Romans 12:1-2
Be Not Like the
World
Paul is first of all, urging, pleading with all people, those in the area at the time,
all who read or heard it, and all who read and hear it now.
Why? Because walking as a disciple of Jesus Christ, is much more than just you
knowing and quoting Scripture.
It’s more than you knowing the Hebrew and Greek of a word, pronouncing it
perfectly, and giving the correct meaning of it.
It’s more than your degrees or titles that you use as a self-proclaiming proof to
your vast knowledge of the Bible.
You may know the history, or details about biblical locations, or the context of a
book in the Bible, but if you do not follow the truth in Scripture, then all that means
NOTHING.
It’s more than you being smarter than the next person or communicating truth
in the most elaborate of ways.
Besides, people need to hear more than just background or historical context...we
need to hear a message from God, the truth, and then be urged to apply it.
Walking as a disciple of Christ is about you living out that truth. James 1:22
states to be doers of the word and not just hearers only, deceiving your own self.
If you hear or read God’s word, then turn around telling others to do what is
written, but you yourself fail to take daily steps to be obedient to the will of God,
then it’s worthless; you make yourself a hypocrite.
And it’s also not just about walking and living that truth, being Christlike, but
it’s about, as Paul is doing here, urging, pleading with, and persuading others to do the
same. To take the truth they have been given and to live according to it.
And to you preachers: Before you go before people and preach, you must first
go before God and stay before God in prayer. Then preach the truth no mater who it
angers, without compromise.
Western Christianity has so much compromise. “You don’t want to hear
preaching over an hour?”..”Ok..we can have you out of here in 30mins or less”. “You
don’t like the slow, drawn out Hymns?”. “Gothcah..we can stand up here and entertain
you so you don’t get bored and leave”.
Why do many churches have to use entertainment? Because many self-
proclaiming Christians have never experienced the true joy of God.
They have lost the reverence of God, who is Holy and Righteous.
They come into the house of God and have to be pulled into this trance like state
in order to “FEEL” something and then claim that feeling is the spirit of God, when in
fact it’s just the emotions being stirred or even another counterfeit spirit who’s goal is to
take the focus off of God and place it on how you feel.
Entertainment is the replacement in many Westernized churches and they call
that entertainment “WORSHIP”.
A culture that is so superficial and places so much on feelings that they have to
seek after things that please those feelings. Things that appeal to the flesh and not to
the spirit.
What does God say about this type of feel-good, vain sacrifice of entertainment
called “Worship”? In Isaiah 1:11-12, “To what purpose is the multitude of your
sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat
of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or goats. When ye
come to appear
before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? ”
In other words, “Why are you worshiping God with vain repetitious words, feel
good entertainment with the purpose to please ‘self’, and not God?
Appealing to the flesh with things that God is fed up with. By doing this, they
trample the courts of God”.
In this text, Paul is pleading with us to not just offer “THINGS” as a sacrifice,
but our bodies as a living, holy sacrifice that is acceptable to God.
How? He writes in verse 1, “By the mercies of God”. It is by God’s mercies that
we can do this. By submitting to Christ in us, who then gives us the strength to do it.
This is our service. To be pleasing to God. We place all of us on God’s alter. All
we are. We don’t pick and choose one part or another, but all.
Many come to God thinking they can tell Him what they’re going to give, but
God requires all. We give everything to God and we let Him remove what needs to be
removed.
Paul writes in Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live;
yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the
flesh I live by
the faith of the
Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me ”.
We must crucify our flesh. Paul also writes in Colossians 3:5 that we are
to mortify the members of our body.
Meaning, put to death things in you that are getting in your way of walking
the path of righteousness. Or being like Christ.
Killing that which is not pleasing to God and what hinders you in your service to
Christ.
We take the term“Mortify”, and imagine a surgeon who cuts out an infection
so it doesn’t infect the rest of the body.
One sin enters, and it will infect the rest of you. It’s by the mercies of God,
and the power of Christ in us, that we can put to death those things that are effecting
our relationship with God.
We can present our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice that is acceptable to
God. It’s not about how much truth is in your head, but how you walk out that truth
in your life.
Paul goes on in verse 2 and gives us an effective way to do this. A
command given to him to write down, “And be not conformed to the image of this
world”.
Many self-proclaiming Christians and churches in America and other parts of
the world, resemble so much that is in the world.
Fighting in the church. Feelings get hurt and then the person leaves. Many get
easily offended and then never talking to the person who offended them again; holding a
grudge. Slander. Light shows...fog machines...how to have a better life conferences
and be more successful...and on and on.
You know, it’s stated that America has the largest amount of missionary
organizations that go to other countries. But many of them are preaching another
Gospel, and one day, missionaries from other countries are going to have to come
here in order to bring back the full Gospel.
If you’re a missionary in America who preaches the Gospel of Jesus Christ
without compromise, then here in America is the mission field.
God is screaming into this Nation through everything that is taking place. Who
is listening? Who is heeding the cry of the Watchmen? Who is hearing what the Spirit
of God is saying?
When they hear the truth, they get angry. They call it judging. They don’t
even want to hear it and when they do, they block it out.
They have ears but do not hear and with their eyes, they are not seeing what
is taking place.
And the more truth the unbeliever hears, or even the one who claims to be a
believer hears, the more they hate the truth, and in turn, deep down, the more they hate
God.
Paul goes on, “be not transformed to the image of this world, but be
ye transformed by the renewing of your mind”.
Renewing your mind daily through reading and study of God’s word.
Through daily prayer. Daily meditation on God’s word and meditating also on God.
Cultivate your mind and absorb God’s word, striving to better understand it,
and to also dedicate more of your time to better understand who God is.
By doing this, God will conform you to the image of His Son. He will use it
to transform you into who He has designed you to be.
He will cause you to be more and more like Christ, and He will help you
endure the process it takes to do so.
And then, the more you understand God’s word, the more you understand the
Gospel, the more you understand who God is, and the more you understand who you are
in Christ, the more you will be able to prove what is of God and what is a counterfeit.
You can discern what is the truth and what is a lie. And you can know the will
of God, which is good...which is acceptable, and is perfect.
