Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Be A Revolutionary!



(Audio version; Music: "Oceans" and "Still" by: Hillsong United)









Introduction

            What is a “revolutionary?” Well in a strictly negative sense, it is someone who is rebellious. However, if we dig a little deeper into the various meanings of “revolutionary,” I’d like to suggest a meaning that encompasses both the positive and the negative. How about this: A revolutionary is a person who refuses to conform to cultural norms and expectations. A revolutionary is someone who is unusual, unique, and unconventional. We’ve known many revolutionaries. I did a quick search of history’s most famous revolutionaries and found names like George Washington, Thomas Paine, Mahatma Ghandi, and Nelson Mandela. There were even some more infamous names on the list like Karl Marx, Muammar Gaddafi, Mao Zedong, and Fidel Castro. But do you know who wasn’t on the list? The most famous revolutionary of all-Jesus Christ.

            Jesus refused to conform to His culture’s norms and expectations. He was a Rabbi that didn’t behave like a Rabbi they expected. He drove out the moneychangers from the temple, he hung out with Gentiles, prostitutes, tax collectors, and “sinners.” Jesus constantly fought with the religious leaders because He wanted to set the people free to be in relationship with God while the religious leaders wanted to make sure they kept tight control over the people. He was a Messiah that didn’t behave like a Messiah they expected. The Jews expected a Messiah that was a military conqueror that would return Israel to national prominence and dominance. Instead, Jesus was the Messiah that would suffer and die for the sins of humanity. Jesus was unusual, unique, and unconventional. Jesus wasn’t just a revolutionary, He was the revolutionary. And do you know what that means for those who call themselves followers of Jesus, you too must Be A Revolutionary. You must refuse to conform to cultural norms and expectations. When the culture says it’s ok to lie and cheat, you be honest. When the culture says it’s ok to have sex before you are married, you abstain until you are married. When the culture says money and possessions are the way to happiness, you give more of your money and possessions away. When the culture says that you must be first at all costs, you be willing to put others first even if that means you’re last. When culture says that all beliefs are equally valid, you draw a line in the sand that says no one goes to the Father except through Jesus. When the culture says be like everyone else, you be unusual, unique and unconventional. When the world around you screams at you to conform, you Be A Revolutionary!

Subject Text

Romans 12:1-2

            1Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2Do not conform 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.

Context

            Paul wrote his letter to the Christians in Rome while he was in Corinth preparing to visit Jerusalem. The Roman church was mostly comprised of Jewish believers but there was, nevertheless, a significant population of Gentile believers. Paul’s letter to the church in Rome has been referred to as the greatest theological treatise written describing humanity’s depravity, salvation, and life of faith. This is no small matter considering the geographical context within which most believers existed in the first century. Christianity grew within the geographical borders of the Roman Empire where Caesar was considered divine and where the value of the pax romana (Roman peace) was second only to the worship of Caesar. Paul’s instruction to the Christians in Rome meant that at some point they would have to choose between loyalty to the Empire and the ways of the Empire or loyalty to Christ and the ways of Christ. Paul knew that if believers chose to be loyal to Christ and the ways of Christ, they were destined for suffering.

Although Paul never instructed the believers to take up arms against Rome or reject Rome’s governing authority, he instructed them to do something far more powerful—he admonished them to not conform to the culture around them. Paul knew that that would be enough to bring the wrath of Rome down on their heads. But it would also demonstrate that their commitment to being faithful followers of Christ was more important to them than their comfort and safety, or being accepted by their family and friends. Paul was saying that the most powerful thing they could do was to be unusual, unique, and unconventional—it was to Be A Revolutionary!

Text Analysis

            1Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.

            What do you notice in v. 1 that sticks out to you? Be careful not to read over it too quickly or you might miss its significance. I want you to notice what Paul is not instructing his audience to do. Paul is not asking his audience to die for God as the ultimate sacrifice in order to please Him. Instead, what Paul is asking his audience and by extension all of us to do is to offer their bodies as “living sacrifices” to God. In other words, Paul doesn’t require anyone to die for God even though that would be the reality for many Christians in the first century as it has been for countless Christians since then. Paul did require all of them and all of us to live for God. Our faithful and obedient daily lives are intended to by the sacrifice we offer to God. However, not just any sacrifice is acceptable to God.

            Remember that Paul is writing to a largely Jewish audience so they would have been intimately familiar with the Jewish sacrificial system. According to the Law, the sacrificial system required the sacrifice of animals as part of its religious rituals. The type of ritual dictated the type of animal to be used. However, regardless of animal type, the overarching requirement was that the sacrificial animal was to be without blemish or defect—they were supposed to be physically perfect (Ex. 12:5, Deut. 17:1, Lev. 22:24). When the appropriate sacrifice is offered, the Old Testament describes it as “pleasing” to God. It is likely that Paul’s audience understood that this is what Paul meant by referring to a living sacrifice as “holy and pleasing to God.”

