I Have Blindspots; Do You?

Future lives in the mind

While we fall from behind

Missing light from the trees

Missing you, look at me

From a thought to a sound

From a fear we expound

Give it life, make it breathe

There is nothing that is as it seems

Everybody talk, and nobody listen

Nobody listen, nobody listen

Everybody talk, and nobody listen

Nobody listen, nobody listen

Nobody Listen, Lifehouse

I've been thinking recently about why it is that conversation seems less and less possible among people with opposing opinions.  Have you noticed the same thing? - that it is less and less possible to have an adult conversation with someone who disagrees with you?  I have.  And it seems that the reason is that conversation by nature means movement -- movement toward a conclusion, one way or another.  If people have opposing views, there's a chance that the conversation is going to mean one person is wrong and the other is right.  But there's only a chance of this.  It could be that there is some truth in one person's view, as well as in the other's, and that the overall, most consistent truth is combining both and keeping the most consistent elements (the most likely answer most of the time).  

But movement toward a conclusion like this, via rational conversation, is less and less possible.  And I'm convinced that a major reason (if not the major reason) is one word: Fear.  People are afraid of the feeling of wrongness.  If wrong, they've lost their whole identity, and are all together worthless to the other person and to onlookers.  After all, who am I if someone sees my faults?  (Little do most of us know that everyone else sees our faults all the time, regardless of how hard we work to cover them up).  

As a Christian pastor, I look at the issue I'm describing (an issue from which I am not exempt), and I think it has to do with separation from God.  Because men and women don't have peace with their Creator, they are living life all alone, to fend for their peace by standing up for their principles and standing against those who oppose them.  "Stand for something, or you'll fall for anything," is the sentiment that's been knocked around for years, which sounds good.  The problem is, do we just stand for something, or do we stand for a particular thing?  And if so, what is it?

Jesus can help, because His Word says, "Let every person be quick to hear and slow to speak" (James 1:19).  It appears that the Bible is here telling Christians that their character should include a desire and practice of going to pains to hear people out.  Note that it doesn't say -- nor have I said in this post thus far, and won't -- that truth is relative and Christians should accept some sort of vague nebulous post-modern view of truth which is subject to culture's whims.  But rather, it appears from the sweep of the New Testament that since Christians' standing is unshakably on truth embodied in a Person (Christ the Truth, John 14:6), they can then have open ears to listen up and hear what their neighbors have to say, without fear of looking a fool.

Perhaps the reason is because the Christian isn't so proud that they're unwilling to admit they have blindspots.  Rather, they admit they might.  Truth, by nature, is God's.  And He gives us rebirth through the truth (James 1:18).  Perhaps there is truth in whatever cultural conversation of which we're a part that we're simply missing.  Taking up the cross sometimes means saying to our neighbor, "Help me understand where you're at.  I'm all ears." 

Jesus never acted like that because He didn't have to.  He knew all things about all men.  At several points in his ministry social situations came up with obvious controversial answers, and he was always willing to simply tell the truth.  Yet He never burdened people with unneeded burdens -- He was humbly, gentle, and kind, with an easy yoke and a light burden.  But it was because He knew the truth.  For us, sometimes we need to listen to our opponents to get a better grasp on the truth, so that later we can be better ambassadors for the truth.

Let's start a movement of blind-spot owning, ears-open, I'll-hear-you-out-first-if-you'll-hear-me-out-second action.  But the only way will be if we ask God to help us.  Because only if our confidence is in His power will we fight the temptation to let our confidence rest in our ability to argue better.

You Must Carry the Burden

I've recently been reading Pilgrim's Progress for the first time.  Only being 30 pages in, I'm wishing I would have read it a long time ago.

Christian is a person on a long journey with a heavy burden on his back (symbolic of the cross), sure that one day he'll be able to set the burden down and live in joy for forever.  Along the journey he is often tempted to take sidesteps that make the burden easier.

At one point he begins a conversation on the road with a man named Worldly Wisdom, who tells him that he can't enjoy the benefits of God's blessing until he sets his burden down.  Worldly Wisdom tells him that God doesn't want him to carry the burden.  Then he begins telling him of a town where he can go for relief.  The town is called Morality, where Christian is to look for a "very judicious man" named Legality, who will help, as well as his son Civility.  These two men will help ease the burden of the cross.

