0:02
in the dialogue. And I think one of the most powerful is the one in John 4 where Jesus speaks with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well. And I'm not going to read that. You're very familiar with it, I'm
0:12
sure. But the the various meanings that seem to be on the surface of of that dialogue for for example, clearly it shows the the deity of Jesus in that he
0:26
is omnisient. He knows all about the woman's life. He knows that that she has had several husbands and that the man that she was currently with was not her husband. And she marvels and thinks that
0:38
he is a prophet. We also see in this, if you're evangelistically minded, you see in this a step toward the evangelization of the Gentiles. Now, the Samaritans
0:50
were a half breed. They were half Jewish and then half other. and they were despised by the Jews. And that also comes out in the
1:00
narrative, the the animosity between the the Jews and the Samaritans, especially with regard to their common ancestry of
1:11
the patriarchs. But I would submit to you that near the core or not if not at the core of the meaning of that narrative is the idea of true worship.
1:23
And that concept is being brought out in the context of two Jewish ethnicities, one full Jewish and one
1:33
half-J Jewish, both claiming to be children of Abraham and to worship the true God. And that's that's directly where this woman goes, which I think is also interesting because we tend to
1:45
think of of women in the ancient world as as being somewhat um well not really up to speed on things. But but clearly
1:55
this woman knows the views of the Jews as well as her own people, the Samaritans. And she challenges Jesus on this. We we tend to emphasize in that
2:07
regard, and I'm not bringing out anything new. I think we realize that Jesus talks about true worship in this passage, but we tend to focus on the phrase that that those who worship God will worship him in spirit and in truth.
2:20
Even though I think we also have to acknowledge that we frankly don't really know what that means. And when we read the commentators, we realize that they don't all really know what that means
2:31
either because there's no uniform interpretation of what it means to worship in spirit and truth. Frankly, we don't know whether to capitalize spirit there or there or not. So, so as an exeetical tool to true
2:44
worship, it doesn't help nearly as much as we think it does or wish it would. And I think that's just the frank truth of of looking at that frank speech. Sorry about that. Uh it it's just that,
2:56
you know, being honest with the text is we don't really know what that phrase means. And so we need to look a little bit deeper and see whether Jesus himself offers some insight as to what he means.
3:08
And and I would submit that he does. In verse 22 of that chapter, he offers insight by giving a a parallel
3:18
uh statement with regard to worship. He says to the woman, "You worship that which you do not know. We worship that which we know." Because salvation comes
3:32
from the Jews. We worship what we know. Worshippers that God desires will worship in spirit and truth. There is a
3:43
a parallel there that we could elaborate on and develop. And I I don't have the time to do that, but I want to present to you as a background that dialogue of
3:53
Jesus with the Samaritan woman as we look at verse two of Romans 12. Because this verse highlights a perennial
4:04
problem within the church and that is the question, is faith a matter of the mind or of the heart?
4:20
And that really does divide a two very large segments of Christian theology and Christian application in terms of true worship. How we live out and walk in our
4:31
faith. Is it a matter of the heart or is it a matter of the mind? Well, Paul here in Romans 12 makes uh seemingly an answer to that. And I
4:43
want to try to to exede and lay out this actually over a couple of sermons. And the first one is more hermeneutical. I I want to highlight the
4:54
structure of these first two verses to show that they are actually parallel because Paul in in verse one and in verse two gives us two sets of
5:08
triplets with one common word between them. So in verse one, he speaks of our reasonable service as that which is living, holy,
5:22
living, holy, acceptable. And then in verse two, he speaks of knowing the will of God, that which is good and acceptable and
5:32
perfect. Now, obviously, if he had used three identical words each time, that would have made it even clearer. But there is one common word and I think
5:43
it's perhaps from our perspective from from a fallen human perspective and from the perspective of the psalmist who may ascend to your holy hill who who may
5:53
stand before you acceptable. That is also a Levitical word because the sacrifices that were brought to the altar at the tabernacle
6:05
there were requirements. There were criteria as to those being acceptable. And we may think that's a rather low rather low bar. But when you're talking about a holy God, there are no low
