Be Transformed Series

Read passage and pray.

For the month of January, we’re preaching on the theme of Collide. The idea is that the ways of God often collide with the ways of the world. How do we conduct ourselves to align with God and point the world to Him? Last week, Jeff shared how to stand firm, today, I’ll be sharing how to be transformed.

When my daughter Hannah, saw the scripture for today, she leaned over to tell me how she remembers this verse as the theme for when we were first starting with the youth group here. Our logo had the face of a Transformer, edited to include a cross on his face to remind our young people that we need to be transformed to be more like Christ.

When I think of the idea of transformation, my mind goes to the home makeover shows that my family likes to watch. There are several where these people buy these rundown houses at auction so they can flip them. Throughout the episode, we’re shown the various obstacles they run into as they often tear the building down to the studs and transform it into a beautiful home into which people can’t wait to move.

I don’t often get the opportunity to brag on my sister Kelly. She’s the wife of a preacher in Illinois, works with the school district, and in her free time, between getting her teens to their events, she takes on painting jobs in people’s homes. She does a great job and regularly posts the before and after pictures of the transformation that takes place with her work. So how are we transformed?

You’ll notice that our passage begins with a “therefore”. As Dave Broad shared in communion last week, I also learned in Bible college that when you see the word “therefore” you need to look to see what it’s “there for”. To do so, we need to look at the end of Romans 11, particularly verse 36 (read)- the Him is referring to God. This verse establishes the foundation for why we need transformation. All things are from God, all things are through God, all things are to God. God is the Creator, God is the Sustainer, God is the Glory. Paul’s words in Romans 12 give us the response to this fact, the therefore.

Paul begins with the result of the transformation. We need to present our bodies as living sacrifices. Because God is all these things, we should present ourselves as a sacrifice for Him. Read Hebrews 10:3. The author is referring to the annual sacrifice made by the Jewish high priest for the people of Israel under the Old Covenant. God introduced this idea of the scapegoat in Leviticus 16. He gave instruction for the high priest to take two goats, one he offered on the altar as an atonement for sin, the other he laid his hands on its head, prayed, then sent it off into the wilderness to carry away the sins of Israel. But this had to be repeated every year.

Read Hebrews 10:10. In contrast to the Old Covenant, this verse tells us that under the New Covenant, the sacrifice of Christ atoned for sin once and for all. All sin in the past, present, and future was forgiven when Jesus died on the cross and resurrected three days later. We no longer have to offer animals on an altar to pay for our sins. Our sins are already forgiven, we simply have to go to God in prayer and confess our sins for forgiveness.

Instead, we now offer our bodies as living sacrifices. What is a living sacrifice? It’s the good works or deeds that we do to help people so that they can see the love of Christ. Now, let me clarify something here. We don’t do these good works to earn God’s approval, but to show gratitude for the love He already gives us. This topic actually came up in our youth group meeting this week. I asked our teens how many of them have a mother. Of course, they all raised their hand. I then asked them if their mother has ever asked them to do something they’d really rather not do. With a few groans, most of them kept their hands up. So I point out, while it may take a while, eventually you go and do it, why? It’s because you love her and want her to know it. It’s the same way with God- you do good things, not to earn His love, but to show Him your love for Him.

Let me put it this way. All other world religions spell out achieving salvation, whatever that means to them, in terms of D-O do. You have to do enough good to outweigh your bad to reach the next level. Christianity spells out achieving salvation D-O-N-E done. Christ has already done all the work, you simply accept what was done for you and live accordingly.