As he begins journeying toward Morality to find these two men who can help, the hill up to the town is too daunting to imagine traversing (symbolic of the Law).  So eventually he runs into Evangelist, who first gave him the message and the promise of joy, along with the accompanying burden.  Evangelist asks Christian, "How is it that thou art so quickly turned aside?"  As Christian tells Evangelist what has happened, the latter reminds the former that the righteous live by faith, and that all Worldly Wisdom is interested in is saving man from the cross, at the expense of the eternal joy that is awaiting at the end of the road.

In other words, civil religion might make for a world nice neighbors (a true blessing indeed), but it does nothing to save the soul.  The soul is saved through a long journey of taking up the cross and following Jesus, and the reason for the cross is not that God is mean, but that God is kind, and man, being a sinner, must live with the daily honest burden of the gap between true godliness and sin which is without and within.  The cross is a burden not because God makes salvation hard -- but it is because the fallen world and our fallen hearts make it impossible.  But when one puts their hand to the plow, takes up their cross, and follows Jesus, they are on the path to life, sure that it is as much their's already as Jesus is alive and ruling already.  Thus the Christian is the person who boasts only in the cross of Christ, because by it the world has been crucified to them and they to the world (Galatians 6:14).

I for one am praying that our recent social war -- or perhaps it's better to call it an awakening to the social controversy that's been there all along -- will awaken both Christians and non-Christians to the bankruptcy of civil religion, and bring them to the narrow path that leads to life.  My prayer is that believers who have been living in civil religion, just trying to be morally upright, and hoping that that will be enough, will see that the Gospel is much more radical, because indwelling and out-dwelling sin is much more serious and all-encompassing than they thought.  My prayer is also that non-believers will see that true Christianity can save the world, because perhaps what they've known as Christianity this whole time -- social, civil, moral Christianity -- is religion, but not Christ and the power of the Gospel.

To take up the cross and follow Jesus is to say, "The world needs to be saved -- especially me."  It isn't to say, "I'm right, and these people are the problem," or, "The world would be better with my camp, and that camp just needs to change."  That is to set up another Law.  Rather, the problem is inside of each of us, and Jesus came to make a new creation.  And that new creation, until He returns a second time, is marked by a long road, a heavy burden, and a reward of eternal joy.  But one must take up the cross and start walking to even begin.

Seeker-Transforming > Seeker-Friendly

I've recently been reading John Piper's Swans Are Not Silent biography of Athanasius, and it's been very enlightening on the man and his ministry.

One little section toward the end of the chapter (before Piper moves into a biography of John Owen) was particularly profound for me as a young pastor trying to grow a church.  Emperor Constantine's conversion led to the legalization of Christianity (January 313), and this brought with it an influx of Arian Christians into churches where Athanasius was ministering (Arianism heretically teaching that Christ was a created being, instead of Himself being eternal God).  Piper writes that here Athanasius would have been confronted with the temptation to compromise toward an Arian Christianity that was more intelligible to the multitudes, but was unfaithful to God's revelation of Himself in Scripture.  But Athanasius, who upheld orthodoxy much of his ministry while standing alone, didn't compromise.  Instead, he stayed the course with the divinity of Christ.
 Piper continues:

"If you want to grow a church, the temptation is to give the people what they already have categories to understand and enjoy.  But once that church is grown, it thinks so much like the world that the difference is not decisive.  The radical, biblical gospel is blunted, and the glory of Christ is obscured.  

"Rather, alongside the indigenous principle of accommodation and contextualization, Athanasius would plead with us to have a deep commitment to the pilgrim principle of confrontation and transformation  -- the brain-boggling, mind-altering, recategorization of the way people think about reality."

John Piper, The Swans Are Not Silent: Contending For Our All (Wheaton: Crossway, 2006), pages 68-69.

