Elevate To The Next Level: "Living In God’s Grace”

Elevate to the Next Level

“Living in God’s Grace”

Romans 12:2

Watch on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPkuUHYf1-c

Today, I’d like to share with you how we can live in God’s grace, and the only way we can is through His transforming grace. And so, the question arises, “How does God transform us by His grace?”

Before we begin, I’d like to share with you about Niccolò Paganini. Paganini was a gifted composer and violinist. One evening, he was playing before a packed house with a full orchestra behind him. During one of the songs, one of the strings snapped and dangled down the side. But instead of stopping, Paganini continued to play on. Soon, another string snapped, followed by another until there was only one string left. But Paganini continued to play without missing a beat.

When he finished, the crowd gave him a standing ovation. Paganini then held his violin up high and said, “Paganini and one string,” and played a full encore performance on one string.

Sometimes we focus too much on the dangling strings in our lives. These strings symbolize life's unavoidable events, like sickness, layoffs, economic downturns, accidents, and the death of loved ones, to name a few.

So, what is an inevitability? Inevitabilities are those things we have no control over and do not choose; they just happen, and there’s nothing we can do about them.

Instead, what we have to do is play the one string we have left. And the only way we can do this is through God’s transforming grace.

The Bible talks about transformation, like when the Apostle Paul said, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” (Romans 12:2 NKJV)

Paul is talking about a change that takes place in everyone’s life.

First, he tells us not to be conformed, which means a change that happens from the outside in, like how the landscape changes due to weather. Here, Paul is telling us not to let the outside world change us into its image.

Instead, Paul says that we are to be transformed, which is an inside-out change. To understand what this really means, we can think back to our grade school biology experiment when the teacher placed a caterpillar in a glass case with branches and leaves.

In a few days, the caterpillar spun its cocoon, and in a couple of weeks, it would come out as a beautiful butterfly. It’s the process known as metamorphosis.

That’s what transformation is, it’s a metamorphosis, a change from the inside out; it’s like stepping into God’s cocoon of grace and being changed in a new creation in Christ Jesus.

And, like a caterpillar’s metamorphosis, our transformation takes some time, but specific steps need to take place for the transformation to happen.

Readjust Our Attitudes

In our verse, it states that we are transformed by the renewing of our minds. To the Philippian church, Paul explains that this transformed mind should be the same as the mind, thought process, and attitude that Jesus had.

“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5 NJKV)

And then in verses six and seven, he talked about what this overall mind set or attitude looks like saying, “Who (Jesus)being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.” (Philippians 2:6-7 NKJV)

Jesus is God, but His attitude was one of humility, coming as a slave, or bondservant, and not as a king or master.

And so, Paul tells us to have the same mindset, or to be like-minded, that is, not allowing things like ambition or conceit to rob us of God’s joy. And he says that this was the mindset and attitude that Jesus possessed.

Our attitude has a lot to do with how we view and live this life of grace. To change into the image of Jesus Christ, we need to have a transformation, and this transformation begins with our attitude and what we choose to put into our minds. (Now, in our next-to-last teaching in our series, I’ll deal with this in greater detail.)

There’s a story about two construction workers who sat down to lunch. One opened his lunch box and angrily said, “I can’t believe it! Baloney again! That’s the fourth time this week, and I hate baloney sandwiches.”

His friend replied, “Take it easy, just tell your wife to fix something else.”

“Wife,” said the first, “I fix my own lunches.”

Attitudes have a lot to do with what we put into our minds and lives, and most of the baloney we allow in, we put in ourselves. Our attitudes are outward expressions of what we’re inwardly feeling. In fact, we don’t have to say a thing; our attitude says it for us.