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12. Continuing the first two verses again setting the foundation for the rest of chapter 12, chapters 13 and 14 as Paul unfolds in practical application of all
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walks of a believer's life. What he sets forth in these two verses beginning in chapter 12 verse one. Reread the first two verses. I'd like to ask Josiah if
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you pray for the ministry of the word. Romans 12:1 I urge you therefore brethren by the mercies of God to present your bodies living holy and
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acceptable sacrifice to God which is your spiritual service of worship and do not be conformed to this age but be transformed by the renewing of your mind
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that you may prove what the will of God is that which is good and acceptable and perfect. Let us pray. Dear heavenly father, we thank you for
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all the ways in which you've blessed us and for bringing us together that we might worship as one body. We ask if it is your will that you would bless the teaching of your word this morning and that might be at work in all of us and
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your spirit might be in us that we might grow in grace and knowledge of you. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.
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I hope no one will consider it blasphemous for me to echo the words of our Lord in terms of what I have to say today. But he who has ears to hear, let
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him hear. We're going to focus on the central part of verse two, the transformation by the renewal of the
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of the mind. The role of the mind in Christian history has had a very varied experience. There is a branch of
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Christianity that has little to do with the mind and seeks to focus entirely on the heart. It falls under the rubric of pyotism to which we might also include
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mo the modern charismatic movement much of Pentecostalism. But on the other side of the spectrum, the mind and the role of the mind in a Christian's walk has again
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had a very wide spectrum of of application. And I'm going to talk about two somewhat opposite extremes, two isms that the church has dealt with over the
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centuries. One centuries. One isnosticism, and that was a very early aberration in Christianity, maybe as early as Paul's letter to the Colossians. or John's first epistle.
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Scholars believe that those both of those apostles may have been combating an early form of this gnosticism. The idea behind gnosticism is a biblical Greek word
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epignosis which means true knowledge. And the Gnostics taught that one received this true knowledge by direct revelation and enlightenment that came
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only to the initiated only to those who were select but was not available to all Christians. In the modern world,nosticism has kind
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of appeared in the in the uh dichotomy that many believe the difference between a carnal Christian and a spiritual Christian. That's really just a
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resurrected form ofnosticism that it's okay to be a Christian if you're just a carnal Christian because the the real understanding only is given to a few to
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the initiated to the enlightened. The other um ism is scholasticism. Scholasticism was in its fullest bloom
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in the Middle Ages, but is a pretty accurate description of much of modern reformed theology. The idea behind scholasticism is an academic study and of forms of
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study, creeds, confessions, which effectively become effectively become shibils, enabling us to discern between someone who is a true Christian and
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someone who is just a a makeeliever. And so scholasticism emphasizes study of the word in a in a manner that is
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parallel to that of the Pharisees studying Torah. Not so much for what they're going to get out of it, but for the fact of doing it. Now, I'm not saying that every reformed theologian is that way.