While the very nature of communication requires the speaker laboring to use the same terms as the listener, the very nature of Gospel communication requires the speaker remembering that God's ways and thoughts are higher than man's ways and thoughts (Isaiah 55:10-11).  Thus the Gospel of Christ's glory truly preached will be considered foolishness to the world if it is made clear (cf. 1 Cor. 1:18-25).
And so we are not in the final analysis salesmen trying to sell people something to fit within our listeners' own pre-furnished thought processes.  Rather, we are laborers for truth which creates new categories and thus new thought processes, that people who have never witnessed glory the likes of Christ's will through His Word be transformed by seeing God's glory in His face.
Otherwise, we may grow churches, but the churches themselves will be full of the unconverted who merely appear to have godliness (cf. 2 Tim. 3:5, Is. 29:13), but who have yet to witness the mystery of godliness, which is Christ in all of His glory (1 Tim. 3:16).  Thus our task is to speak the mystery, let the Spirit draw people through it, and not ourselves so toy with contextualization that we also toy with unfaithfulness.  It might require our reputations in the world, but it will gain us eternity with our Lord.  Let us not forget, right doctrine saves both ourselves and our hearers (1 Tim. 4:16).

As Piper concludes of Athanasius, confrontation and transformation must come alongside of accommodation and contextualization.  We are to never lose accessibility and clarity.  But we are also never to lose truth at the expense of the former.  This tension is where the minister lives.  And if the Lord has begun the work in us, He will surely complete it.  See: Athanasius.

Why We Need Tests

"The testing of your faith produces steadfastness" - James 1:3

I might be the only person I know who likes taking tests.

I have a difficult time knowing exactly what from professors' lectures and presentations I'm supposed to be internalizing and keeping for the future.  I don't think it's the professors' fault all the time (although sometimes their lack of clarity and brevity is at fault), but mostly the blame rests with my difficulty listening and processing at the same time.  Thus I take a ton of notes throughout the duration of the class - just ask those who consult my notes in preparation for finals.  Then the night or two before the test I go through my notes, highlight what I think is important, and then go in expecting that at least some of what I've focused on will be on the test.  Sometimes this proves unfruitful, while other times (most of the time) it works.

Then when I get to the test, I feel that I'm finally able to see clearly what the professor has wanted me to be focusing on.  While there was a lot of information being sent out all quarter, and a lot more (!) being typed in my Word document, that moment of flipping the page over and seeing the questions which I will be essaying about is a liberating one for me to feel like I finally know what are supposed to be the "takeaways" from the class.  And hopefully I've studied enough that I can answer them adequately.  However I do on the test, it has acted as a type of seal for the whole class -- I now have a summary of the class's content, with particulars as referents.

Like I said, I'm probably the only person I know who likes tests.  But you see why: I don't feel like I'm able to see the most important things until then.

Now, think about following Jesus.  Wouldn't it seem to be much easier if we never had tests?  Isn't life difficult enough as it is without the spiritual disciplining of the Lord, which He claims is for our good (Prov. 3:11-12, Heb. 12:3-11), but doesn't always feel like it?  If the truth were to be told, most of us would have to admit we at least initially (and perhaps, though hopefully not, still) follow Jesus because we hope He'll deliver us from both the present difficulties of life and the future ones.  But testing is promised in the Scripture, and Jesus Himself even says that temptations are necessary (see Matthew 18:7).

Furthermore, Paul says that Christians are those who not only receive trials, but rejoice in them (Romans 5:3-5).

But why do they rejoice in them?  Because they understand the bigger picture which God is painting -- they know that testing doesn't come as a threat to their spiritual vitality in Christ, but as a means to advance their spiritual vitality in Christ.  Thus Paul says trials in the end produce hope in Christ, while James says that steadfastness (another word for endurance and resilience) is the result of testing.  Note that James says testing of faith produces steadfastness.

It is often not until you take the test that you can see clearly what God aims for you to know.  But when you flip the page over, having studied, and having internalized a lot that you're not sure the purpose of, you can then see clearly.  That was for this, and now I'm ready to use it.  Now I can see what He's been saying and doing this whole time, and I can make it through this because I'm prepared.  The purpose of my Master is now clear, and I feel that the hard work of discipleship this whole time now has a seal.  And moving forward, I can explain what it was for.

Don't try to avoid the testing of the Lord -- it has a purpose.  Your spiritual vitality in Him depends on it.  Your relationship with the the Lord is not being threatened.  It is being strengthened, and He is pressing you more and more into His own heart.

Lord, Teach Us to Pray

Jesus' disciples made this request of him, and, according to Luke 11:2-4, He responded with what is a shorter version of what is commonly referred to as "the Lord's Prayer."