6:17
bars. What is acceptable? Well, holy, pure, perfect, living, all the other words, all the other adjectives are really included in
6:30
this one. this one. Acceptable. The father seeks such worshippers. We can turn that around and say such worshippers are acceptable to
6:42
the father. And so I'll submit to you that these two verses are really a parallel with verse with verse two telling us the how of verse
6:53
one. In verse one, we read, "Present your bodies as a sacrifice." How do we do that? do that? Well, many in the church over the last 2,000 years have taken that crassly
7:07
literally and their physical bodies have bodies have been viewed as sacrifices. And Paul speaks of them actually in his letter to
7:18
the Colossians where he speaks of those who who who beat their body, who deprive it of the necessaries, who abuse themselves. And he says, "These have the appearance of godliness but are
7:29
powerless against the flesh." So is Paul talking about aseticism here? Is he talking about monasticism or anchorism? Is he talking about us denying the pleasures of the
7:41
body? Is he talking about celibacy? These are all these have all been interpretations of verse one. but interpretations that that fail to
7:52
understand first of all the background of verse one in terms of the Old Testament tabernacle worship but also the parallel of verse two where in verse two he's telling us how to do verse one
8:05
what it is that we do with our body well that leads us to an often overlooked or overlooked or ignored aspect of our faith and that is
8:17
the importance of the mind in worship. Again, Jesus, we worship what we know. Paul also said the
8:27
same thing when he was in Athens when he presented the gospel to the philosophers of the of the Aropagus. He said to them, "What you worship in
8:38
worship in ignorance, in other words, what you worship and don't know, the unknown god, he says that I proclaim to you." So in both Jesus and in Paul there is an
8:51
element here a very important element that worshiping without knowing is not acceptable worship. It's worship in
9:01
ignorance and that would be acceptable if God had not revealed himself. But even Romans 1 tells us that he has revealed himself so fully in
9:11
creation that man is without excuse. They refused to worship him as God and rather their hearts were hardened and darkened. And so the overall question here is is faith a
9:23
matter of the mind or of the heart? Well, I want to say upfront that we do not and should not make a dichotomy of that statement as is often done
9:33
especially in books that are written to tell us how to walk the Christian life or how to have a deeper walk with Christ or whatever the titles may be. It's an eitheror type of thing. We either
9:45
worship with our mind or we worship it with our heart. And one of them is frankly easier than the other. And I will say that the one that
9:55
is hardest is the one that Paul is is um advocating here in Romans
10:07
12. Friedrich Schlimmacher. Very few of you probably recognize that name. Uh but Friedrich Schlimemacher is the father of modern liber liberalism. I'm not even sure the
10:18
liberals understand they have a father, but is a German reformed theologian of the late 18th and early 19th century. And again, one of those
10:30
unknown personages that nonetheless have had a powerful powerful impact on the generations behind generations behind them, including the church, much of the
10:41
church of the west today. Schlarbacher was, as I said, a reformed theologian. But that word reformed, we think, oh well, he's Calvinistic and all of that. That's a good
10:52
thing. No, not necessarily. In fact, as a reformed theologian, he was also a student of the Enlightenment. One who had accepted the irrationality
11:05
of biblical of biblical revelation. He accepted the conclusion of the of the Enlightenment that Orthodox Christianity could not withstand the
11:16
test of critical reason. And therefore along with the higher critics along with Thomas Jefferson along with Emanuel Kant along with the other liberals of that
11:27
era the actual rational basis of Christianity needed needed to be thrown out. Now for most of those who did that
11:38
that also meant throwing out Christianity for for social acceptability. you would accept disism because that way you would not be an atheist which at that time was still
11:49
socially unacceptable. That would change over the next hundred years and today it is actually socially acceptable to be an atheist. But in the 18th and early 19th century you didn't go around saying
12:00
there is no god. Only the fool said that. Most of society still believed there was a god. But when you read all these miracles and the incarnation, the virgin birth at
12:12
nah, all that stuff needs to be thrown out. And and so Schlurbacher is is challenged in his own theology, having accepted the irrationality of scripture.
12:22
What does he do with Christianity? Well, he turns it around and he makes it a matter of the heart and not of the mind.