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I'm simply saying that whenever we do emphasize doctrine which is in important we run the risk of it becoming itself an
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idol of it becoming itself the means of grace by which we are saved and by which we are sanctified and in both of these uh isms we see that the role of the mind
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is about content. In the first case the content is given to the enlightened. It's it's given through some type of revelatory process. In the second type, it it comes by study and by digging deep
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into into the word and to establishing systematic forms of theology. And this is the exercise of the mind that is prevalent in the history of
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Christianity. But listen to Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians. He writes, "For you see your calling, brethren, that many not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty
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and not many noble are called." Why is this? Or or do we assume that he was merely talking about the church in Corenth and not the plan of
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God in general and not throughout the ages? Then not many wise, not many noble, not many mighty are called. Well,
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I think it's because that those who are steeped in this world's knowledge or this world's power or this world's glory, that pretty much covers the the
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wisdom and the nobility or the might and then the nobility of this world are all but immune to the gospel and that in
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itself is the judgment of God. Romans 1 we read where God gives them over to a depraved mind. Those who are
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so immersed in the forms of this world have in fact in many cases rendered themselves immune to the gospel which is
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again it's like the hardening of Pharaoh's heart and God hardening Pharaoh's heart that the more this world is embraced in its forms in its wisdom
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in its power in its glory the less a man can hear the gospel. And again, that in and of itself is a divine judgment. He gives them over
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to the depravity of their mind. And so Paul points out to the Corinthians, you were not from those crowds. You were not from the wise. You
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were not from the mighty. You were not from the noble. You did not have any earthly wisdom or power or glory. But you were called. And it's the same context in
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which Paul is talking about the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of wisdom of men. And and that lies behind what he admonishes here in Romans 12:2, the
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renewal of the mind. And so what he's saying here in terms of of the wisdom of this world and the power of this world and the glory of
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this world, this is how not to understand Romans 12:2, the renewing of your mind. It is not a special knowledge
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only revealed to the initiated. The church is not a Masonic lodge. It is also not an accumulated
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theology. theological formulations or doctrines, creeds and confessions. The church is not a not a seminary. It is a living body, a body of
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new creation. Renewing the mind will involve elements of both of those that I have mentioned, gnosticism and scholasticism. For example, mysteries contained in the
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scripture of which Paul speaks will be progressively revealed to us as we study the scriptures. Not to only a few of us, not
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to only the initiated or the enlightened, but to everyone in whom the spirit of God dwells, whom Jesus promised would lead us into all truth. And not at the same
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pace, not at the same time, but over time, these mysteries will indeed be unfolded for us by the Holy Spirit through his word and sound
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doctrine. Well, Paul calls that in his letter to Timothy a pattern of sound words. It is incredibly important that the training of our minds be according
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to the pattern of sound words. And so we don't jettison doctrine and try to just feel our way to God as we discussed last week. But on the other hand, we we do
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not put our faith in doctrine and we don't measure our sanctification by that which we know in systematic theology. What Paul is talking about
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here, I would submit to you, is a whole lot deeper than either of those extremes in the spectrum of the mo role of the mind in our faith. The transformation of
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the believer by mind renewal is far more fundamental and foundational than anything that we could say about what the mind does. It's not just what we
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humans that we all individually think that we think reasonably and logically. But we are bound to think that even if we aren't reasonable and logical, we don't know that. And we
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think our thinking is reasonable and logical. But it is also a remarkable characteristic of man that he can analyze himself that we can actually
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think about how we think. It actually has a name epistemology the study of thinking. And so we do that we do think about how we
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think but generally we conclude that we think all right even if we're not thinking all
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right. And that is because we see as in a mirror dimly. Our thinker as it were is not functioning correctly. It needs to be renewed. As I said before, as the heart needs to be regenerated, so the
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mind needs to be renewed. And this is something that is fundamental. If if we don't if we don't begin to grasp what Paul is saying here in chapter 12 verse
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two, there's little chance that we're going to come through the rest of chapter 12, 13, and 14 properly. There's even little less chance that what Paul reveals to us
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through the Holy Spirit in those chapters will have any impact on the way you and I think about the world in which we live. which is why I'm spending so
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much time in these verses. I promise to move faster through the rest of it. But frankly, if if we don't have ears to hear, then it's going to be a waste of time because we're going to be talking
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about things that the modern American church isn't getting right and many in our own body aren't getting it right. We're not thinking with renewed
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minds. We're thinking with minds conformed to this age. That word That word conformed, it contains a word in it that Paul uses quite a bit in his um
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writings and that is the word schema from which we get the word scheme. Now that's kind of an insidious word, isn't it? You know, the word scheme kind of
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sounds like you're planning something bad. Well, that's a modern evolution of the word. It simply means plan. It's it's it simply means a a a framework of
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purpose is what the word scheme means. And so when Paul uses the word schema, it's often translated in our English Bibles as form or if it's with another
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prefix conform. Now I want to point out that the word transform is actually a different one. We looked at that last week and we'll touch upon it again this morning. But I want to spend a little bit of time on this word schema and the
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English scheme. It's it's um when he says do not be conformed, what he's literally saying is do not be shaped together with this
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age. That's literally what he's saying is the idea of being formed with conformed that's what our English word means shaped together with something
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else. And he says, "Don't do it." In fact, the form of his imperative here is is probably more literally, "Stop doing
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"Stop doing it. Stop being shaped together with in your thinking this age, but
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rather metamorphosize, be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Now, I hope you can see how fundamental that must be to understanding what Paul is about to tell
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us concerning our relationship to one another, our relationship to our political establishment, our relationship to those who disagree with us within the body. Chapters 12, 13, 14.
