Where Does
It All Begin?
Romans
12:1-5
Jim Davis
The depravity of our world is evident in
the resounding messages of mass media news. You see it sprawled
across the pages of our newspapers in big bold print. The world is
looking for solutions but only hear repeated reports of condemnation
from the cynics. Satan seeks to beat us to a pulp with his weapon of
guilt, as he seeks to convince us there is no real solution to our
problems.
The world is looking for a feel good solution
as we pretend things are better than are. A feel good approach only
masks our real problems. There are many looking for churches that make
them feel good. But deep down inside they don’t feel good about
themselves. This is evidenced in the break down of family. There is
probably no greater indicator of the seriousness of societal and church
problems than the failure of families.
The world is looking for answers. It seems as
though God may be doing what he has always done throughout history.
There was a period when the Judges ruled in Israel that many refer to as
the dark ages of Israel. Israel sought her own selfish ways. God allowed
the consequences of their actions to bring disaster.
Change
Doesn’t Come Easy
Change is
frustrating, but the world is designed to be a frustrated place to live.
We had rather withdraw to a nice quite place to live out our lives. When
we do, it usually becomes a place of quiet desperation. Some go to
monasteries to get away from the frustrations. Some strive to live stoic
lives.
Romans 8:18-21
18 I consider
that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that
will be revealed in us. 19 The creation waits in eager expectation for
the sons of God to be revealed. 20 For
the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by
the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation
itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay
and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. NIV
Frustration was created into our world
order. We fail to understand frustration
has its purpose--there is no freedom without frustration. There
was a certain amount of frustration built into not eating the fruit of
the Tree of Life in Eden.
Nothing reveals
our sinfulness more than how we handle our frustrations.
We seek to deal with our frustrations without God. It results in sin.
We go a step further and seek to deal with our sin by ignoring
it. When this happens our problems begin to compound and
frustrations mount.
When frustrations become unbearable we
seek to fix it ourselves. I have learned, when I seek to fix
things myself, God always places me in a circumstance I cannot fix. I
have learned preachers can’t fix peoples lives. Many like to think they
can. In the end they fail. God loves to place us in circumstances we
can’t fix. He is seeking to humble us.
2 Corinthians 1:8-9
8 We do not want you to be
uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of
Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so
that we despaired even of life. 9 Indeed, in our hearts we felt the
sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves
but on God, who raises the dead. NIV
We were never
created to fix the problems of this world without God. We
were never designed to fix our personal problems without God. Paul’s
thorn in the flesh brought him to depend upon God’s power. Initially he
wanted God to fix his problem, but God refused, so that Paul would
become totally dependent upon God.
Have you noticed how we try to fix gas prices?
We mortgage our future by putting less oil in reserve. We are happy as
long as we see gas prices go down a cent or two. We use such things as
divorce, abortion, drugs, materialism to fix our lives.
Too often, we strive to satisfy standards set
by others or by ourselves—we try to memorize enough Scripture, or do
religious things. It most often results in making us secretly smug and
self-righteous, or else overworked, tired, and dry. The work of the
Spirit is all but dead.
Striving for conformity—that is, adjusting
ourselves for the approval of others—will never be the same as
transformation. Not even close.
It is like
trying to paste wings on a caterpillar to make it a butterfly.
Change Is A Process
More often, than not we are expecting
revolutionary change in ourselves as we come to Christ. When it doesn’t
happen we begin asking, “Weren’t we
supposed to change simply because we are Christians?
Romans 12:1-2
12:1
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. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of
this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you
will be able to test and approve what God's will is — his good, pleasing
and perfect will. NIV
Are we missing something big?
We hear this nagging inner voice that says,
“You should have changed. You should be better.”
This is when many mistakenly commit to a
holy self-improvement course. We quit cursing and telling dirty
jokes. Stop smoking. Seek to stop overeating—which never seems to work.
Obey speeding laws. Pay our taxes. We read our Bibles, have our daily
devotions—you know how it goes—we seek to do holy things to make us
holy.
Yet, all of this doesn’t stop this nagging
inner voice saying, “It isn’t enough!” Sadly, we become churched people
who go to church on a regular basis, but have missed the true meaning of
Christianity.
Paul warned us
not to fall into the trap of outward conformity to some set of
“spiritual” standards. Instead, we are to pursue God
Himself and experience the genuine metamorphosis of spiritual
transformation (see Galatians 5–6).
When the
Galatians turned from grace back to formulas and legalism, Paul rebuked
them fiercely: “Who has bewitched you? . . . After beginning with the
Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?”
(Galatians 3:1, 3).
Pasting wings on a worm will never give
you a butterfly. Instead, it creates spiritual casualties of the
saddest sort.