            In short, our daily lives of holiness are supposed to be the sacrifice offered to God that pleases Him. Jesus’ death and resurrection made it possible for our lives to be holy in the first place. Do you understand what we are doing when our lives reflect the holiness of being faithful followers of Christ? We are giving back to God the gift of holiness that He made possible for us through Jesus. When our lives reflect that holiness, we are saying “thank you;” we are worshipping God! Consider Paul’s description of worship in relation to what we traditionally understand worship to be.

We traditionally understand worship to be that thing Christians do on Sundays. However, imagine how many people are sitting in church every week thinking they are worshipping God while refusing to relinquish the sins in their lives. How many are immersed in sexual immorality, deceit, greed, drug or alcohol abuse, selfishness, or any number of other unconfessed sins? Paul’s not saying that we must be without sin in order to be holy and pleasing to God. We just can’t pretend we are holy while being polluted by our sins. We have a means to deal with our own sins—confession and repentance. Through confession and repentance we are once again in right relationship with God and our lives are again a reflection of holiness that is pleasing to God.

            “What Paul calls for in v. 1…is no more (and no less!) than the appropriate and expected response to God’s mercy as we have experienced it. Yet this response is no simple ‘tit for tat’ bargain, as if we grudgingly ‘pay God back’ for what he has done for us. For God’s mercy is not a matter of past benefits only, but continues to exercise its power in and through us. That God’s mercy does not automatically produce the obedience God expects is clear from the imperatives in this passage. But God’s mercy manifested in his Spirit’s work of inward renewal does impel us toward the obedience that the Gospel demands.

            We experience God’s mercy as a power that exerts a total and all-encompassing claim upon us: grace now ‘reigns’ over us. It is therefore entirely fitting that our response is to be one that is equally total and all-encompassing: the presentation of our entire persons as a sacrifice to God…The sacrifice we offer is not some specific form of praise or service, but our ‘bodies’ themselves. It is not only what we can give that God demands; he demands the giver. ‘Body’ can, of course, refer to the physical body as such, and the metaphorical associations with sacrifice make it an appropriate choice here. But Paul probably intends to refer to the entire person, with special emphasis on that person’s interaction with the world. Paul is making a special point to emphasize that the sacrifice we are called on to make requires a dedication to the service of God in the harsh and often ambiguous life of this world…

            For Christians, there is no more ‘cult’ or ‘sacrifice’ in any literal sense. While the Jew looked to the Jerusalem temple and its cult as the center of worship, the Christian looks back to the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ…Thus the Christian is called to a worship that is not confined to one place or to one time, but which involves all places and all times, and with sacred acts. It is the offering of bodily existence in the otherwise profane sphere. [The Early Church Father and Archbishop of Constantinople] Chrysostom comments: ‘And how is the body, it may be said, to become a sacrifice? Let the eye look on no evil thing, and it hath become a sacrifice; let the tongue speak nothing filthy, and it hath become an offering; let thine hand do no lawless deed, and it hath become a whole burnt offering.”[1]

2Do not conform 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.

            There has been a debate in theological circles for centuries about the transforming agent in spiritual transformation. Specifically, the debate revolves around the question of whether or not spiritual transformation in the life of the believer is entirely the work of God while the believer is only passively involved or whether the believer experiences transformation as an active participant pursuant to his or her own volition with passive involvement from God. I contend that in a relationship as we are with God through Jesus Christ, neither party is passive. Through God’s mercy (v.1) that includes the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we have the ability to be faithful and obedient to God.

            Have you ever considered the implication of being referred to as “followers” of Jesus Christ? This seems a bit obvious but being a “follower” means we are moving, by our own volition, along the same path as a leader. If we aren’t moving then we aren’t following—right? If our movement along the path were only the work of God then we wouldn’t be following, God would be pushing us in front of Him or dragging us behind Him. In either case, we would be passive participants in our own transformation whether we wanted to be or not. In other words, we can be as sinful as we want and just blame God for not doing His job to transform us. If you take some time to think about that you’ll probably come to the conclusion that that kind of transformation hardly seems like something that occurs in the context of a meaningful relationship.

            Instead, it seems clear according to v. 2 that believers play an active role in their transformation with Paul’s imperative that we must not “conform to the pattern of the world.” But what is the “pattern of the world” that Paul is referring to? Technically, it is the opposite of what could be referred to as the “pattern of God.” The pattern of the world is self-centered while the pattern of God is other-centered. The pattern of the world is to get back at those that wrong you while the pattern of God is to forgive those who wrong you. The pattern of the world is to own more while the pattern of God is to give more away. The pattern of the world is to satisfy all our desires while the pattern of God is to subject all our desires to God’s control. But how do we not conform to the pattern of the world but instead conform to the pattern of God? By changing the way we think, or more accurately, by renewing our minds; by beginning to think differently about the world around us and how we are called to interact with it as faithful followers of Christ.