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If we If we don't transform the the framework of our thinking, but rather continue to be conformed to the thinking of this
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age, then as we read those chapters, we are inevitably going to form them into that framework that is not from God in
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Christ, but is rather this age. And what Paul has to say about this age, this age, this schema, the age in which we live, is
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that it is passing away. So it's not so much that we need more content to our thinking or even
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that we need right content to our thinking. Those things are true. Those things are true for every one of us at whatever stage in our walk. There are things that we have been taught, things
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that we think that just aren't so. And there are things that we have yet to learn as we read God's word. That's content. And there is no proper thinking without proper content. And the
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association of that content is really what I'm talking about here. It has long been understood with regard to how man thinks, his
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thinks, his epistemology that it is massively impacted by his culture, by the society, even by the language as each language has different
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strengths and weaknesses in conveying thought and even by the political structures in which a person is raised. All of these have a factor in the form
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the schema of thought in that society. But we can say of all of them, we could say okay uh a China thinks differently than than a Mexican or you
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know the different parts of the world and the way people think differently. But we can say universally because of the testimony of scripture that all
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human forms align with the form of fallen man. All human forms are framed in the context of rebellion against God, of not
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giving thanks, of worshiping the creature rather than the creator. So whether the actual thinking that we do, the logic that we use varies from culture to culture, we can make a
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blanket statement and say we're we're all under sin. Paul's already done that in chapter three. So that whatever minor form we may see in the way we think, the
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major form is according to this age. And Paul says that's passing away. And so we're not talking about learning more. We're not talking about
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attending seminary or faithfully attending the plumline classes or anything like that. We're talking about how we think even more than what we
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So Paul says in chapter one or verse one and verse two, as I mentioned last week, there really only are two options. You're either conformed or you're transformed. But now I want to I want to
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apply those two options to Jewish esquetology because it it is widely recognized at least among biblical scholars that what Paul is saying here is actually
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is actually esqueological but not in the way we think of esquetology. We think of esquetology of that which is going to happen in the future. But Paul thinks of esquetology as a Jew
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would. And so his his framework for esquetology in the Jewish set is this age and the age to come. And what's
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important about Pauline esquetology is his understanding along with Peter's and James and John that the age to come has
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come in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The two markers of the age to come from the Old Testament, their reality in
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history that Paul and Peter and John and James and you and I have experienced means the age to come has come. And the fundamental principle of
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this transformation is that we no longer think according to the forms of this age but rather the forms of the age to come which has
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which has come. We need to think according to a completely different schema. In fact, to continue thinking according to the form of this
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to Christianity is to rearrange the deck chairs on a sinking ship.
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What we value, what we honor as a church and as believers speaks believers speaks directly to the framework of our thinking and to what our thinking is
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conformed. When we value success, when we value celebrity, when we value beauty, when we value power, and when we give honor to
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those who do not honor God, we are conformed in our thinking to this age. And our thinking, as with the Gentiles,
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is dark and feutal. We must be transformed. Our minds must be renewed. We need to think according to the new
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age, the new creation, the new people in Christ. And we need to stop, as Paul says, conforming our thinking to this
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passing age. Paul writes in a very enigmatic passage in in uh 1 Corinthians 7. It's very enigmatic because it can be
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taken absolutely literally. which we cannot do according to the rest of the teaching of scripture. But here what he has to say. He says, "But this I
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say, brethren, the time is short." So that from now on, even those who have wives should be as though they had none. Those who weep as though they
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did not weep, those who rejoice as though they did not rejoice, and those who use this world as not misusing it. For the form, the schema of this world
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away. It is very frustrating to um listen to the general tenor of modern American evangelicalism. American evangelicalism. It is very difficult to to hear modern
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evangelicals hitch their hope and tie their thoughts to patterns of thinking that are clearly of this age.