The interesting thing about the disciples' request is that it isn't, "Teach us how to pray," but rather, "Teach us to pray."  In other words, they weren't asking for instruction when they do pray, but they were looking for help in beginning to pray.  Perhaps the ancient world isn't that different from our present day after all -- people still struggled to discipline themselves to pray.  But because the disciples had seen their Lord as a man of prayer the likes of which the world had never seen (see Luke 4:42, 5:16, 6:12, and 9:18), they knew He had the secret to the prayer life they should have but don't.  Thus they ask Him, in effect, "Lord, give us a prayer life."

You remember Jesus' answer.  "When you pray, say: 'Father, hallowed be your name.  Your kingdom come.  Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us out sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.  And lead us not into temptation" (11:2b-4).

Again, remember the request is not for a how-to, but for a key to open the door to a prayer life.  And Jesus' answer is a prayer template.  The upshot is that if you pray like this, it'll drive you deeper into the Father's heart, and you won't be able to help coming to Him regularly.  Not that you won't be tempted to blow Him off for more important things like television, Facebook, or sleep; but that you'll begin to see, because of this template, what your real needs are.

Is that not often the reason why you don't pray -- that you don't know what you should pray for?  You don't know your needs.  So Jesus tells His disciples and us what our needs are.  Aren't you thankful that He came "to bear witness to the truth" (John 18:37)?

Your Needs

Jesus here says that your first need is the hallowing of God your Father's Name.  He is holy, and He must be reverenced if you would have life and vitality.  Any time it appears that there is abundant life being experienced by an individual or a culture where the God of the Bible is absent is a counterfeit.  All of life in God's creation is dependent on His Name being reverenced.
Your second need is that God's Kingdom comes.  The Kingdom was inaugurated in Christ's first coming (Mark 1:15), and it will be consummated in His second coming (Luke 19:11, etc.)  The Kingdom is the reign of Christ over the universe, and the universe recognizing it.  Material and felt needs are priorities, but Christ's Lordship is priority one, out of which flows all else.  If you're a Christian, you've been transferred already into His Kingdom (Colossians 1:13), and your desire is to see His Kingdom spread.  Thus, start with prayer that God would make it spread.
Your third need is daily bread.  Retirement and savings are good.  Long-term stewardship matters immensely.  But you don't even know if you'll live past today.  So pray for God to provide daily, and for grace to live with what he gives.  God already knows what you need (Matt. 6:8).  But your vocalizing your dependence on Him today is essential to your spiritual vitality.  As you speak it, you believe it more.  And you must believe it, because your and my absolute and utter dependence on Him couldn't be more true (Ps. 104:27, Acts 17:25).

Your fourth need is forgiveness of sins.  You're positionally perfect in Christ, counted righteous, and in a gracious standing with God (Rom. 5:3-5).  But you're still a sinner (Phil. 3:12, James 3:2) with issues that, if you weren't in Christ, would be grievous offenses to God.  Truly, they are grievous offenses to Him.  But He's made you His own because of His own love and Jesus' sinlessness.  Thus you must confess your sin (1 John 1:9) and seek forgiveness, sure that He'll respond.
And note that the second clause of that request isn't a request, but an assumption.  It's assumed that if you're coming for forgiveness, you're practicing forgiveness.  In other words, you can't claim the Fatherly grace of God if that grace hasn't made you gracious and forgiving to others.  Because holding a grudge is a sign of idolatry -- what someone took from you either was or has become a functional god in your mind.  But when one becomes a Christian, they turn from idols to serve God through Christ (1 Thes. 1:10), and they labor to keep themselves from idols (1 Jn. 5:21).  So it's assumed that you're growing in grace and grace-giving.

Finally, your last need is to be kept from temptation.  Sin is so engrained in your heart that you have things going on "of the flesh" which you haven't got a clue about yet.  Temptations are ever waiting to overtake you (cf. Gen. 4:7,  1 Pet. 5:8), and you may have no idea.  So Jesus says you must pray that the Lord lead you away from those things that would entangle and corrupt your walk with Him.  I believe that a Christian is a person who has followed Jesus because they've come to see the seriousness of sin: it's desire to devour, and how, in the individual's life, it's already begun devouring.  Thus they've turned to the Lord for grace both in forgiveness and in transforming and conforming them to Christ's likeness.  They've come to Him for Him to stop sin's reign over them, that through Him grace will reign (Romans 5:21).