12:33
He makes it a matter of what one feels followed by what one does. So he's actually he had twins. If he's the father of liberal theology, he had twins. One was the pyotistic and and
12:51
charismatic feelingoriented Christianity. The other is the social gospel, the actionoriented Christianity. Those two both can trace their heritage to
13:01
Schlarmmacher. He wrote in his um one of his treatises, he says, "You must transport yourself into the interior of a pious
13:14
soul and seek to understand its understand its inspiration. Otherwise, you learn nothing of
13:28
religion." Does that make any sense? It It sounds like a lot of liberal prayers. You must transport yourself. I'm thinking of the Yeah, I'm thinking of the, you know, like at graduations recently, some of the the the benedictory prayers that are being
13:40
offered up or are like, "What are you saying?" It it's it's all a lot of kind of uh introspective uh I wouldn't even say spiritual, but but mystical mumbo
13:53
jumbo. And much of Sly Marker is actually mystical mumbo jumbo. But he says otherwise you learn nothing of religion because religion is not about what you believe. It's not about the
14:04
mind. It's about the heart. It's about what you feel. Now don't don't get him wrong. He's not talking about feeling good. He's talking about feeling God. About feeling the presence of the
14:16
inspiration. That's what he's saying here. Feeling the presence of God in your life. And and again, that sounds a lot like what you might hear in a in a charismatic service.
14:27
charismatic service. It it is amazing how much Schlarker has impacted western evangelicalism and not just liberalism. And there are many who preach and many who write that the
14:38
essence of Christianity is in the heart and it's the feeling the presence of God. But there are many problems with that. The first of which is it's it's so subjective that we really don't know
14:50
what we're feeling. And we ought to remember the admonition of John in his first letter when he says, "Test the spirits for they're not all from God."
15:01
Okay? And so, and how do we test them? Well, we test them with some doctrine, don't we? That Jesus, the son of God, came in the flesh. In other words, we test the spirits. And this would make
15:11
Schlamarker roll in his grave. We test the spirits with our minds. But if we don't renew our minds, what are we testing anything
15:22
with? Well, how we feel? And then we look to others to tell us how we should feel. There's a place in England known as called Kzich and it's up in the Lake District
15:36
and apparently very very beautiful. But they have an annual retreat, a conference at Kzich and they've been having it for close to 200 years. It it is the the center of operations for the
15:47
higher life higher life movement. And there are many writers that that you would would recognize perhaps. Andrew Murray in his book on on prayer for example. Uh Oswald Chambers,
15:58
my utmost for his highest. These are Kzik people. These are higher life people. These are the people who tell you what it feels like to feel God. And then you when you feel that
16:10
you're feeling God. The problem is someone else comes along and feels something different and calls it God and writes a book. And so you have a a whole multitude of feelings that are
16:20
associated with feeling God in the presence of God. It's it's very subjective. But more damning, I would say, is that it's not the least bit biblical. Okay. Paul does not not say
16:31
that at all here in Romans 12 or anywhere else. the the Schler Makian way has no
16:42
objective guide into what we're supposed to feel when we're in Christ. And I think we understand as we've read the biographies of believers or just intermingled with
16:53
one another and heard each other's story of redemption, we realize that no two of us are alike. We're all like spiritual fingerprints. We've had our own path and we have our
17:05
own feelings. And then as we are in Christ, we also recognize that we don't always feel his presence in some prescribed way. The psalmist didn't
17:16
either. And there were many times where he lamented where where are you God? Why have you forsaken me? And so we can't really trust to our feelings as to
17:28
whether or not we are right with God or whether or not we are growing in faith. And so Paul says something different here. He says, "Be transformed by the
17:39
renewing of your mind." Now, I think many of you who've who've looked into this passage at all know that the word that he uses here
17:49
is the word metamorphosis. Excuse me. Putting at the
17:59
center of what appears in this passage to be a believer's reasonable service of worship. putting at the center, Paul places the mind and he says in order to
18:13
to worship God in a living, holy, acceptable manner, you must prove the will of God, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. And you do that
18:25
with your with your mind. And your mind needs to be renewed again. And the word is
18:37
word is metamorphosis. And I'm not going to give you some cheesy analogy about a cocoon, the cocoon of Christianity out which we all see, the beautiful butterfly that we are becoming. Frankly, some of us are
18:49
moths. That's always bothered me when I heard a sermon or know of a sermon. We're all coming out of these monarch butterflies. Like I feel more like a gray moth. Okay. And I think they do also
