I. Oppenheimer and the World Jesus Changed 00:02
…before you, acknowledging that you are King of all, you are Lord of all. And we pray this morning that you would rule and reign in our hearts and minds. In Jesus’ name, amen.
So I saw a movie Friday night. Well, it was more like Saturday morning, I guess. It was late. It was like an 11:10, three-hour movie. They’re like, “Oh, don’t worry, no previews.” So we’re all sitting there, and we’re like, “Okay, good, no previews. We can see the movie 30 minutes earlier,” because usually, as you know, an 11:10 showtime means an 11:40 movie. And so we’re so excited. And then it’s 11:15, and it’s just a black screen. And then it’s 11:20, and it’s just a black screen. And we’re just waiting and waiting and waiting. And then the guy comes out, and he goes, “Well, we aren’t showing the previews because we happen to be seeing this movie in film, and they couldn’t fit the previews on the film reel. But don’t worry, we’ll start the movie at the exact time it would have started if we had seen the previews.” And we’re sitting there looking at each other like, “What the heck is going on?”
And so I say all that because it has so much to do with my sermon. No. I say all that because the movie I saw, Oppenheimer, was interesting. I’m not here today to say you should all go out and watch Oppenheimer. I’m not here to say that. But I do want to say something that jumped out of the movie at me as I was watching it. And it has to do with a theme that we’ve visited a few times over the past few months, about the impact of the Christian ideas, the Christian worldview, the Bible, on the world. Because if you just watch Oppenheimer in our modern context, you see the wrestling of all the scientists with the idea that they’re creating a nuclear bomb that can destroy tens of thousands of lives, hundreds of thousands of lives, in an instant. And they’re really wrestling with it the whole film. It’s part of what makes the film so good, watching this war between the brilliance of the idea, the inventiveness of the idea, and the horror of the idea.
Now, he actually quotes Sanskrit. Famously, Oppenheimer quotes a really old (you know, it would have been Babylonian) poem in Sanskrit that basically says, “I’ve become death, the destroyer of worlds.” And once again you’re all thinking, “Okay, what does this have to do with what we read this morning?” Well, there’s this idea in there. Could you imagine for a second: Jesus is walking the earth, he’s been crucified, his followers are now being horribly killed and murdered, hunted down. And you’ve got Nero, and he’s got this guy, Hero of Alexandria, who’s inventing all this stuff, and he travels into the Roman capital and he says, “Hey, Nero, guess what?” Well, actually he says it in Latin, so it goes something like this… No, I’m just kidding. I don’t know enough Latin for that. He says, “I have a device for your enemies that will, in an instant, without any ability of them to defend it, wipe out any city that you want.” Can you imagine for a second any Roman emperor (Nero is a great one to use) saying, “That sounds awful. How could you possibly kill that many people?” You can’t imagine somebody pre-Jesus, pre-Christian impact on the world, turning down the opportunity to demolish their enemies.
And so I was watching this movie, and afterwards, as I’ve been thinking about it the past couple days, I was just thinking about the fact that we are all so shaped. Even this guy Oppenheimer, who is not a Christian (he’s not going to church on Sunday and hearing sermons): the entire world has been changed by the evidence of one man, that is Jesus, laying down his life, dying not just for his friends but for his enemies. And that radical concept, that radical idea, is what Paul is talking about in his letter to the Romans. Because all of the people that he’s writing to are in this Roman culture where, literally, if you had a deformed baby, you’d just leave it in the woods. You would not think twice about sending people to their death for offending you. You wouldn’t think twice about having the power to destroy a city. You would jump at the opportunity.
II. The Mercies of God 04:29
And there’s something that Paul is trying to effect in his people: we are living in a new world. That’s why in Romans chapter 8 he talks about how the love of God is so powerful that there is nothing that can separate you from it (Rom 8.38–39). That’s why he says there’s no condemnation in Christ Jesus (Rom 8.1). There’s forgiveness. He’s trying to explain in this letter how the grace of God works in the lives of his hearers, because it was so foreign. Even the Jews who converted had to understand that when Jesus came, everything was understood in a new light: the idea that God is love, fully, truly, and he’s not spiteful. He’s actually on your side. He actually values each person in this room. And not just values, like, “Oh, they’re pretty cool.” No, he loves you. He wants what’s best for you. He’s on your side. He’s working for you, whether you work for him or not. He wants your benefit.