            What does the renewing of our minds look like in our everyday lives? The pattern of the world says lying isn’t really that big a deal since everyone does it—even our President! The pattern of God wants nothing to do with liars and lying (Prov. 12:22; Ps. 101:7). The pattern of the world says you should earn as much as you can and keep as much as you want. The pattern of God says it does you no good to gain the whole world if you lose your soul in the process (Mk. 8:36). The pattern of the world says that you can and should indulge all your sexual desires. The pattern of God says that sex is something that is reserved for one man and one woman in the context of marriage (Mt. 19:4-6) and that we should flee from all sexual immorality (1 Cor. 6:18), (Sexual immorality is sexual activity in any other context outside of marriage between one man and one woman.) The pattern of the world says you should return evil with evil. The pattern of God says we should return evil with good (1 Pet. 3:9). The pattern of the world says that all beliefs are equally valid. The pattern of God says that no one gets to the Father except through Jesus (Jn 14:6).

            “When believers offer their entire self to God, a change will happen in their relation to the world. Christians are called to a different lifestyle than what the world offers with its behavior and customs, which are usually selfish and often corrupting. Christians are to live as citizens of a future world. There will be pressure to conform, to continue living according to the script written by the world, but believers are forbidden to give in to that pressure.

            But refusing to conform to this world’s values must go even deeper than the level of behavior and customs—it must go to the transforming of the way we think. Believers are to experience a complete transformation from the inside out. And the change must begin in the mind, where all thoughts and actions begin. Much of the work is done by God’s Spirit in us and the tool most frequently used is God’s word. As we memorize and meditate upon God’s word, our way of thinking changes. Our minds become first informed, and then conformed to the pattern of God, the pattern for which we were originally designed. When believers have had their minds transformed and are becoming more like Christ, they will know what God wants and they will want to do it for it is good, pleasing to God, and perfect for them.”[2]

Application

            This topic of spiritual transformation is very near and dear to me. In fact, it is at the heart of my doctoral thesis topic. I have grown increasingly concerned with the trend here in the west that has witnessed a growing cultural conformity among Christians as time goes by. It has always been my understanding that when people become Christians, they begin a journey of spiritual transformation. Whether it is Paul’s dramatic transformation from a persecutor of the Church to church planter or the transformation of the disciples who went from cowering in some upper room to boldly giving their lives to fulfill Jesus’ Great Commission, there is an obvious theme of spiritual transformation contained in the pages of Scripture. Generally, that theme expects God’s people to be missional and different from the rest of the world.

To facilitate that transformation in the Old Testament, God’s chosen people were given the Law as a means to set them apart from the surrounding nations. It provided a guideline for right living as well as guidelines for proper relationships with one another and right relationship with God. After four hundred years of captivity in Egypt, the Jews were God’s chosen people in name only and not yet in practice. It seems clear that God expected that long-term adherence to the Law would produce character that would begin to reflect God’s character to the surrounding nations—Specifically, character that reflected a heart of humility that valued holiness, justice and mercy. But it would take time for the people to live in to their designation as God’s chosen people.

            The New Testament ushered in a new era of relating to God. The Old Testament sacrificial system contained in the Law came to an end as a means for the atonement of sins as a result of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, there was still an expectation that followers of Jesus would be different and share that difference with others. In fact, Jesus raised the bar set by the Law for his Jewish followers. Followers of Jesus were not only asked to be different from non-followers, they were even being asked to be different from what was formerly expected of them by the Law. The Sermon on the Mount set in motion an even higher ethical standard as that set by the Law. The expectation of holiness, justice and mercy remained unchanged in the New Testament but a new emphasis was placed on the follower’s love for God and for people.

An unexpected commonality emerges between the Old and New Testament revolving around spiritual transformation–The work of the Holy Spirit. With the help of the Holy Spirit, the Jews of the Old Testament era and the followers of Jesus Christ, are expected to be renewed in mind and spirit in order to live in to the lives they have been redeemed into living. The believer’s transformation is ultimately evidenced, according to the New Testament, by the exterior manifestation of the “Fruits” produced by the Holy Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control.