19:01
cocoon, but I won't swear to that. That's that is not that's that's anacronistic. I mean that's not what the word metamorph metamorphosis change means a change in form. A
19:14
metamorphos change in form. And that means that our mind outside of Christ had a certain form. We might call it a a paradigm, a
19:26
way that it worked, a pattern in which it ran. And that needs to be changed. As our heart needed to be regenerated, now our mind needs to be
19:41
renewed, transformed. And that's what Paul is saying here. He's not saying that your heart be renewed. Your heart needs to be regenerated. It needs to be born again. You need a new
19:52
heart. And in Christ, you receive a new heart, but not a new mind. You still have the same mind and it runs
20:02
along its own channels as it had before. And both Paul and Peter talk about the way the Gentiles minds and their actions afterward still run in the same riotist
20:12
patterns as you once ran in. And he's like, "Not like, "Not anymore. You don't do that anymore. But you must be metamorphosized. The form of your
20:24
thinking must change." Now, does this does nothing? Sadly, it does nothing to your IQ. It doesn't make you smarter. You
20:36
don't all of a sudden in Christ understand Einstein's theory of relativity or can make sense out of Schroinger's cat. Things are still what to most of
20:46
us. That doesn't change. Adolf Schlott says this. It's a little bit convoluted, but I think it it gets the point across. He says, "As the use of their bodies is
20:58
made new, since it becomes their sacrifice, so they renew, albeit not their reasoning powers that would be to make us smarter, but the thoughts and
21:11
evaluations established within them. It's not how smart you become. It's it's really whatever level of thinking you are at that is metamorphosized in
21:26
Christ. The thinking that you now do, whether it's the the thinking of of a of a a wage earner of or of a nuclear physicist or a neurosurgeon, whatever
21:37
the thinking may be, it is now It's reoriented your worldview and the paradigm and framework of how you think is is changed. It's transformed at every
21:51
single level of IQ. So please don't misunderstand. And and so many people have thought that what Paul is advocating here is a degree in
22:03
theology. No, he is not advocating doctrine. Although doctrine is the is the material of which we transform our minds. Biblical doctrine or the word that is
22:16
the material that transforms our thinking. But it's not that we somehow become smarter. Perhaps we could say we become wiser and whatever smarts we do have are
22:28
reoriented toward the revelation of God in Jesus Christ.
22:39
Johannes Kepler famous um astronomer of the 16th century I believe is is attributed uh statement with regard to the study of creation and that is that we think God's
22:49
thoughts after him. Now again I don't know I don't know if he actually said that he has attributed that but it is a good statement. We think God's thoughts after him.
23:01
after him. What that means in creation is that we're we're obser observing as Psalm 19 says, we're observing the work of his hands. The heavens declare the glory of God. And so creation are the that that
23:12
represents the thought of God. In God's mind, there was a universe and a earth and and animals and plants and human beings. And as we study them, we're just
23:23
simply thinking God's thoughts after him. We're not coming up with anything new. Isaac Newton didn't invent gravity. It's all been there and we're discovering it and we give praise and
23:35
glory to God. Well, that's true in nature. That's true in creation, but it is equally true in revelation. This is the power of the
23:45
witness of God's word. It's transformative that we as we study scripture, as we allow scripture to interpret scripture, as Paul says in in
23:57
Acts 17, as we learn the whole council of God in scripture, we think God's thoughts after him. And as we do that, just as we move from
24:09
a geocentric to a heliocentric, perhaps we could use the analogy from a mecentric to a Christ ccentric, as we move our as we have a capernic shift in
24:20
our mindset, we're simply thinking God's thoughts after him. We're learning more about what God has done in Christ as
24:30
well as in creation. This is what Paul means when he says, "All scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for reprove, for correction,
24:41
for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work." That does not mean catechism classes. It does not mean seminary
24:53
degrees. It is not reserved simply for the clerical class within the church. It's for every single one of us. When we study to show ourselves
25:04
approved, again, that doesn't mean that we study books, although they're very helpful. What it means is we become deeper and deeper immersed into God's self-revelation in scripture. And
25:15
through that, our minds are transformed. They're renewed. That's a process. Regeneration is not a
25:26
process, but regeneration is the essential component. the sinuanon without which nothing because without the Holy Spirit illuminating God's word
25:37
there's no transformation of the mind but let me point out that Paul only offers two options in
25:49
this section with no opt out clause you cannot respond to his text no to opt out. He He doesn't present it that way.
