Family Bible Week 2024 - Breaker Rock Beach
Lanse Evangelical Free Church
July 28, 2024 :: Romans 12:2
Our Lord wants us to change because He always stays the same.
I really enjoyed our theme this week. It was different from years gone by. One of the reasons I enjoyed it is because Heather and I have just come back from visiting her family in the Pacific Northwest!
I’m sure that Vicky didn’t know that we were going to vacation there when she picked this out theme, but Heather and I came home from Vancouver Island and Washington State, and Karen and Shelly transformed our building into a Breaker Rock Beach!
Here’s some pictures I took from the beaches I walked on just last month. Rocks. Driftwood. Some tall trees. Lots of water. Sand. It looks a lot like the videos we watched this week.
The point of the theme this week is that Jesus Christ is the Solid Rock and His Word is trustworthy and true. Unlike the shifting sands of the world around us.
Every morning when I went out for my before breakfast walk, the beach had a re-set. The tide came and the tide went out and the sand was all different. Footprints were erased. The landscape had changed. There were different little rocks. Different sea-shells. Different driftwood. The beach was worn down just a little bit more. Everything was different. The ocean is powerful and the beach is shaped and formed by it.
Have you ever been to the beach? You know what I’m talking about?
But a solid rock, in contrast, does not move so easily. It stands there even if the waves beat against it. [I wish I had snapped a picture of a great big rock on one of those beaches. I never thought of it.]
Now, of course, all analogies break down at some point because even all rocks will eventually get shifted by the ocean. But imagine a rock that is completely un-shiftable.
That’s what we’ve been talking about this week. Jesus Christ is such a Rock, and His word is unshakable.
And here in Romans chapter 12, His unchangeable Word says that we need to be changed.
We need to be _____formed.
In verse 2, the Apostle Paul gives us two different commands that are like two sides of the same coin. He says:
“Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God” (Rom. 12:2, CSB).
Nearly all of the English translations have this great little play on words in verse 2. It’s not actually in the Greek words, as they come from different roots, but it very effectively captures the meaning of the two words.
Do not be con-formed to this age.
But be trans-formed by the renewing of your mind.
Notice: Being _____formed is inescapable.
We will all be _____formed in one way or another.
The question is what will form us? And what eventual form will we take? What will capture our minds and hearts? What will we become?
Romans 12:2 says that if we make the right choices here, we will increasingly know the right thing to do. I don’t know about you, but I want to be able tell what is the right thing to do! I want to be able to “discern [to pick out and love] what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.”
Let’s look at this verse more closely.
We don’t have time this morning to explain everything that has led up to Romans 12:2. [See our study “All Roads Lead to Romans 2014-2016.”] Paul has been explaining the truth of the Gospel and how it’s the good news for all who believe. Eleven chapters of God’s amazing grace and mercy on display! And in chapter 12, Paul is beginning to unpack what a difference that gospel of grace makes in the lives of all true believers.
In verse 1, he says that it means that we must give our whole selves over to God in total worship. He says, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God–this is your spiritual act of worship” (Rom. 12:1 NIVO).
Hold nothing back. He held nothing back for us at the Cross. We should hold nothing back from Him.
And in verse 2, he says what that looks like in terms of letting God change our whole lives. “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God” (Rom. 12:2, CSB).
#1. DO NOT BE CONFORMED TO THIS AGE.
This is what we are supposed to avoid. This is what we are supposed to resist. This is where we say, “No.”
Followers of Jesus are supposed to be different from the world. We are supposed to go against the flow.
Paul says to not be conformed to “this age.” What “age” is that? The NIV calls it, “the pattern of the world.”
This “age” is this present time, this world that exists, between the Fall of humanity and the Return of Christ and the coming of His Kingdom.
It’s this long evil time period that we are living in while we wait for His Kingdom to come. And this time, this age, is marked by wickedness and rebellion against God. And by a completely different set of values than the values of the Kingdom to come.
Do you feel pressure to conform to this age?
To become like the world?
How the world talks?
How the world dresses?
How the world entertains themselves?
How the world works?
How the world acts?
The ocean is a powerful thing! There is amazing pressure on us to conform.
And, often, it’s so powerful we don’t even feel it. It’s an undercurrent.
The worst temptations to conform are the ones where the world is telling us to do what feels right to us already. Where it’s the thing we naturally want to do.
For example, to complain. The world says, “Complain! Grumble. Get your way. Get on social media and blast those people who are doing it wrong. Stand up for your rights and get what is coming to you. Be outraged and pour on the shame and condemnation.”
And, boy, does that feel right! (And, yes, there is a right way and time to do something like it righteously.)
But I often want to complain sinfully. So it doesn’t take much to “conform to this age!”
But Philippians 2 says, “Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life” (Phil. 2:14-16 NIVO).
Like the Milky Way on a dark night, we are supposed to stand out and shine.
That’s why I was so happy with how everyone handled the water problem at church on Wednesday night at Family Bible Week. You weren't complaining. You weren’t conforming.
Years ago, J.B. Phillips paraphrased this so well. He put it, “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould.”
What are some of the ways that the world has squeezing you recently?
I think a lot of us immediately think about the pressure in “this age” to celebrate sinful sexuality and gender confusion. Same-sex romance and “marriage.” Trans-genderism.