Simplify Your Approach

Robert Murray M'Cheyne once wrote that a man is no more than he is on his knees before God, "and nothing more."  A. W. Tozer once said, "God discloses Himself to "babes" and hides Himself in thick darkness from the wise and the prudent. We must simplify our approach to Him. We must strip down to essentials (and they will be found to be blessedly few). We must put away all effort to impress, and come with the guileless candor of childhood. If we do this, without doubt God will quickly respond."   Both men were expressing what Jesus had expressed to His disciples in this life-altering teaching (or at least, it should be life-altering): M'Cheyne, that prayer in its most basic sense is simply man before God, and thus you must bring yourself before Him and subject your needs to His priorities, and Tozer, that you must come with nothing but pure babe-ness -- with no illusion that you know better than Christ what you need, and with full confidence that our Lord, in teaching us what to pray, was in so doing teaching us to pray.

Our Lord didn't waste words, and He desires that when we approach Him, we wouldn't either.  As Tozer said, if we simplify our approach -- and what is more simple than coming to God how God Himself said to come? -- He will draw us in, wrap us up, never let go, and answer.  And we won't be disappointed with His timing or His answers, because we'll even consider the trials and valleys as graces from a Father who's Name we've learned to hallow, and who's Kingdom is our ultimate prerogative.

Let the Waves Crash and Do Their Damage

I was driving this morning listening to Christian radio and was struck by how many songs are written with the tenor of, "You used to be happy, now you're broken and struggling with faith, but God will restore you to what you once were."  How true is it that we need encouragement regularly?  Life is hard, we are sinners in both choice and nature, and we constantly need truth to build us up and strengthen us.  That is why we have the Scriptures given to us -- our encouragement (Romans 15:4), so that through the Scriptures God will restore and strengthen us when we've suffered (1 Peter 5:10).

But my fear is that the broader Christian culture is perpetuating two dangerous ideas which should both be confronted:
First, that you, Christian, are a victim.  You're not.  While it is true that Satan has led the world astray and blinded many to Jesus' truth, you are given grace and lavished with love from before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4-10, 2 Timothy 1:9).  You are not a victim, but are beloved.  The multitudes are hardened in heart to the Creator whose truth they suppress every day, while you have faith.  Not all have this faith.  And you have faith because God has revealed Himself and His Son to "little children" and not to the proud (Luke 10:21-22).  Not that you don't magnet to pride!  But you're a child of the most high God, and He has loved you into adoption so that you couldn't even imagine life without Christ.  You're not a victim.
Jesus was a victim at the cross.  He was truly innocent, but He was murdered as though He was a criminal.  And through the wicked actions of evil men, God gave salvation to the lost world.  This message of redemption goes out to the world, and you're among the few (yet an unknown multitude) that He has raised up to new life in His Son (2 Cor. 5:16-21).  You're not a victim.

Second, that brokenness is an unwelcome intruder, and that you should be allowed to "go back" to when things were "better" or "simpler".  Brokenness is so common to God's people in the Scripture that it would take me a thousand blog posts to unpack the examples.  But it stains the pages of Scripture so that the observant reader who wants to understand the inexhaustible ways of the Lord can only cry out with the Psalmist, "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your Word ... It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes" (Psalm 119:67, 71).  The one who feeds on God's Word knows that affliction is a faithful friend from the Lord, whom He sends to drive His people toward Him so that He will drive His Word into their hearts further.  "I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have given me life" (Psalm 119:93).

"But what about my pain and my struggle?  I remember days when things were easier and simpler -- since I've come to know the Lord, it's like a cross to bear every day.  Doesn't God want me to be happy?"  Yes, but happiness is deceptive and deadly if it isn't found in terms of the Lordship of the risen Christ.  The world is full of people who have convinced themselves that they're happy, but they're killing themselves.  Some people, like OneRepublic, realize it -- "Everything that kills me makes me feel alive" -- but the multitudes largely don't.  They'll see it one day.  John Piper once likened deceptive happiness to fondling an expensive brooch that hangs around your neck, and then the lights turn on, and you look down and realize it's a cockroach.  One day the lights will turn on and the cockroach under your chin will be seen for what it is.
The call of the Gospel is that God does want your happiness, but He has to have your heart too.  And it takes a cross on which to die for those two to meet.  That is why it feels like you're bearing a cross daily.  And Jesus said you would (Luke 9:23), adding that one must despise their life in order to gain life (John 12:25).  "Despise" here is not passive but active -- you don't always feel despise for your life, but you actively despise by setting in on the altar, to be given life by He who alone has it.   And when it is time for the trial to lift and the suffering to end, it will, and you'll be restored, strengthened, more mature, and a little wiser in the Lord.  Further, you'll be able to better carry out what is the ethical command of the Scripture, to love your neighbor, in being able to comfort those who inevitably go through the same struggle, having yourself been brought through it faithfully by the Lord.