26:03
These are imperatives. One is a negative and the other is a positive leading us to the inevitable and and unavoidable conclusion that you really only have two choices. And that is either to conform
26:17
or transform. And you say, "Okay, well, can I conform without transforming?" Because all this Bible study stuff is just very tiring. Can I can I just do things that will
26:29
conform me to the image of Christ and not to the world without transforming my mind? The answer is no. You can't. I
26:40
don't care what the books say about how you can live the Christian life by doing that and doing this and praying for an hour a day and having your personal devotions and all the things that you're
26:50
doing. I don't care if you go into a monastery so that you or you go off the grid because you don't want to conform to the world. The world has been doing that for
27:01
that for millennia. In every single religion, in every single society, there have been those who recognize the corruption of their own world and have not conformed by going away or by living a
27:13
different type of life. Or there was one fellow, I think his name was Kato, by never taking a bath. That's a good way to keep the world away from you. Okay. Was he transformed by that? Well,
27:25
I I mean, he did metamorphosize, I'm sure. The world does the same thing. And so, when you think you're being transformed simply because you're not
27:35
conforming, you're actually conforming without realizing it. And that is because we misunderstand what it means to conform. Paul's not saying, "Don't
27:46
continue to live in the wickedness of the world." That's that's kind of goes without saying. He's talking about our minds here, not our actions, not our bodies. He's talking about the way we
27:57
think. And that's where we're going to be going in chapters 12 and 13 and 14 as we look at the church. As we look at the state, meaning the government, as we
28:07
look at other ethnicities and other beliefs and other activities, how do we think about them? There's only two choices. You either think as you once
28:18
did according to the way of the world which is conforming to the world or you think God's thoughts after him which is transformative and and that is the
28:30
fundamental um motivation the fundamental power that will move us through the rest of these chapters. We can't do it. You can't conform. I'm sorry. You can't not
28:42
conform unless you transform. There's no way Paul allows
28:54
that. No amount of self-discipline, no amount of self-denial, no pyotism, no feeling the presence of God as Shymarker taught. None of those things will actually transform you. Even if they do
29:05
keep you from conforming to the world, you are still part of the world. There's no other option. There's no third option. And he also lays it out in a
29:18
manner that teaches us that if we do not transform, we do not remain neutral. We neutral. We conform. And I think that sadly is the
29:32
state of most of the church for most of the last 2,000 years. that it is not transformed by the renewing of its mind and therefore it conforms to the world
29:44
and even though it continues to use the name of God and of Jesus and does thing in the name things in the name of Jesus there are many to whom Christ will say depart from me you workers of iniquity I
29:58
never knew never knew you were conformed to the world you walked your faith in conformity to the world and not transformed by the word of
30:10
God. So Romans 12:13 and 14 as we're moving into that segment of Paul's letter which is is so dense and so powerful. They show us transformed
30:23
thought as opposed to conformed thought. And and that's really the paradigm I want to lay out as we move into those chapters. We're looking at how believers
30:33
who are being metamorphosized in their mind think about these things in daily life. Whether with one another, in the church, whether relative to the
30:45
government, it's do you think? Do you act with a transformed mind or with a conformed mind? Is your thought metamorphosized or is it the same
30:56
thought of the world? Are the arguments that you lay in your mind to support a decision or a conclusion, are they supported by scripture? Are they
31:08
supported by other books or other behaviors or tradition or whatever it may be which is merely conforming not
31:18
transforming. So with our bodies, to put put these two together, with our bodies, Paul is saying, we present to the Lord our minds. Now, I think that needs some more
31:30
unpacking. And Lord willing, next week we'll do that. I don't want to be misunderstood. We we do not study our way to heaven. We do not sanctify ourselves by the reading of
31:42
books. If we did, I'd be a saint. I mean, in the real sense, though, I mean, the Catholic sense. Lots of reading, the writer of Ecclesiastes is tedious. So
31:52
that is not the path. And as I said before, it doesn't mean being smarter. But we present our bodies, verse one, by the renewing of our minds. Verse two, we
32:03
are cleansed, as he says in Ephesians, by the washing of the water with the word. This is acceptable worship to God. to worship what we know and to know what
32:19
we worship. Let us pray. Father, we do ask that you would shed your light on your word to our minds and help us to walk in truth as
32:29
you have promised your Holy Spirit would lead us into all truth. We also ask that you would keep us from error and help us to understand these very dense and concentrated words that
32:42
Paul gives us here in Romans. Help us to desire to pursue what he admonishes that we desire by the power
32:52
of the Holy Spirit to be transformed and not to conform which is the inevitable path that we must follow if we are not
33:02
transformed. Give us grace with each passing day to learn more with a transfer mind to think your thoughts after you. And we ask that
33:13
you would do this in the entire church that you would pour out your spirit, a spirit of knowledge and wisdom and understanding that we the church might
33:23
worship what it knows and not in ignorance. For we ask this in Jesus name. Amen.