The world wants us to conform.
And if you are tempted to reject God’s good design for males and females, then I urge you to resist. Do not conform.
But I think “this age” is also happy to get us to conform in another way on those issues.
“This age” is happy to have us become hateful and unloving with our words and actions towards people who are different from us or who have different struggles than we do. Being judgmental and condemnatory and rude and unkind. And pushing people into rigid stereotypes aren’t biblical either.
I’ve had several private conversations recently with a bunch of you about how to love people in your lives that identify as LGBTQ. To not conform to an worldly ideology and at the same time not conform to a worldly animosity. I’m so proud of you for resisting both directions.
By the way, I want to recommend this book that the kids got to hear about at Challenge. More to the Story: Deep Answers to Real Questions on Attraction, Identity, and Relationships by my friend Jennifer Kvamme. It's the best book out there right now for young people, especially.
Do not conform. Either way.
Where are you feeling the squeeze? Where do you feel the undertow? Where is “the ocean” trying to take you these days? Shape you, form you? And it even feels so right. Do not conform. But, instead:
#2. BE TRANSFORMED BY THE RENEWING OF YOUR MIND.
The Lord wants us to change because He always stays the same. The Lord doesn’t just tell us to resist culture. He tells us to change our minds and to be transformed. Just like Karen and Shelly transformed our building into a beach for the month, the Lord wants to do a total make-over of us, but permanently.
Be transformed.
This is different from the beach analogy. We aren’t just supposed to keep from being shaped by the world, we are supposed to be shaped by the Word. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
That says that true change starts in our minds and hearts and then works out into the rest of our words, deeds, and lives. And we renew our minds by reviewing biblical truth.
That’s why we have Family BIBLE Week, right? Because the world is blaring at us 24/7, we need to regularly come back to see what God’s Word says. Jesus’ followers are constantly bathing our minds in biblical truth so that they get renewed.
We don’t have to wonder what God wants us to actually be like. If you keep reading Romans 12, 13, 14, and 15, you get a picture of how God wants to, by His grace, radically transform His people.
For example, the world wants us to believe in ourselves and have high self-esteem and follow our hearts and believe that we are the best!
But what does verse 3 say? The very next verse.
“For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you” (Rom. 12:3 NIVO).
The Lord seeks to make us humble people. Transformed into humility. Our adult class this week learned a lot about humility by thinking about the greatness of God.
God is God, and we are not.
Let that renew your mind. This is what our church is all about. It’s in our purpose statement. We exist to glorify God by bringing people into a...what?
A life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ.
He loves us just as we are but He loves us too much to leave us that way. He wants to transform us by the renewing of our minds.
This is what our parents' class was talking about this week. What they are trying to do with their kids. Teaching them solid-unchanging biblical truth so that they can be transformed by the renewing of their minds.
Change is hard. It’s hard to change, isn’t it? It’s easy to go along with the undercurrent. It’s hard to fight against it.
What does it take to change?
It takes something unchanging to change! You have to have something solid to hold onto. You need a rock. You need a God like the One we learned about this week. Great and forever unchanging.
And you have to know what He says (and always says!) so that you can let that change your mind. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Learn His new pattern of thinking.
For example, this age says, “Be greedy. Grab all the money you can. And keep all the money you can. That’s where happiness is. Money makes the world go around.” Is that what God’s Word says?
No. Jesus said, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Lk. 12:15 NIVO).
Or skip down to verse 13 here in Romans 12. “Share with God’s people who are in need.”
So God owns all the money, right? And He has given it to us to enjoy and to be generous with.
And so we are sending Keith, Steph, and Mary Beth with our money to share with God’s people in Malawi who are in need.
And we have a big group planning to do it, not just in Africa but also, in America. You know we’ve been working on sending a group to Kentucky with Crisis Response next summer? Well, we have so many generous people in our congregation who want to go, that we are going to have to send two different teams on two different weeks in 2025 to share with God’s people who are in need.
That’s because we’re being transformed here by the renewing of our minds.
Listen to that whole section. Verses 9 through 21.
“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.
Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord. On the contrary: ‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.’
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom. 12:9-13:1 NIVO).
Those are the values of the Kingdom! That sounds a lot like the Sermon on the Mount to me, as I’ll bet it does to the Challenge Crew.
But it does not sound like the values of “this age.” “This age” says to hate our enemies. To blast our opponents on social media every chance we get. Give “them” a taste of their own medicine.
But our Rock says, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you” (Lk. 6:27-28 NIVO).
That’s not easy to do[!], but Jesus did it. He showed us how. And He does not change.
And as we fill and renew our minds with biblical truth, we can be transformed into His image. We can increasingly share in the shareable attributes of God Himself.
And as we continue do this, we will increasingly be able to make wise choices. We’ll increasingly know the right thing to do. Verse 2 says, “...be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.” By God’s grace, we can live out the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God! I want that for me, and I want that for you.
And there’s only one way to get there. And it’s through Jesus Christ.
The kids have learned this week that “this age” says that there are many ways to get to heaven.
But we have renewed our minds, so we know that is false and as untrustworthy as shifting sands.
Jesus said of Himself, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn. 14:6 NIVO). But everyone who comes through Him and what He did for us at the Cross gets to the Father!
Jesus Christ is the only way, and He is the only Rock.
