October 22nd, 2006 "The Process of Transformation"

Source Scriptures: Romans 12:1-2, Jeremiah 31:31-33

(Have everyone grab a book…hymnal (blue or green), Bible, stick a finger in it, and hold it up)

Imagine this book being your life. It’s a living book, this life; it folds out in a millionsettings, cast with a billion beautiful characters, and it is almost over for you. It doesn’t matter how old you are; it is coming to a close quickly, and soon the last chapter will come to a close and all your friends will walk out of your funeral and drive back to their homes in cold and still and silence. And they willgather around in the living room or dining room and think about how you once were…and feel a kind of sickness, an emptiness at realizing you never again will be. You see, we get one shot at this life, one good crack at it...and it's over.

So soon you will be in that part of the book where you are holding the bulk of the pages in your left hand, and only a thin wisp of the story in your right. We assume those who are older here today are in this place, but none of us know. Some of us will know that things are wrapping up, others will be shocked at how the story ends without a riding off into the sunset moment. Realizing this, and listening to the whisper of God out of all the noise of our lives, “Don’t waste your life,” should cause us to step back for a second and take account.

Death has a funny way of reminding us that we are not immortal. We fight death in our society, we ignore it, we come up with age-defying creams, life-extending surgeries, Botox injections, crash diets, jobs that take up so much of our time and our minds that we think life can go on forever…but sooner or later, a relative, or a friend, or a neighbor, dies. Some die after a long life, some unexpectedly, but it is a screeching reminder for us, like nails on a chalkboard, that what we have won’t go on forever.

And last week, we got a glimpse into the reality that God is not calling us to be “good people,” he’s calling us to transformation, and in order for transformation to take place, something must DIE inside of us (it’s our old life, with its passions and pursuits and priorities), and we must be diligent and consistent and courageous to move beyond that empty life into the life God has called us to.

When we are called to be TRANSFORMED, that’s not a once and for all activity (present tense, with an eye toward the future)

(there are some this morning who have been followers of Jesus for five or six times the life of Seth here, who have walked steps in the journey of faith, but NONE of us will EVER be at the point where we’ve walked enough, transformed enough, and can plop down).

And the reason none can ever get to that point is because this life of following God is fundamentally a RELATIONSHIP.

The fundamental difference between Christian faith and all other forms of spirituality will always be that the Christian faith offers a relationship with God, and this relationship is NOT, I repeat NOT, a series of 1,2,3 steps to achievement or success or answers to prayer.

I know people who have actually gone through struggle and emerged on the other side, but I guarantee you they didn’t do it by walking through three steps. (Rowena here is a survivor of breast cancer…Rowena, how about you tell us the three easy steps you took to emotionally and physically make it through the process of chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery...Mary)

(three steps, or complex process?)

Chalkboard

Have folks call out the concepts a person would need to understand (supposedly or for real) in order to become a "Christian" (stand at board and write as they call out ideas)

Ask them if a person could believe all these ideas were true and yet not be a Christian. (have friends that do!) (Do you think it’s possible, then, that a person could know and even believe all of these concepts and not be a Christian?) (erase the steps)

(Write) What ideas would a guy need to agree with or what steps would a guy need to take in order to fall in love with a girl?

1. A guy would have to get to know her.

2. A guy would have to spend time with her

(What are some other things?...it's not exactly a scientific process)

I have come to believe that the sooner we embrace this reality, the sooner we will fall in love with the God who keeps shaking things up, keeps changing the path, keeps rocking the boat to test our faith in Him, teaching us not to rely on easy answers, bullet points, magic formulas, or genies in lamps, but rather in HIS guidance, HIS existence, HIS mercy, and HIS love. The Bible is NOT a self-help book; it is a collection of 66 letters, histories, praises, laments, wisdom, pain, joy, life, death, faith, unfaith, and the daily reality of the human struggle.

And that is a RELATIONSHIP, and RELATIONSHIPS are defined by the reality that they are NOT set in stone; they change you, if the relationship is real and defining for your life.

And the command to SUBMIT to God is central for us this morning. God knows better than we do, so we kneel down before him as King and recognize we are humble servants. First. And because the Christian faith is one that REFUSES to stay on the inside, there is, perhaps, no part of Christian experience where a greater change occurs, than in the area of where we dedicate our time and our energy, an what is a priority for us.

Listen to one woman’s story, and see if you sense some parallels between her story and yours: “When I was first converted,” she said, “I was so full of joy and love that I was only too glad and thankful to be allowed to do anything for my Lord, and I eagerly entered every open door. But after awhile, as my early joy faded away, and my love burned less fervently, I began to wish that I had not been so eager; for I found myself involved in this line of work that become very burdensome to me. At last it became so unspeakably burdensome to me to live the sort of Christian life I had entered and was expected to live, that I felt as if ANY SORT of manual labor would have been easier; and I would have infinitely preferred scrubbing all day on my hands and knees to being compelled to do daily work as a follower of Jesus.”