That idea is what Paul’s talking about when we get into Romans chapter 12, which is what we’re talking about this morning, an idea that radically changed the world. He just finished explaining some of the technical ideas within that, the theology of it, and he gets to Romans 12, and he’s like, “Okay, I’ve explained the mercy of God. I’ve shown you how good he is. Now I’m going to tell you how to live under that revelation.” And so we’re going to start there, in Romans chapter 12. That’s a little background as to what Paul was saying, and then he leads right into this. Chapter 12, verse 1:
1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God… Rom 12.1
When he says “the mercies of God,” he’s saying, “I’ve spent this whole letter trying to tell you what that means in your life: that you are chosen, you are forgiven, you are welcomed, not just to be slaves to a new religion, but to be sons of God, heirs of the kingdom.” And so he says, if that’s true, then do this:
1 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. Rom 12.1
III. A Living Sacrifice 06:54
Now, when you think about a sacrifice… When I was young (I don’t know if this shocks any of you), I had a bit of a savior complex. And I used to constantly fantasize (well, maybe not constantly, but it was pretty frequent) about what I would do if, like, you know, a bad guy came around and he was going to shoot somebody. And, like, “I don’t really like that girl, but I’m a hero, so I’m going to jump in front of her and take the bullet.” And I used to think, sometimes really detailed, “Or I’m going to push this child out of the way of the speeding bus, and everybody’s just going to be worshiping at my bed, like, ‘Wow, you’re so great,’ in the hospital when I wake up.” It’s silly things. And let me just say, I understand the megalomania that is embedded within this. But there was an idea that what you were willing to die for defined who you were. Somewhere in there I had this idea: man, what you’re willing to die for…
But Paul takes it further. He says what you’re willing to live for is more important. You may die, it says, for a friend. Maybe, maybe it could happen. But Christ died for his enemies (Rom 5.7–8). In order to do that, you have to actually live differently. You have to actually live for God. So when he says “a living sacrifice,” that’s a much higher goal than “I’m going to go and die for a cause.” In fact, we’ve seen throughout history people dying for all sorts of crazy causes. We haven’t seen all that often people living fully sacrificially for God. There are examples. There are saints that we should look up to and be encouraged by. I’ve met people that I’m just in awe of, how they live their lives, how they think, because they’ve been transformed in such a way that they actually, every day, are living from this idea: I am, in my life, a living sacrifice for God.
IV. Do Not Be Conformed to This World 07:48
So how do we do this? We’re presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Well, let’s explain a little further. How do you do this? You start with verse 2:
2 Do not be conformed to this world… Rom 12.2
Another translation of the word world is “this age.” Do not be conformed to this age, this world. I want to take the “age” idea in here. The “world” idea works great too. It’s communicating the same idea. But in our world, in this age, we have a prevailing spirit of self-interest. In fact, our Patriarch a couple weeks ago was talking about it. He said you’ve got, you know, self-help, self-care, self-interest, all of these things that are centered on the self. But the problem is, when you make everything about what you’re doing, how you’re feeling, what you think, what I want, when all that happens, you lose focus. And the Patriarch even pointed out, he said your reality becomes what’s going on here, because you’re so self-focused. And what Paul’s saying is you’ve got to look outside of yourself. Because when you’re conformed to the world, the patterns of your life, the thoughts that you have, the feelings you have, are self-centric.
The entire dichotomy between the kingdom of Christ and the world can be summarized as Christ-centered and self-centered. If you’re not worshiping God, you’re worshiping something, let me tell you. You can’t live your life without dedicating yourself to something. It’s as clear as possible in the worst-case scenarios, like in cases of addiction or unbelievable greed. You’ve got Ebenezer Scrooge. We love that character. We love that character because we see ourselves in him, and we see the transformation that can happen even to somebody who has dedicated his life to worshiping the acquisition of wealth, his worth being money. And yet by the end of it he’s seeing other people. His whole life was like this, and he goes through this miraculous experience where he sees the ghosts of past, present, and future, and it opens his eyes to see everyone around him. That’s what being not conformed to this world is about. It’s about opening our eyes to see the people, what God’s doing in the world.
In fact, some of us are so conformed by this that we even get lost reading the Bible from the lens of self. I thought about this the other day. Somebody’s trying to get to their appointment, and they get a flat tire, and then their Starbucks coffee is cold, and all this stuff is happening: “And, you know, I don’t know if I’m going to make it with my friends tonight, because I don’t have enough money to go to the bar to hang out with them. But I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!” (Phil 4.13). I’m exaggerating here, but sometimes we read the Bible that way. What was Paul talking about when he wrote, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”? He means, “I can spread the gospel even if they beat me and put me in chains.” He wasn’t talking about his happiness, his comfort, his fulfillment. But we read the Bible in the morning, and we’re like, “Behold, the lines have been drawn for me in pleasant places” (Ps 16.6). “Oh God, give me your pleasant places!” We’re reading it from a lens that it was never meant to be read from.
