Sermon Oct 15th, 2006. Do NOT be _______ formed, DO be _________formed!

1 Corinthians 9:19-23 “Though I am free and belong to no person, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law, I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak, I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do this all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.”

Romans 12:1-2

When Christ came into the world, and lived and died and rose from the dead, and set the redeeming kingdom of God in motion, and unleashed the mighty gospel on the world—two powerful impulses, or forces, spread everywhere the gospel spread.

The “at home” impulse and the “pilgrim” impulse

These two impulses are always in tension with each other. At times they push in opposite directions, and the great challenge is to find the biblical balance. We could call these impulses the “at home” impulse, and the “pilgrim” impulse. In other words, the gospel can and must and does find “a home” in every fallen culture in the world. It can and must find a home in the culture. It must fit in. That’s the “at home” impulse. But at the same time, and just as powerful, the gospel produces a pilgrim mindset. It loosens people from their culture. It criticizes and corrects culture. It turns people into pilgrims and aliens and exiles in their own culture. When Paul says, “Do not be conformed to this world,” and “I became all things to all people,” he is not confused; he is calling for a critical balance of two crucial biblical impulses.

You see, if we slide to the extreme of either one of these impulses, we find ourselves in an unfaithful position, which is where none of us should want to be this morning. We cannot withdraw from the world as if it doesn’t exist: first, because we are called to love and give our lives for those around us, and second, because Jesus didn’t come to give us life sometime in the future, he came to set us free and give us life RIGHT NOW. In the same way, we are perfectly useless, we waste our lives if all we do is conform to the world around us. And the key to not wasting our lives, then, Paul says, is being transformed. “Do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed.”

(transfiguration is the only other place in the gospels that uses this word)

The Transformation Is Not Just External

I point this out for one reason: to make the point that the nonconformity to the world does not primarily mean the external avoidance of worldly behaviors. That’s included. But you can avoid all kinds of worldly behaviors and not be transformed. “His face shown like the sun, and his clothes became white as light”! Something like that happens to us spiritually and morally. This takes place first in our inside, and by nature, because the gospel is meant to transform ALL of us, it must show itself on the outside.

Transformation is not switching from the to-do list of what everyone else is doing to the to-do list of the law. The alternative for a follower of Jesus to immoral behaviors is not a new list of moral behaviors.

And that fact is easy to see for folks in societies where they know if they give their lives to Christ, they will lose everything; it’s obvious to them that decision will define their life. You could even go to a major city today like Seattle, Portland, New York, and folks can see pretty easily that God is calling them to something that will define their lives…but here in the Shenandoah Valley going to church is still a status symbol of middle class society because it shows you’re a “good person” and a contributing member of society, and a church is supposed to do that…show you how a “good person lives.”

*Newsflash*

The ultimate goal of the gospel and why Jesus came is NOT so we can become “good people,” and the ultimate goal of the gospel and why Jesus came is NOT EVEN to make us “good citizens” of the countries we live in. The ultimate goal of the gospel and the reason Jesus came was to create a community of people who love God and love others boundlessly, who are a part of a global community of followers of Jesus first, who know their identity and aren’t afraid of it, and if ANYONE asks of them ANYTHING that runs counter to the life they have in Christ, they refuse to participate. You see, when Jesus said “The Kingdom of Heaven is forcefully advancing, and forceful people take hold of it,” he wasn’t talking about a bunch of individuals sliding a T-shirt on their bodies that says “I’m a Christian” or CD in their car that says Jesus every five seconds on the song; something they could tack onto their lives that doesn’t fundamentally shake their lives to the core.

If we read the Bible, pray, talk, and live our lives thinking we can slap a name on ourselves and nobody can challenge us on that stance, we’re dead wrong, and we will waste our lives. You see, God is the Lord of the Universe, and because He is, he reserves the right to handle his creation the way he wants…and God had a problem with his creation that they turned their back on Him and really could have cared less about the situation. God, in his freedom as Creator, could’ve just wiped everything out and started over. Or, because we can read in the Bible of God’s great love and pursuit of his Creation, God could’ve spoken a word to us: “Everything you’ve done and will do is forgiven. Just because I say so.” Now, you can do this and keep on living like I don’t really matter, don’t really care….

But God didn’t do that. In fact, he loves us so much that he sent Himself in human form to show the way of faithfulness, and gave of himself in incredible love to the death for us. Because you see, if he had just spoken the word, we wouldn’t have known that God is deeply grieved by our ignoring Him, and we wouldn’t have known what a faithful, full life looks like in a relationship with God. We wouldn’t know any better. But we do, because of Jesus. But the most ironic twist to this story is that we’ve turned this extraordinary event, this extraordinary life and example, this incredible love and we’ve allowed ourselves to turn it into something small and manageable, that on the cross, Jesus took care of stuff for me…all I have to do is say “Yes,” slip on the Christian T-shirt.

I think it’s similar to the difference between a multiple choice test and an essay test. With multiple choice, you often choose the right answers because you’ve memorized them. Yet it’s entirely possible that you can’t construct the parts into a whole. You can’t make sense of them so that they make sense of the larger picture. That, in fact, is why our educational is seeking to move away from that, because it’s not forming you as an individual to react creatively to a situation, to be able to see the whole as you deal with the fill-in-the-blanks and the multiple choices. (transition from elementary to middle to college) In an essay you either know what you’re talking about or you don’t. And when you don’t, it’s painfully obvious to anyone and everyone, including yourself.