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It is I think uh something that that we don't understand the depths of deadening influence this type
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of thinking has upon the church and the manner in which our witness in the world which was both Israel's purpose and ours as a
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church the witness to the world loses its differential power the closer we approach the world, the less difference
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there can be between the church and the world. And love of this world is enmity toward God. But he has given us a different
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paradigm. And he has even placed it within our hearts and that is that of the new creation and the Holy Spirit. Every generation makes us new sons and
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daughters of God, members of a new humanity, children of a new Adam. And Paul says, "Behold, old things have passed away. All things are
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new." And I would submit to you, these are the types of phrases that flesh out what he is admonishing here when he says, "Be transformed. Be
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metamorphosized." It's as if when we died and were buried with baptism in Christ, it's like going if anything if anything is a cocoon. That was That was it. Because what do we do? We rise to
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walk in newness of life. And again, I won't I won't be so trried as to compare us to us to butterflies. Only the simple situation that we have been changed. And what does
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the word metamorphosis mean? Though it's a different root word, it means changed form. changed form. The form of our life has changed in
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Christ. Should not the form of our thinking also thinking also change? Again, it's clear from Romans 14 that we will all not think alike
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according to the content of our thoughts. But because we are now being transformed in the form of our thoughts, we will be able to accept those differences among us. Whereas without
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that the form of this age is simply if you don't think my way you're not of me. And the only response to differences of opinion and content is
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separation. Which is exactly what Paul is saying don't do in Romans 14. In Romans 13 our relationship to the governing authorities is set in a new
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form. And without that new form, we can only conform to what everybody in every generation has thought. We simply become
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like the world. We are we are molded and formed together with the thinking of this world. And it's very hard to see where the church thinks any differently
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today than the world does. This is called inaugurated esquetology. In order to understand Paul's admonition in Romans in Romans 12:2, we need to understand the idea of
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the Jewish esquetology of the this age and the age to come. And the New Testament witness Peter, Paul, John is that the age to come has come. It has
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not come in completeness completeness. 1 Corinthians 15 is very clear on that. There is yet the peruseia, the appearing of the Lord in which all things will be made right and there will be a new
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heaven and a new earth and he will put all of his enemies under his feet. And we look forward to that day. But but we cannot be uh we cannot allow the idea that that day is entirely in the future
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and that he has done nothing in this age. Indeed, what he has done is the age to come has invaded this age in the person of the Holy Spirit and through
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the institution of Christ's body, the church. We are aliens. We are resident aliens as Mark taught us from first Peter. This citizen, our citizenship is
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not here. And therefore, our minds cannot be molded together with the thinking of the world. We must honor what honors God. rejoice in what pleases
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him and obey his commandments in all things. We must not seek after celebrity. We must not honor worldly success. We not not think these things
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are good because they are passing away. They're not going to last. And we will be found empty as we stand before the Lord because we tied
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our ship or our cart to the horse of this age. this age. There are so many places in the New Testament where the writers speak of our status as radically changed as as if the
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consummation of the ages and all that we will be we are now. Let me give just two again from Paul's letters. First, he he's speaking
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of the example of unbelieving Israel in 1 Corinthians 10. He says, "Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction upon whom the ends of the
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ages have ages have come." We dwell in the ends of the ages. We dwell in that overlap of the ages. And we dwell as people who are of the
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new age and not no longer of the old age. And that impacts our thinking. And in Ephesians chapter 2, the believer's
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status in Christ, Paul writes, "But God being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions,
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made us alive together with Christ. By grace you are saved, and raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavenly places." Listen to the
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verbs. He raised us up. He seated us with him in the heavenlies. Those are past tense, not
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tense, not future. This is part, this is the fundamental part, I think, of the renewal of which Paul speaks is to get it into our heads that we are citizens
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of a new age, the age of the spirit, the age to come which has come. And so the form of the age to come which has come
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through the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit is to form and be the framework for our
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thinking. Now that doesn't happen right away. What happens right away when we're born again is we're given a new heart. We're given a heart of flesh instead of
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a heart of stone. That happens right away. That's not progressive. But we're not given at that moment this transformed mind. This is something that we have to work out with fear and trembling. But
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it's also something that we have the confidence that God is at work within us both to will and to work according to his pleasure. And so Paul says the result of this transformation in verse
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two is that we will understand and know the will of God. We conform oursel as I mentioned last week. We think God's thoughts after him. We conform ourselves not to the
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pattern of this world's thinking, but rather to the thoughts and the framework of the age to
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come. Don't be mistaken. A renewed mind will have content. It will have doctrine. It will have wisdom and understanding. It will have data. It will have facts both from the scripture and from the world in which we live.