And this woman’s story should raise a question for those of us in this room who are followers of Jesus: Have we ever gone to work as a servant of Jesus, believing it to be our duty and THEREFORE WE MUST DO IT, but longing to go back to our own REAL interests and pleasures the moment our work was over?

How many times have we worked in our church community and wished we weren’t there, sometimes hated that we didn’t just decide to sit in a pew on Sundays because that was so much easier?...or maybe you HAVE loved your work, but in doing it, you find so many cares and responsibilities connected with it that it that you lose sight of the love you carry, as the heavy burdens cloud your sight and weigh you down?

THIS is a roadblock that stands in the way of us all in the path of transformation, and we have several options for how to approach this roadblock:

1) we can continue in our service in whatever fashion it might be, whether pastor, church board, bereavement committee, church cleaning, handing out bulletins, counting money, or visiting someone who needs to be heard and prayed with, but we don’t WANT to be there…that attitude infects those around us, whether they outright know it or not. This option is unfaithful, and will kill a church faster than a whole lot of things.

2) We can refuse to serve, and settle for sitting in the pew as a spectator; or, if our church refuses to let us take that place, we leave and find a church where we CAN be a spectator, where our Christianity represents itself by our willingness to simply come. That option is unfaithful, and will kill a church probably almost as quickly as the first.

3) We can quit participating in a church altogether and convince ourselves we can be a Christian by ourselves; then we don’t have to have any commitments period. That option is terribly unfaithful, a self-centered shrinking from responsibility, or

4) We can take our frustration, our duties, to God, lay them down at his feet, and ask him to protect us, change us, and empower us to see the service he asks of us, whether it’s cleaning toilets or leading a massive evangelistic event, as a delight, as something we WANT to do because it MEANS THE WORLD to our church, to the world, and foremost, to GOD for us to find pleasure in it.

It is ALWAYS very pleasant to do the things we WANT to do, even if they are difficult to accomplish, or make our bodies tired. If our WILL is really set on a thing, we view the obstacles that stand in the way of reaching it as NOTHING, and laugh to ourselves at the idea that anything could stand in our way.

How many people have gladly gone to the ends of the world in search of wealth, or worldly ambition, or prestige, or positions of honor, and haven’t cared about the cost it took to get there? (And many of these same folks would have felt and said that if God would dare to ask of them anything even approaching the costs of the pursuit of things, or the church asked of anything more than the bread crumbs of energy from their table, “OH, this is TOO HEAVY.” How could you ask of me, God, the same sacrifice for your kingdom that I would gladly bear to have a little cash in my pocket?

I am ashamed to think that any follower of Jesus should ever put on a long face and shed tears over doing a thing for Christ which a worldly person would leap at for money. What we need is to WANT to do God’s will as much as other people WANT to do THEIR will. And THIS is what God desires from us, expects of those of us in this room who have given Him our lives.

(Jeremiah 31:31-33)

You see, that’s the fundamental difference between the old law (given from the outside, controlling us by force), and the new law (written WITHIN, calling us to service because we WANT to), and we grow into that. And THAT’S the separation Paul plops right down in front of our face in Romans time and time and time again.

If you want yourself, choose yourself…just know where that path leads. If we want life, God is asking of everything from us, and you know the passion we have for acquiring things, pursuing comfort, a little more cash? This new life, this new heart, this transforming life God will give us will cause us to WANT to do these things for Him!

So, you see, God’s way of working, is to get possession of the inside of us when we bow our knee before him and willingly call him LORD of our lives, to take the control of our will, and to work it for us. Then obedience is easy and a delight, and our service sets us and others free. God has expectations for us to live up to that seem downright stupid to the rest of the world.

There was an interview with a literary reviewer from the New York Times not too long ago, where the interviewer asked the critic why he thought the Harry Potter series was selling so many books. “Wish fulfillment,” the guy answered. He said the lead character could wave his wand and make things happen, and this is one of the primary fantasies of the human heart. As followers of Jesus, we must reject this idea in all its many forms, even if 9 out of 10 of the “Christian” bestsellers in America are about 3 easy steps to this or that, or 7 steps to our best life NOW.

So, how do we make our mark, how do we live as people being transformed? We center our lives on the defining reality of what God is doing to redeem this world. We recognize it is a relationship, and that in order to grow in this relationship, we must get to know God, and we get to know God by spending time with Him, and that’s more than just reading Scripture, its trusting God with our deepest and darkest secrets and struggles, our joys and blessings, its trusting each other, its working beside one another in this church with joy, its making this place where God is transforming lives a priority instead of a leisure time activity.

We speak the truth with our words AND our lives. We must remember this. The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Start today. This life is too short; don’t waste your life, don’t let me waste mine. Let’s treasure God here, let’s treasure one another…