Do you know where God’s pleasant places are? Out there, doing what he has called you to do. When God guides you, he leads you to a purpose. He put you here for a purpose. And when you follow him along that, you empty yourself, just like Christ. We have that image of Christ emptying himself and becoming as one of us. When you empty yourself of your self-interest, you get filled with the love of God. There is nothing that will stand against you. That’s what we read in our Gospel. When we get a church that has been founded on the revelation that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that the crucified one is our model for how we should live in the world, when you have a church founded on that, the gates of Hades will not stand against it (Matt 16.18).
And let me be clear: we also sometimes preach this way. I get into this pattern too, of saying, “You can have a better life. You can have a better life.” But it’s really about us. We can have a better life. I want you to be better so that we can be better, so the body of Christ can reveal him to the earth. Let’s not be so self-centered, self-focused, conformed to this world, the spirit of the age. Let’s break free.
V. Be Transformed by the Renewal of Your Mind 13:49
Okay:
2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind… Rom 12.2
I just want you to know, there’s a war going on. And I’m not talking about the one in Ukraine and Russia. I’m talking bigger. I’m talking a war for the hearts of men, a war that’s been going on for as long as there’s been humans. And so when we look at this, how is the battle fought? Well, the battle is most often fought between your ears: what you think, and what you believe, in that self-talk, that thing that goes on in your mind. So when Paul’s targeting this, he’s saying your mind needs to be transformed, because that’s the path to your heart. It’s all connected. And so if you’re thinking constantly, “Ah, nobody loves me. I’m so bad. I’m the dud. I just messed this up, and I mess up thing after thing after thing,” it’s going to be really hard for the love of God to get through that to your heart. But Paul’s saying there is a way: be transformed in the renewing of your mind.
Well, how is your mind to be transformed? That could be books. Lots of books have been written on that. Let me just say one thing that I think we all could benefit from. What if every day, before you started your day, you took five minutes and you said, “God, what do you want me to do today? Where are you in my day? What would you have for me today? And thank you, God, for your goodness.” If all you did was that, you’ve started the warfare for your mind. You’ve begun by inviting God to be your focus.
Now, I’m not saying that solves all your problems: “Man, I forgot… you know, I didn’t do my five minutes this morning. That’s why I’m being so mean to my boss, or my friend, or my wife.” It’s like, no, no. It’s not a magic bullet. This is just a tip that maybe helps you think about what needs to happen in order for us to be transformed. What if our entire way of thinking revolved around the goodness of God, the love of God, the purposes of God? This is one way that you can maybe help yourself begin in that direction.
And the best news in the world is that you are not doing this on your own. In fact, when Paul said, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” he might have been talking a lot more about this stuff. It seems, in the context, that he was talking about his attitude. He said, “I have learned to be content in all things, because I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Phil 4.11–13). So we need to have our mind focused correctly. Like I said, there’s a great war between Christ-centered and self-centered, and it’s up here. It’s also out there, but it starts up here. You can start to change up here. And while you’re doing that five minutes and you’re thinking about God, he will be working in you.
It’s not a mental exercise. Dune is a great sci-fi movie and a great sci-fi series. I really enjoy it. But it’s a lot of what you can do up here. And we can forget, because we’re watching all these movies or we’re reading all these things, and we can start to think, “Yeah, I’m going to be a mental ninja. I’m going to be so strong in my mind that the devil can’t get in.” How about, “I’m going to rest on the goodness of God, and I’m going to trust his work in me, and I’m going to try to cooperate and be a part of what he’s doing in me”?
VI. What Is Good and Acceptable and Perfect 17:21
2 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. Rom 12.2
When your mind is transformed, you can actually know what is good and acceptable and perfect. I was thinking about this. There was a time where [people said], “You have a lead spoon? This is so much better than that wood spoon!” And everybody said, “Yes, we need to be eating and drinking out of lead. It’s so much better.” Nowadays we look back and we’re like, “What? That is an awful idea.” They couldn’t discern what was good and acceptable and perfect in that moment. They were blind. I think that that is the case for us a lot of the time: we actually don’t see what is good without the help of God, without being transformed in the renewing of our mind, without taking a second to stop and pray, stop and discern.
You see this most often in advertising, because there are a billion people in the world whose sole job is to make you buy the lead spoon. And how are you, one person, going to resist the pull of advertisement and messaging? Well, it’s by the Holy Spirit. You know, back in Rome, when he was writing this, there were many people who were trying to get the Christians to be on their side. There were temples and markets and governments who were coercing people to believe this way, do this thing. They needed God to discern what was good and acceptable and perfect.
