not to let those powerful forces squeeze us into their mold. It is not always easy to resist.

The world in its opposition to God is with us everyday, usually unrelieved by anything specifically Christian. You can watch hundreds of hours of network and cable television and never hear anything to encourage your relationship with God. This monopoly of ideas gives worldly attitudes and beliefs an unfair time advantage over Christian attitudes and beliefs in the public media.

Here is the point of it all. Make it your lifelong ambition to be renewed in your mind. Now, we need to talk briefly about how to place your body at God's disposal and renew your mind. As I said last week, you think about what you've hard and at some point along the way you tell God that your body is now at His disposal. You may be doing this for the first time, or you may be renewing your commitment to God. Telling this to God is praying. In just a moment I will lead you in a prayer of commitment.

Remember, renewing our minds requires a stable disciple of spiritual exercise. Sunday worship provides that for us. So does reading (or listening on tape to) Romans once a month for the next twelve months. So does talking to each other about what you are reading or hearing in sermons or experiencing in your life. The idea is not, "Is this a good sermon or book?" but "How does this work in my life?"

You should learn one more, crucial discipline. Start listening to what goes on in your mind. Pay attention to the attitudes, beliefs and fantasies that actually shapethe way you live. Be very honest about what you discover. If it is painful or embarrassing, don't try to hide it, but ask where it comes from and what feeds it. Ask what God might think about it and what alternatives He offers. Trust Him to be at work in your mind, helping you to be honest, helping you to find alternatives, giving you strength to pursue alternatives to anything that displeases Him. Don't be impatient. This is the process by which the transformation of our character comes into existence. Glory be to God!