Have you noticed how churches are trying
to conform for growth? We change order of worship or the song
books to make worship more dynamic. I think worship ought to more
dynamic. I want you to know I am not against changing things becoming
more dynamic.
Sadly, too
many Christians come to Christ for forgiveness, and then set out on a
path to live a holy life without allowing Christ to renew their minds.
The carnal mind is one that imagines the best
life possible, based on worldly comforts and benefits, and then imagines
that it is God’s job to give us those good things. Then we set out to be
good enough to deserve them.
After
initially placing our faith in Christ, we may fail to understand the
inner dynamic of God’s Spirit at work within us. So we mistakenly commit
ourselves to a holy self-improvement program.
Change isn’t easy.
We wrestle with the hard process of
maturity, we suspect that growth should be easier than it is.
Change isn’t
cheap. We need our hearts transformed by taking Jesus’ attitude
that we are here “on assignment” with a higher purpose chosen for us by
the Father. “I have come,” Jesus said, “. . . to do the will of
him who sent me” (John 6:38). And for us, that means turning over the
use of our lives to Him, not just once, but every day in all things.
A man’s faith was almost shipwrecked because
he looked for security in the things of the world. “I went to God with
problem after problem, need after need. It seemed like the more I
prayed, the more I experienced loss and grief. I got to thinking, What’s
the point if I don’t get what I ask for?”
His perspective on his unanswered prayers was
challenged by a passage in Hebrews: “For here we do not have an
enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come”
(Hebrews 13:14). He responded to this passage: “I saw for the first time
that I’d based so much of my sense of security and blessing in keeping
things the way I want them in life. I was clinging to friends, to jobs,
and to lots of stuff to give me steadiness. I realized that my prayers
were all about begging God to keep my world intact.
This realization began to change his
perspective. He thought, What if God let me have a string of losses
bang, bang, bang—to wake me up and to help give me security in Him
instead of in earthly things? I felt this eternal perspective open
up in me. I’d never had that before.
Change Takes Time
Change Is
Always Accompanied with Failure. Failure reminds us of
our sinful nature, and that our efforts are useless without God’s help.
(David Hazard, The Discipleship Journal, Issue 104, March/April
1998)
Failure points
out our weaknesses and our need for God.
Failure
preaches powerful sermons.
Failure enables
us to help others.
Failure
promotes tolerance of others.
Failure gives
us a desire to overcome.
Failure moves
us closer to the place God wants us.
Conclusion:
Becoming a Christian is
about redeeming your failures.
Hannah More
says, “We should keep up in our hearts a constant sense of our own
weakness, not with a design to discourage the mind and depress the
spirits, but with a view to drive us out of ourselves, in search of the
Divine assistance.”
Like a searchlight shining into dark corners,
failure forces us to see ourselves as Jesus sees us—weak and totally
helpless apart from Him.
We can discover as David discovered---
our weakness can drive us to God.
Psalms 32:1-2
Blessed is he
whose
transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are
covered.
2 Blessed is
the man
whose sin the
LORD does not count against him
and in whose
spirit is no deceit.
Psalms 32:3-4
3 When I kept
silent,
my bones
wasted away
through my
groaning all day long.
4 For day and
night
your hand was
heavy upon me;
my strength
was sapped
as in the heat
of summer.
Psalms 32:5
5 Then I
acknowledged my sin to you
and did not
cover up my iniquity.
I said, "I
will confess
my
transgressions to the LORD" —
and you
forgave
the guilt of
my sin.
Psalms 32:6-7
6 Therefore
let everyone who is godly pray to you
while you may
be found;
surely when
the mighty waters rise,
they will not
reach him.
7 You are my
hiding place;
you will
protect me from trouble
Psalms 32:8-10
8 I will
instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel
you and watch over you.
9 Do not be
like the horse or the mule,
which have no
understanding
but must be
controlled by bit and bridle
or they will
not come to you.
10 Many are
the woes of the wicked,
but the LORD's
unfailing love
surrounds the
man who trusts in him.
Psalms 32:11
11 Rejoice in
the LORD and be glad, you righteous;
sing, all you
who are upright in heart! NIV
There is something about being in the
presence of God that makes us aware of our own sinfulness.
In Luke 5, Jesus told Simon to put his net
into the deep water. Simon answered by saying they had worked all night
and had caught nothing, and continued by saying, "Yet if you say so, I
will let down the nets." Simon didn’t exactly sound enthusiastic about
it. But you know what happened next: "they caught so many fish that
their nets were beginning to break." (Luke 5:6) In fact, when they began
to load the fish into the boat, there were so many that the boat began
to sink. Peter realized that he was in the presence of not just a man,
but the living Christ. His response was that "...he fell down at
Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.’"
(Luke 5:8)