Unfortunately, given the number of Americans who claim to be Christians, there appears to be a disconnect between the biblical theme of spiritual transformation and the experienced reality in the lives of American Christians. Considering the freedoms we enjoy here in America, the Fruits of the Spirit should be on prominent display for all to witness. However, it is difficult to argue that, based on cultural trends, the exact opposite is true. That is not to say that a majority of Americans no longer profess to be Christians. However, when the lives of believers are no longer distinct; no longer substantially different from unbelievers; when being a people that are sanctified or set-apart is no longer valued, then becoming a Christian just becomes a way to stay out of hell. For many people in America, being a Christian is not a new way of life but a one-time confession and then a return to the old way of life. Sundays are often a time of being entertained with concert quality music, mesmerizing light shows, and mystical fog machines. Attendees are fully engaged with hands raised high in celebration and often with tears of joy or sorrow. They sit through messages offered by charismatic leaders while nodding their heads and applauding the message in full agreement. Then, many of those same people leave the church service and return to their old lives as though nothing has changed. Publicly, and often privately, their lives look exactly the same as their unbelieving neighbor who has never darkened the doorway of a church.

            George Barna of the Barna Research Groups has conducted numerous surveys that support this very trend. In fact, in one survey conducted in 1997, only seventeen percent of Christians and twenty-five percent of non-Christians believed the moral and ethical standards of Americans at that time were just as high as ever.[3] It is probably safe to assume that things have not improved here in America in the last two decades since that particular survey was conducted. Perhaps contributing to this decline are the beliefs expressed by contemporary Christians. In another survey by Barna, only sixty percent of those surveyed believe the Bible is accurate in all its teachings. Thirty-nine percent believe that Jesus sinned during his time on Earth. Sixty-one percent believe the Holy Spirit is merely a symbol of God’s presence and power but not a living entity. Forty percent do not believe Jesus rose from the dead physically. Thirty-two percent of those surveyed believe that truth is relative.[4] The survey results indicate a shift away from orthodox biblical belief. That type of shift cannot occur without consequences. Barna writes, “Most Christians—not those who merely call themselves Christians but those who have confessed their sinfulness and have asked Jesus Christ to be their Lord and Savior—have fallen prey to the same disease as their worldly counterparts. We think and behave no differently from anyone else.”[5]

            This shift away from orthodox biblical belief has a profound impact on the way Christians think and interact with the world around them. The result is that Christians no longer have the strength or will to fight against the world’s desire for conformity. And it makes the job of Christian parents that much harder when they try to teach their children that they must not conform to the pattern of the world.

            I have some close friends who have faithfully and diligently placed God at the center of their family. They are raising two daughters to conform to the pattern of God instead of conforming to the pattern of the world. This past week they had to have another of many conversations with one of their daughters trying to explain why she isn’t allowed to do the things her friends do. Their daughter witnessed the inappropriate behavior of her friends who suffered no consequences for their behavior so she wanted to know why it was wrong for her to participate if there are no consequences. Of course they explained to her that consequences or the lack thereof is not what makes something right or wrong. Right and wrong is determined by God irrespective of the consequences.

            I remember these same struggles while raising my own daughters. When they were growing up, they weren’t allowed to wear the same clothes as their friends, or listen to the same music, or watch the same movies or television shows. I remember the tears and the countless conversations I had with them. I also remember the relentless teasing they had to endure at school when their friends thought our family was weird. I remember they were embarrassed when we went to their elementary school and demanded that they stop playing certain music during gym class that we thought was inappropriate. I remember explaining to my daughter why when she said that God created the stars that she got the answer wrong on a test. I remember explaining to both of them that when their friends and teachers referred to a woman’s right to choose, what they were really saying was that a mother should have the right to murder her unborn child. As my girls got older, my wife and I constantly reminded them that because we are Christians, we are different from the rest of the world.

            Opposing the surrounding culture is never easy. In fact, for some of you it may actually be deadly. However, even in extreme cases, Christians can never acquiesce to the demands and pressure of the culture. I’m not in any way implying that it will be easy. In fact, it breaks my heart to watch the world batter and bruise Christians attempting to be faithful with the lies of political correctness, compromise, and conformity. I watch and encourage Christians daily to hang on to the slightest hope that they will be able to withstand the culture’s onslaught. I pray for my wife and children daily that the rope they have used to lash themselves to God will hold. I pray also for all of you that you too will be able to withstand the pressure and demands for cultural conformity. I pray that you will be encouraged to not conform to the pattern of the world but instead conform to the pattern of God for which you were originally designed. I pray that you will have the courage to be unusual, unique, and unconventional in relation to your culture. I pray that you will have the courage to Be A Revolutionary!






[1] Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans—The New International Commentary on the New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996), 749-751; 754.
[2] Bruce Barton, Philip Comfort, Grant Osborne, Linda K. Taylor, Dave Veerman, Life Application New Testament Commentary, (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001), 623.
[3] George Barna, Growing True Disciples: New Strategies for Producing Genuine Followers of Christ, (Colorado Springs, CO, 2001), 78.
[4] George Barna & Mark Hatch, Boiling Point: It Only Takes One Degree—Monitoring Cultural Shifts in the 21st Century, (Ventura, CA, 2001), 190-191.
[5] George Barna, The Second Coming Of The Church, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1998), 6-7.

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