VII. We Do What We Desire Most 19:53
But when I think of myself… Let me just tell you, I struggle with this. Jonathan Edwards said we always do what we desire to do the most. And I’m going to take it this way, because I think, yes, we can be totally blind to what is good, but the harder part is we can know what is good and choose to do the bad. And so when Jonathan Edwards says we do what we desire to do most, somebody might say, “Well, you know, I got mugged the other day at gunpoint.” (This didn’t happen; this is a hypothetical.) But imagine this case, where you’re getting mugged at gunpoint. Do you want to give that man your wallet? “No, I don’t.” But you gave him the wallet. “I gave it to him against my will,” we might say. I’m going to postulate something a little bit different, and track with me. Not to get too psychological, but I think you wanted to live more than you wanted to not give that man your wallet.
And so when we look at sin in our life: at midnight, and you’re driving home from the long day, and the In-N-Out sign is there, and you desire that double cheeseburger and that milkshake and the french fries, animal style, and the cheese. I mean, I could go on and on. You have these desires that pull you. The reason we need to be transformed in our mind is so that the desire, you know, to remember “this body is a temple” (1 Cor 6.19)… I mean, I’m just kidding a little bit. I do think how we use that phrase is a little bit funky. But there are times where, yes, get the milkshake, absolutely. There are times when that is good and acceptable and perfect. But how are you going to know if you aren’t transformed in the renewing of your mind? And even if you think, “I probably shouldn’t be doing this,” how are you going to desire the good versus the bad? Because going home and not eating anything at midnight is so much less compelling than eating double cheeseburgers and milkshakes in that moment.
Either way, what I’m trying to say is: knowing what is good and acceptable and perfect is actually harder than we make it out to be. We tend to think that life is very clear: “I know what I’m doing. I know what is good, I know what is acceptable, and I know what is perfect.” And yet we don’t live that way. So what’s going on? Our minds and our heart, that connection, gets crowded with bad beliefs, gets crowded with bad desires. We train ourselves to want the bad and reject the good. And so we need to be undone. We need to have all of our life submitted to the goodness of God, and that takes transformation. You’re just not smart enough. You need to be transformed by his Holy Spirit, that he can make you that person, like Jesus, who wanted to do what God wanted so much that he was willing to go to the cross.
If all you ever do is what we desire to do most, then Jesus on the cross was actually what he wanted to do on that Friday. He submitted his desire, and, empowered by the Holy Spirit, endured the cross for the joy that was set before him, we’re told (Heb 12.2). So I’m going to endure not going through the In-N-Out drive-through when the Holy Spirit told me it was a bad idea, and my doctor told me it’s a bad idea, and my wife told me it’s a bad idea. And I’m going to, for the joy that is set before me, take care of this temple, this body. Because God wants to set us free.
A lot of times we can read this passage, “You need to be transformed in the renewing of your mind,” like, “Get yourself together.” It’s like, no. It’s because you’re in chains. Don’t you want to be galloping through the woods and the forests with freedom? Our ideas of freedom can be really twisted, let me just tell you. Don’t you want to be leading your family from a place of freedom? Don’t you want to be working in your job, submitted to the Lord, in a place of freedom, not weighed down by resentment and guilt and shame and anger and deceit? I want that life. God, transform me in the renewing of my mind.
VIII. Sober Judgment 24:22
We’re going to end here, but I promised myself I would at least read this verse, so you guys knew I was aware of it. Chapter 12, verse 3:
3 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. Rom 12.3
Now, in Paul’s thinking, this starts a whole new thing, and so we don’t have time to go there today. But I just want you to know I am aware that we aren’t supposed to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to. That is a joke. But I want to get to a really good point about this. When you are transformed in the renewing of your mind, you neither think of yourself as the cool kid on the block, nor as the worthless person that doesn’t matter, but you think of yourself with sober judgment. And if you’ve transformed your mind, like I said, to focus on God and the love of God, then it’s really hard to get arrogant. But if you focus your mind on the goodness and the love of God, it’s really hard to be insecure.
Now, this is a process. But I want to end here, because I want to say it’s about you, and us, and the world. Everyone needs to know that they are called, chosen, valued, loved, and they are wicked sinners in need of Christ. And so if everybody else needs to know that, don’t you know we need to know that? And so I’m here to remind you: take a moment and think about the goodness of God. It’ll do something in you when you invite him to change you, to transform you, and you’ll start winning that war. Now, we have the victory. But, as Father Powell’s fond of saying, there’s no guarantee that I in particular get to survive. But we’re fighting it out in the world, and you have a purpose. There are people who need you to win the war in your mind. Amen.