So, you see, in a system where you can give the “right answers” and talk the talk, you can be a “good person” on the outside, say you believe in Jesus, and be rotten to the core on the inside. That was me as a teenage and an early twenty-something. I could say the right things, attend church when I wanted, and turn and do what I wanted the rest of the time and still call myself a “Christian” because I was “good kid.”

That approach makes God want to puke. (And I’m not just trying to say something gross). HE said it, right in Revelation (Laodicea)…you wanna make God angry, wanna really light a fire under Him, make your goal to be a “good person”, and your Christianity as something you can tack on to your life. Because if you do that, or I do that, we’re spitting on what God showed us in Jesus.

Our goal is not to bring up “good people” in this church; our goal is to bring up “transformed people”

So transformation is a profound, blood-bought, life-changing removal from death into life, that takes place from the inside out.

The story of God acting in human history is compelling stuff, Oscar-worthy, it’s what we’ve been hungering for from the day we were born. LIFE, not boring. Yet somehow many of us who profess to follow Jesus have dreamed up the most fantastic ways to rob the Story of its power to attract and invite and mean the world to people.

Do you ever wonder, let’s ask some hard questions here:

Why is Christianity so often as an unattractive religion when Jesus, the person on which it is founded, is considered to be one of the most compelling and attractive figures in the history of the world (even by critics of Christianity)?

Why can folks call themselves “Christian” and never set themselves apart from the rest of the folks around them who are bored, cynical, and headed nowhere as if being a Christian held no way to escape that reality?

Why can professing Christians talk about “their faith” as if its a phrase they’ve gotten bored with rather than a story of something profound, mysterious, life-changing, and beautiful?

Why can’t professing Christians seem to discuss their “faith” with anything near the passion, enthusiasm, or imagination they have for hobbies, sports, celebrities, films, or music? (I lapse into that…am I as passionate about who God is and the life He offers as I am about the Orioles or the Giants?)

The answer to these is not to get all whipped up into an emotional frenzy, because fired-up emotions only go so far before we burn-out or quit b/c there’s no significant heart change. As examples of this:

I’ve been to youth conferences where the leaders whipped the kids into a frenzy, saying “Burn all your secular CDs when you get home, secular books, tank tops…blah blah blah”, so the kids get home and burn the CDs and two months later…what happens? they buy them all back again. (this is not a commentary on whether or not secular music is all good or all bad, or Christian music is all good or all bad, or even tank tops…just making a point)

Or maybe a closer to home example was when “we” were miffed over the last couple of years when Wal-mart quit saying “Merry Christmas,” and folks got all up in arms… “don’t shop there!” but two weeks or a month later, what happens?

You see, emotional ploys only last so long, but God wants people who give everything to him, and no matter how many times they fall down and mess up and fail, they pick themselves up, they depend on Christ, they love their neighbors period. and they put one foot in front of the other in their lives; because they have found life, and they simply WILL. NOT. SETTLE. For less than that.

Jesus said “I have come that you might have LIFE and have it to the FULLEST!”

That requires all of us: our insides to the Holy Spirit for transformation, our outsides that prove to the world that this affects everything. And THAT is why this passage is CRUCIAL to our life as a church community.

• If we long to break loose from conformity to the world, that we know is empty,
• if we long to be transformed and new from the inside out,
• if we long to be free from a Christianity that’s just about duty and instead persevere so we get to the point thta what God asks of us is what we love to do,
• if we long to offer up our bodies as a living sacrifice so that our whole lives become a spiritual act of worship because of what God has done to reach and live amongst us and set the example and pay the ultimate price for that;
• then we ought to (as a church) give ourselves with all our might to pursuing this—the renewal and transformation of our entire selves

(Honesty from the web journal of my friend Bethany, who just returned not long ago from an extended missions trip to Mexico with YWAM)

“I thought i had all my little christian duckies in a row when i left mexico (which is SO delusional)...but I’m realizing more and more that i have so much to learn...so much to glean from others...so much to understand about life as a christian...about what it means to love jesus in this generation…
that not everything is black OR white...left wing OR right wing...

that the final word on things shouldnt be "he said she said", it should be based on what God said...

that my choices shouldnt be determined by what is best for ME, but by what the highest good for OTHERS is (love)....

that nothing i have is my own, even the breath in my lungs...

and that God is NOT (necessarily) found in crowds, He’s found when you fall on your face and tell Him you need Him...and thats when you realize, He isnt the one hiding, you are....

Honestly, I’m afraid for my views to change because for as long as i can remember they have shaped who i am, but its time that my views come from a desire to know who God is, instead of from politics, parents, or legalism...i need to be more open minded and think that maybe, just maybe, i might be wrong about some things...my life is too short to waste time checking a box at the poll declaring my faithfulness to one party or the other...because someone entirely different deserves all the faithfulness my little human heart can muster...i need to know what matters...and i need to live for that...i think I’m done wasting time...”

My friend Bethany was honest enough to admit she’s just reached the starting point. And she’s got the rest of her life, starting now, every second, minute, hour, day, month, year, and hopefully decades to live into this commitment.

Officiating at the funeral of Robert Shull’s father Garland clicked something inside me so that when I read Bethany’s writing here, I wept…because I know how often I fall into the trap of wasting time and my life. That’s why we need reminders, we need to challenge one another and know we’ll stick together, we NEED Christ, or we’re nothing.

Here's a quote from one of the most tremendous Christian thinkers of the twentieth century, as a conclusion.