"Do not say, 'Why were the former days better than these?'  For it is not from wisdom that you ask this" (Ecclesiastes 7:10).  Notice Solomon doesn't say you aren't allowed to feel this or even think this -- it is often a thought that just rises up outside of your control.  But you apparently mustn't say it, because, I think, saying it is entertaining it.  Jesus didn't call you into a discipleship where you stay the same as you were when you started.  He called you to suffer the loss of all things and count them as rubbish.  The church will look like the New Testament church when the disciples in the church treasure Christ as the disciples of the New Testament did.  And this treasuring will happen when Christ is the only life the disciples have.  Whatever it takes for the Lord to bring us there, I hope you'll echo my prayer: Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your Kingdom come, and your will be done.

Bible Study Notes From Tonight: Romans 12:1-2

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.  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. (Romans 12:1-2)

In lieu of Bible study being cancelled tonight, I thought I’d post my notes from the study as a blog post. 

We’ve been studying through Romans the last several months roughly covering a chapter a night.  We’ve had to slow down a bit through chapters 8-11 (obviously) but we finished chapter 11 last week.  And since the first two verses of Romans 12 act as a transition to the “practical” section of Romans, the plan was to only look at those verses and have a shorter Bible study.  See the Scripture posted above.

In these verses I want to focus on three aspects: Two commands and the power to keep them. 

The first command: To present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, as spiritual worship.  

Here Paul highlights the distinction between the Mosaic Law and the New Covenant in Christ; the ceremonial and ritual laws of the former, as well as the building of first the tabernacle and then the Temple were all pointing forward to something better and greater: the true spiritual worship of the people of God filled with His Spirit.  As God had been meticulous in both His command to build the OT worship spaces and in His commanding of the sacrifices in ceremonial worship, His holiness and righteousness is displayed, as is the sinfulness and neediness of His people as they obey Him.  Thus the “system”, including the sacrificial system, is meant to communicate heavenly truths to His people in their own language.  God really is holy, we really are needy, He really is separate from the world, and blood (death) must be shed for a holy God to dwell with sinful people.  Hebrews 9:6-11 and 9:23-24 highlight how the whole system was aimed at displayng copies of the heavenly realities – the realities of heavenly worship that believers presently experience in a partial – but real – form.

But Jesus said that God is seeking people who will worship Him “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23).  In other words, it isn’t about a building, location, or anything that can be made with human hands (although those things can certainly help to focus a person).  But rather God is after worship that flows from a person’s heart attitude in response to the truth claims of the Gospel.  Thus “we are those who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh” (Phil. 3:3). 

With all of the lessons from the Mosaic Law communicated and understood, those who are united with Christ by faith now walk by the Spirit (Gal. 5:25) and fulfill the Law’s righteous requirement through their faith in and obedience to Christ.  This is spiritual worship.

So as one presents their body to God, they are to set aside their own interests and present themselves to God to live after His will.  Some might impatiently respond, “Well, what is His will?  I’ve been waiting and not hearing anything!” But this one might be guilty of mixing their own interests with His, their impatience with His working slowly and “quietly” betraying them.  But those who are in Christ – truly in Him by faith – their patience and time bows to God’s working on His own time.  They sit still and rest in His being Lord of all (Psalm 46:10).  They are learning what it means to obey Jesus’ command of self-denial, and they are forgetting their selves more and more as time goes on.  Jesus’ life of self-denial and submission to His Father is moving from being their own through God’s accounting, to their own through the Holy Spirit’s empowering.

The second command: To not be conformed to the world but to be transformed by the renewing of the mind, that by testing you may be able to discern what is God’s will.  

The truth is that there is no middle road – you’re either being conformed to the world or you’re being transformed by mind renewal under King Jesus’ power and grace.  There is no middle road.  To claim independence and that no one tells you what to think is to naively avoid that you’ve been influenced to think that way.  The individualistic society in which the present hour places us is one that says truth is inside you, and happiness is in pulling it out and showing the world.  This has disastrous effects because, although human rights are God-given and He does want you to flourish, if the whole endeavor is an A and B conversation between yourself and the culture, with God free to C His way out, you’ll destroy both yourself and the culture around you. 