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Paul says, "The spiritual man is able is able to apprise all things, but the natural man cannot apprise anything. He's natural and he can only think in natural ways." What what an inongruous
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thought it would be then for the spiritual man, and this is what Paul's bringing out in those early chapters of First Corinthians. What a parody it is
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for a spiritual man to think natural thoughts. For a man indwelt by the Holy Spirit to continue continue to think in the patterns of this world, that is an
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aberration. That is an anomaly. I taught my earth science students that anomaly is an engineering term for screw up. It is a
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screw-up. I'm not saying that we're losing our salvation or any such thing, but we're screwing up. When we put our faith in some political party or some political person, when when we honor
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some celebrity, when we honor human success and praise and accolades, when we do not recognize that our thinking is conformed to this world, it is a screw- up. And I would submit to
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you, it's a major one both for ourselves and for the church. Now, I'm not saying that we're going to just twiggle our ears and snap our fingers and we'll all think according to the to God. This is a
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process. This is a process of continuing, as he says in Ephesians 5, being washed by the water of the word. You don't need to go to seminary to get that. In fact, sometimes if you go to
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seminary, they'll be sure to take out of you whatever you might have and give you that form of scholasticism by which they all understand their own shibileth. and you'll come out twice the son of hell as
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when you went in. So, I'm not advocating that. You don't you don't have to study systematic theology. What you do need to do is you need to be in the word. You need to be
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in the whole council of God. You need to let the word wash your mind. The word critique the patterns of your thought. And in every situation, we need to ask
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ourselves, you and me both, we need to ask ourselves, is the form of my thinking conformed to this world that is passing away or am I thinking according
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to the paradigm of the new creation revealed by God in his word. Our witness in this world is to be a people whose thoughts are framed in different forms.
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forms of new creation, forms of the age to come having come. Andrew Nyigan writes, "It is indeed in this world that the Christian
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must serve God, but not with a mind that belongs to this world and is conformed to its nature. He must serve God with a
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mind that hears the mark of the new age of membership in Christ. Let us Let us pray. Father, we do pray and we know we
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pray according to your will that you would do in indeed transform each and every one of us that we might think your thoughts after you. that the framework of our thoughts in in addition to the
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content but but even more the framework of our thoughts would be according to the new age that you have inaugurated through Jesus Christ and the outpouring of your Holy Spirit that we might indeed
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be a new humanity that we might manifest to the world around us to our families to our neighbors to our employees and
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co-workers that we think according to a different schema a different a different form. And may that form be guided by your Holy Spirit through your word. Not
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that we develop it on our own, but rather that we are washed by the water of the word. And we do indeed continue progressively more and more every day to think your thoughts after you. We ask in
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Jesus name. Jesus name. Amen. Please rise for the benediction from Romans 15.
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Paul writes, "Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant to you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus. That with one accord you may with
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one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Amen.
