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 places in us a desire to succeed.
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)