Romans 12:1-21
“Total Transformation”
By: Ken Sauer, PAstor of East Ridge United Methodist Church, Chattanooga, TN
eastridgeumc.org
Our media saturated culture tends to value our bodies according to how they look.
Do we have “buns of steel?”
Are we able, without causing an entire room full of people to roll on the floor in hysterics, to refer to our arm muscles as “guns”?
Have we got “6-pack abs?”
It doesn’t take but a couple of seconds on a crowded beach to quickly figure out that almost none of us have a body which fits some “cookie-cutter template” for so-called beauty.
So when Paul says to us, “offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship…” it can come as a revelation to us to think that our bodies could be acceptable to anyone, let alone God.
But this is a revelation and also a reminder that the beauty of our bodies lies in what they were made to do, which is to connect us with others.
Think about it.
Vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell—these are all relational abilities.
And Christianity, and thus life is about relationship—relationship with God and relationship with others!!!
One of the most important things that we Christians need to get our minds around—and one of the things that will have the most immediate and long lasting impact on the way we live as followers of Jesus—is the call to live as different members of a single Body!!!
A colleague talks about Michael, a faithful member of his congregation for years.
Michael was a quiet man who didn’t really have any desire to serve in positions of leadership within the church.
One day, Michael, only in his fifties, died a sudden death that shocked the congregation.
And in the weeks that followed Michael’s death, the congregation seemed to be a bit “ragged” around the edges.
Much of this “frayed” feeling came due to grief, but there was another reason for it as well.
Things just weren’t getting done.
People would arrive at the church and realize that there wasn’t any coffee.
The ushers would reach for the offering plates and realize that they weren’t there.
Small thing after small thing fell through the cracks.
Why?
Because Michael had always done them!
These tasks didn’t appear on any list anywhere because they had always “magically” happened, quietly, with no one having to think about them.
My colleague says, “Now we have to think about them, list them, and assign them.”
Michael may have had no idea how vital his simple actions were to the healthy functioning of the congregation.
“Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”
We, you and I, are One Body!!!
We aren’t a conglomeration of individuals vying for power and importance; we are One Body.
If we are separate, we are just fragments, but together—together we are whole!!!
This is what Paul had in mind when he gave us this image of the Church.
“You are like a body. Every part of you is important.
And every body part plays its role in the body’s total health.”
If one part fails, the entire body suffers.
What part are you?
Are you performing your task?
Some of the things that Paul lists in Romans Chapter 12 include serving, teaching, encouraging, helping others, financial giving, showing mercy…
…and obviously this is not an exhaustive list.
It could go on and on and on!!!
Are you doing what God is calling you to do?
There really is no such thing as Scriptural Christianity outside the realms of the Church.
That means, that Christianity happens within the congregation…
…working together, living with, and worshiping with other Christians.
That doesn’t mean that Christianity only happens on Sunday morning, but it does mean that it happens in relationship with Christ and other people.
“Present your bodies to God,” Paul says.
And what Paul means by that is present your entire lives to God!!!
Your body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit and the instrument through which the Holy Spirit works.
And on a larger scale, the Body of Christ is the Ultimate instrument through which the Holy Spirit works!
“So,” Paul says, “take your body; take everything you are and everything you do…
…take all the tasks that you have to do every day; take your work at the office or the factory; take your work at school or at home and offer all that as an act of worship to God.”
Real worship is offering every moment of every day to God!
We might say, “I am going to church to worship God,” and that is good and right.
We should also be able to say, “I am going to the factory, the office, the garage, the garden, the school to worship God!!!”
And this requires a radical change!!!
We must not be conformed to the world, but transformed from it!!!
With Christ in our lives we are new people, new creations; our minds are becoming different because the mind of Christ is in us!!!
And the mind of Christ is the mind of a compassionate and humble Servant Who has come to preach Good News to the poor and set the captives free!
It is the mind which befriends the homeless, the beggar, the outcaste, the marginalized, the lost, the lonely.
It is the mind which treats all people equally.
In 1 Corinthians Chapter 2 Paul talks about so-called “worldly wisdom” versus “godly wisdom.”
And he quotes the prophet Isaiah with this wonderful promise, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him”…
…but then he goes on: “but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit,” and he finishes out the chapter by saying “we have the mind of Christ.”
Yes, fellow members of the Body of Christ, “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.”
And how can we do that…
…how could we even dream of being able to do that outside the community of faith, outside the study of God’s Word, outside of relationship with God and neighbor?
Left to our own devices, we humans are dominated by human nature at its lowest; in Christ, we live a life dominated by Christ and the Holy Spirit!!!
Talk about radical transformation!!!
Victor Frankl, Swiss psychologist in a Nazi death camp during World War 2, concluded from his research that those who survived the horrors of the camps were those people who had something for which to live—that is, something beyond themselves that gave them strength each day.
Just think!
As members of Christ’s Body, we really are essential movers in what God is doing.
We really do have an exciting adventure as we live to discover our unique place in God’s plan.
And we discover our place by doing!!!
In our Scripture Lesson Paul instructs us that “Love must be sincere.”
The word “Love” in this sense is an
“action word.”
We see the results of it, only by doing our part in the Body of Christ!
Is our love sincere?
The answer lies in the fruit of what we do, no matter how great or how small.
There’s a story about a young boy who so desperately wanted a part in his third-grade play.
He told his mother about this and she realized that, in all honesty, he wasn’t likely to be given the part.
So, being a good mother, on the day when the parts were announced, she made sure to be at school in order to cheer up her son after what she strongly suspected was going to be a sad experience.
But to her surprise, the boy came out of the doors of the school with a great big smile on his face and bursting with pride.
Before the mother could say a word, the boy announced, “I made it! I’ve been chosen to clap and cheer!!!”
And you know, that is truly one of the most important jobs of all.
Paul tells us in verse 10 that we are to “be devoted to one another in brotherly love,” and that we are to, “Honor one another above ourselves.”
How many of us really do that?
How would the Church be different if we all did this?
I mean listen to this list:
We are to “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”
We are to “Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.”
We are to “Bless those who persecute” us; “bless and do not curse.”
Paul instructs us, “Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.”
I don’t have to tell you that one of the hardest and most difficult things in all the earth is to get along with other people.
To love and accept one another, warts, sins, failings and all really is the puzzle piece which makes this life complete.
It is the answer to the mystery!
We cannot actively love God and harbor anger and hatred in our hearts at the same time.
The two just don’t work together.
You can’t have both!
And so we have a choice.
We have been offered the mind of Christ!!!
And this is the Christ Who prayed for the forgiveness of those who were banging nails through His hands and feet, spitting in His face, hanging Him on the Cross to die the most horrible of deaths!!!
Some of the times we get the most angry is when we feel we have been wronged when we have done nothing to deserve it.
Think about Jesus, think about Jesus.
You are a part of His Body, and so is every believer in this Church!!!
And the outside world needs to experience the forgiveness and the love that comes from the Body of Christ more than anything else.
And the only way to live Christ’s Love and to be totally transformed by the renewing of your mind is to “not be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good.”
May it be so.
Amen.
