Monday, Oct.15

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Romans 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. 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.

I’m not exactly a history buff, but sometimes a little research into world history can produce a helpful illustration. So the other day I used the internet to search for a list of all the revolutions that have taken place throughout history.

I’m not sure what I expected, but I didn’t expect to find a list of more than 500 revolutions and rebellions over the last 2,500 years of human history.

Some I was aware of, like the American, French, and Bolshevik Revolutions.

Others I had never heard of; like the Taiping Rebellion in China between 1851 and 1864, called the second deadliest war in human history; or the Belgian Revolution of 1830; or the Batavian Rebellion against the Romans in Germania in the year 69 AD.

As I scanned through the overwhelming list, it struck me that revolutions are all about change. Someone or some group is unhappy with the way things are so they demand change; change in political freedoms or power; change in economic opportunity; change in leadership; and, ultimately, a change in their way of life.

Throughout this study of Romans (that we have called “Gospel Revolution”) we have been saying that the gospel is revolutionary because it is the good news of God that changes everything. But while the gospel can indeed result in change at the societal, cultural and even cosmic level; it is first about change at the personal level.

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Paul uses two words here that we need to understand.

The Greek word translated “conform” is suschematizo; which means to “assume a certain shape” as in Jello being shaped into a mold.

Paul is using this word to describe a human phenomenon that we see around us all the time; the pressure we all feel to “fit in” to our peer group, to live and look like the current trends and fashion of our culture tell us we are to look and live. But Paul is talking about more than fashion and materialism; he’s talking about the way we think, about what we believe, and how our experience of Christ is to shape who we are and how we live.

The second word, translated “be transformed,” is very interesting. Paul had two words to choose from: the word metaschematizo which carried the meaning of outward change, like someone changing their clothes or having your car repainted. And that word would have made sense because it is built from the same root word as the word Paul used for “conform” - suschematizo. But that’s not the word Paul uses! 

He uses the word metamorphoo (from which we get our English word “metamorphosis”), which carries the meaning of total change from the inside out. Furthermore, when used in the passive sense, as it is here, it means a transformation from the inside out that we cannot accomplish on our own, but is the result of another power at work in us.

So, while we often feel pressured to fit into the “pattern of this world” in terms of our external shape and appearance, the gospel seeks to transform us from the inside out.

Here’s how Paul says it in 2 Corinthians:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come. 2 Cor. 5:17

Jesus is not interested in making superficial changes to our lifestyle; in how we dress, in how we talk, in how often we go to church. Now all these things and more may eventually change dramatically, but those changes will come because Jesus is primarily interested in a transformation of the heart and mind that can only be called revolutionary!

Pastor Brian Coffey