And that isn’t to say that America or the Western world used to be more Christian because it hasn’t always been so individualistic.  There were times when it was more influenced by the morals of the God of the Bible.  But the world has always been a battleground of cultural extremes.  And we are in one today.  Think about it like this: Didn’t Paul’s command in 12:2 to not be conformed to the world also apply in the early 1900s and the 1800s and the 1700s?  But wasn’t that a more “Christian” time?!  Come on – the world isn’t falling apart around you for the first time.  It already was, and the present furthering of the extreme individualism is only making it unavoidable.

The culture says the problem is outside of you, while it’s only good inside of you.  The Gospel says the problem is both outside of you and inside of you, and that Jesus came into the world to redeem both.  And both are desperate and crying out.

God told Israel as they were to enter the Promised Land to keep His rules and not “those of the nations around (them)” (see Lev. 18:1-3).  It’s always been a temptation for citizens of God’s Kingdom to live as though they aren’t.  But when Paul says it here he is speaking to regenerate believers.  Thus whereas Israel did in the end fall prey to the temptation (Ezek. 11:12), and believers will have moments of sinful weakness, the word here spoken to them is potent to move them to live as the Kingdom citizens they are (cf. Jer. 31:31).  They see that there are only two choices: conformity or transformation.

And what kind of transformation is it?  It is transformation out of the fallen and broken person that they can’t avoid they are, and into the perfect image of God in Christ, even more glorious than man was even before Adam and Eve rebelled.  Thus true Christians are being transformed in their minds into the image of their Creator (Eph. 4:23) as God’s Spirit leads them into His truth (John 14:26). 

Thus they can learn what God’s will is.  God’s revealed will – what He wants, what He’s doing, and what glorifies Him – by nature of being revealed, is not a secret.  His Word is loud and clear.  But one must be transformed in heart to understand it.  They can’t understand or discern it (1 Cor. 2:14) nor can they can’t submit to it (Rom. 8:7-8).  But God is merciful to wake people up to His truth by giving them life by His Spirit and shining the light of His Son’s glory in their hearts.  They are made new and renewed by His Word (1 Pet. 1:23).  So when Paul says to be transformed so that you can understand God’s will, he’s saying that a new identity in union with the risen Christ is first required.  And it seems that the key to obedience to this command is “playing back” the realities of this Gospel.  This of course leads to the last point.

Power for obedience, from the Gospel: By the mercies of God..  

Paul has spent the last 11 chapters of text describing the greatness of God’s work in Christ, and what it means for us: Man is entirely a sinner (1:18-3:19), Jesus is entirely a Redeemer (3:20-27), His work is received by faith (4:1-5:11), he transforms us into new creations (5:12-7:24), we have great hope in His great love (8:1-39), and the salvation of Jesus’ sheep has been God’s plan from before the foundation of the world (and it will continue until the end) (9:1-11:36). 

Thus, for the person who would live the redeemed life in the life-setting of the Roman Christians to whom Paul is writing, as he’ll give them personal instruction the rest of the letter, it starts with the experiential joy of God’s mercies given in Christ.  You must start with Christ’s claims on you in the Gospel and work from there.  You must remember His great redemptive plan from eternity and how you are seated with Him presently in His resurrected body (6:4-6, Col. 3:1-3).  And when you do, then you can present yourself to God as a living sacrifice, and walking with Him according to His will.

In the Biblical storyline, piety never worked by itself.  Any time people were pious and God-ward in their actions, it seemed to be isolated events of obedience separated from the larger culture and surely not long-lasting.  But rebirth through the work of Christ, inaugurating these “last days” in which we live (Heb. 1:2), makes it so that obedience is not just piety, but a pleasure.  According to 12:1, our bodies, though presently dead in sin (Rom. 8:10), are, in Christ, acceptable to God!  Thus our spiritual union with our risen Lord spurs us to love and good works so that He’d be made much of, we’d get the joy, and the world would have even more witness of the goodness of its Creator.  So the call to present one’s self as a living sacrifice isn’t a renouncing of happiness and the hope of flourishing – instead the call is the very key which opens the door to happiness and flourishing.