The following is a transcript for a sermon I will be preaching tomorrow. Consider it a “sneak peak.” Enjoy!
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Conformity vs. Transformation
Roman12:1-2
In the larger context of Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 12 is a turning point. Everything up to this point is a theological treatise in which Paul explains the how the gospel is the power of God unto salvation and how Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross is the ultimate expression of God’s love for us.
By the time Paul gets to the end of chapter 11, he has said just about all he could say about God’s glory in the gospel. You get this sense of the most satisfied exhaustion when Paul says:
O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor?
Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?
For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.
Then Paul turns the page, dips his pen, and writes perhaps the biggest “therefore” in the Bible. He transitions from telling us everything God has done for us to instructing us as people of God on what our response should be.
The charge is basically this: Jesus Christ has died for you, so that you can live for him.
You see, one of the most wonderful things about being a Christian is that everything we do for God is predicated on what God has done for us. Everything we do for God is made possible by what God has done for us. He died for us, so that we may live for him.
What Paul calls us to is giving ourselves as a living sacrifice. Of course, most of us will see the paradox here: usually sacrifices are dead. But Jesus died sacrificially for us so that we may live sacrificially for him.
Here is where it gets a little tricky. As one pastor said, “The problem with living sacrifices is that they keep crawling off the altar.” So, Paul tells us the key to being living sacrifices in the next verse. He tells us we are to not be conformed to this world but transformed by the renewing of our minds.
Being the kind of people God wants us to be requires transformation.
I believe it is crucial to know something about ourselves, namely that we are all being formed one way or another. Our formation as people is just a reality. We are all being shaped by the world around us, the people we interact with, and the choices we make. The question is, how are we being formed?
The two words Paul uses are intriguing: we are not be conformed; we are to be transformed.
Do not be conformed.
It’s interesting that being conformed, the way Paul says it, can often happen passively—almost subconsciously. However, it also may be something that we are aware of as it is happening to us. Most of us know how this works, whether it’s in our health, or our attitude, but especially in our devotion to God. We notice ourselves headed in a bad direction, and we just kind of let it happen.
Paul warns against this, because in this world when we passively or semi-passively drift into conformity, we fail to become the kind of people God wants us to be.
Be transformed.
Instead, we are to be transformed. The word here is metamorphosis—to be changed into something from the inside out. I am no Greek expert, but I think it’s important to note that the way Paul says it here: transformation is something that is to happen continually, perpetually. We are to be transforming, to stay in a state of transformation. Christian transformation is not something that happens in a moment, overnight. It is something that happens day after day, over the course of our lifetime.
I love the way Dallas Willard said it: “We are becoming who we will be—forever.” The question is are we being conformed to this world, or are we being transformed into the image of Christ?
There is more than one way to be conformed to the world.
Now, I wish this were simple enough to leave at that. However, sin is a bigger problem, the world is more complicated, and the enemy is smarter than that. Being a student of culture and ideas, I’ve come to realize that there is more than one way to be conformed to the world. And the really difficult thing is that some types, or directions, of conformity are more comfortable to us than others.
There are some parts of this world that we just don’t find a temptation. They have nothing for us. But some parts are quite a bit more comfortable. We have a much easier time justifying conformity in that direction.
A brilliant Christian named Justin Giboney—a constitutional lawyer, heavily involved in politics—has noticed something about our culture that is extremely important for us to see. He explains that many Christians tend to be great at one thing we are called to be, while neglecting something else we are also called to be. He focuses on two high callings: compassion and conviction.
Some Christians have a lot of compassion—they want to love people where they are, to help everyone they can. But often, this emphasis on compassion is to the neglect of conviction. In the process of loving the sinner, they begin to excuse the sin. They begin to excuse and eventually ignore. In having compassion, they fail to have conviction.
By contrast, some Christians have a lot of conviction—they stand for what’s right come what may. But often, their zealous conviction is to the neglect of compassion. In the process of hating the sin, their hatred moves toward the sinner. Before long, they’re not really interested in helping anybody. In having conviction, they fail to have compassion.
Of course, as followers of Jesus, who is love and truth personified, we are called to be people of conviction and compassion, compassion and conviction.
The problem is that too often we mistake true transformation for a comfortable conformity. We are more comfortable being compassionate and never standing up for truth. Or, we are more comfortable having conviction and keeping our neighbor at a distance. Either way, we’ve conformed to the world!
Too often we mistake true transformation for a comfortable conformity.
Conformity is like water—always taking the shape of its container.
Having taught young people for longer than I’d like to admit, you know what I’ve seen far too often to count? A young person will grow up in a Christian home, attend a Christian church, maybe even go to a Christian school. If they’re really into it, they’ll go on to a Christian college. And at some point in time they come back a completely different person. They are completely disinterested in they way of Jesus, if they haven’t rejected it altogether. What happened?
I have a theory. Over the years, they learn to be conformed to the “Christian container” in which we raise them. They fit the mold. When we send them off to another container, maybe another Christian container, they fit that mold as well. And they’re good, and we’re good, as long as the container they are in makes them look like what we’re comfortable with.
Then they are poured into a container that looks nothing like Jesus. They take that shape. They conform. And we act surprised.
We’ve taught them to conform, but we’ve never taught them to be transformed.
Maybe it’s happening to our kids because it has already happened to us.
It’s a jarring thought: Am I simply conforming to this world? How do I know if I’m being transformed?
What does true transformation look like?
Through the rest of chapter 12, Paul begins to paint a picture of what it looks like for us to be truly transformed. Let’s take a look.