So a few years back, two professors from Baylor University, wrote a book on how America viewed God himself. And essentially they did surveys of American's and American Christians and how they viewed God. They came up with 4 different variations on how people viewed God.
They either viewed him as - number 1, "An Authoritative God." Meaning that God's very judgemental, and very engaged in the world at the same time. Number 2, he's "A Benevolent God." A God who is thoroughly involved in everyday lives - yet is loving and not stern. 3, "A Critical God." A God who is removed from daily events, but renders a strong judgment in the afterlife. And number 4, "A Distant God." A God who set the world in motion, and then disengaged. These people tend to call themselves spiritual, but not religious.
So there you have it. An authoritative God, a benevolent God, a critical God and a distant God. This is how Americans view God himself. And I've got to tell you, how we view God matters. How we view God in our mind, absolutely matters.
AW Tozer said in his book, "The Knowledge of the Holy," "What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us." And then he continues by saying, "For this reason, the gravest question before the church is always God himself. And the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at any given time may say or do, but what he and his deep heart conceives God to be like. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God."
Therefore Gentlemen, how we view God in our mind matters. And therefore, renewing our mind is of gravest importance to us as men. So today, we're going to be looking at Romans 12 verses 1 through 3. These are probably verses that you know that are of critical importance to us in our walk of faith. Let me read these words to you.
They say, "I appeal to you, therefore brothers, by the mercies of God. To present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. Which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. By testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect for by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. But to think with sober judgment - each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned."
Now, I think these words here are profound and profoundly ordered. Paul here is trying to really get our attention. I can feel it from those first words there. "I appeal to you therefore." This is a major turning point in the book of Romans, where Paul is trying to woo us in. You feel the strength of his tone, the strength of his voice - as he's trying to help us to understand this spiritual life that we live.
And then he says, "Brothers." That's you and me, men. Brothers. "By the mercies of God." And so he's appealing to the character of God. He's calling us to present your bodies as a living sacrifice. I love that. There's a beautiful image here. It's that our bodies are a living sacrifice. Now you can feel the oxymoronic state of these 2 words coming together. "Living sacrifice." Because there is no such thing as a living sacrifice. I mean, that is a complete oxymoron.
But he's trying to get us to understand something from the past while reaching into the future. I hope you feel and sense it here. Sacrifices, gentlemen. Sacrifices were something that was first initiated by God in Genesis chapter 3, when God sacrificed the first animal to cover Adam and Eve's sin and their nakedness. And would find it's culmination in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
So God was the first person to offer a sacrifice, and the last person to offer a sacrifice on the face of this planet. At least one that works. And during those years between those 2 sacrifices, God was trying to teach us,and to emboss on our minds the critical nature of sacrifice. The power of sacrifice. That ssacrificeis offered in one time for our sins, right?
It's a time and a point when we sacrifice for the sins, and we're offering that sacrifice on behalf of our own sin. Whether we're conscious of it or not. And Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit was embedding the sacrificial system onto our mind. So it culminates for us in the life of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And Paul wants us to understand here that we carry that sacrificial system forward, But now it's a living sacrifice. It's you living daily in the sacrifice.
And it's your body that you sacrifice now. It's your physical being, it's all of your physical nature. Everything that you are, you're offering it to God. No longer in one moment in time, through a dove. No longer one moment in time through a lamb or a goat, or a bull. It's being offered through your life. Therefore God wants us to see the connection of continuing to live as a sacrifice before him. Living sacrifice. Not a dead sacrifice, a living sacrifice. And what we're sacrificing is our bodies.
And then he continues. "Holy and acceptable to God," which is your spiritual worship. If you want to know what worship is, it's something more than just a guy standing on stage playing a bass guitar in skinny jeans, right? It's so much more. The beauty of sacrifice takes us beyond that. It's actually offering our bodies to God on a daily, hourly, minute by minute, second by second basis. Where we're giving ourselves to him.
And then he continues. "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed." You feel the forming there, right? It's a form, shape change. We're no longer being conformed to this world, or shaped to this world. We are being transformed above form. Taking on new form. And how do we do it? How do we do it?
The renewal of your mind.
It happens in your mind. That we're renewing our mind. That's where this sacrifice happens. It happens in our mind. Moment by moment, second by second, day by day, hour by hour. That by testing, you may discern - now here's the process - you're testing, you're discerning what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
So what we're doing in the confines of our mind, is we're constantly putting to the test, the things of this life - over and over again. We're not just accepting that there is the truth that someone's telling to us. We're putting everything to the test. And we're discerning it against God's word, so that we can know the will of God - and things that are good, acceptable and perfect.
"For by the grace given to me, I say to every one of you not to think of himself more highly than he ought." Now he gives this caution here. Because he's trying to teach us humility. And he's trying to help us to understand that even though we're finding what is good, acceptable and perfect and God's will that we have to be cautious here. Because we can become intoxicated by our pride, right? Lack humility.
And therefore - therefore, we have to think with sober judgment. So we have to be soberly judging everything. Not just the things of this world, but our own heart, our own mind - each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
Now I think these words are beautiful. Because I think they teach us to be on the alert for truth. And that we've got to embed ourselves into the truth of God. Day by day, moment by moment, second by second, breath by breath. That means that we're alert and spiritually aware at all times.
And gentlemen, this is so hard to do, isn't it? To be in a constant state of renewing our mind. Just for a few minutes, I want to look at this from a medical perspective. Really a bio chemical perspective. To really understand how hard it is to renew the mind. So let's step back into time just a few years.
A few years ago, there was an episode of jeopardy, where they brought onto the show some of the greatest contestants who have ever played the game of Jeopardy. And I've got to tell you, these guys were phenom's that they brought on. But they were going to compete against the world's greatest super computer. That super computer was invented by IBM, and his name was Watson.
I you watch IBM commercials carefully, you'll see that they mention Watson every once in a while. But Watson was a super computer that weighed about 10 000 pounds at the time. Was comprised of over 700 servers, full of 8 core processors. So we're talking about a massive super computer, that was supposed to be as smart as the human mind.
Now, I've got to tell you - at the end of the show, essentially Watson won. Now there's a lot of debate about why Watson won, and was he essentially as smart as a human mind. But he is so different from the human brain.
Because you see, gentlemen - your human brain theoretically weighs 3 pounds and has a data capacity of about 1.25 terabytes. And it can perform functions at 100 teraflops per second. That's 100 trillion points of operation per second happening in your brain, if you're actually using it right now - it's functioning at a speed similar to that.
What's different between the brain and Watson, is number 1 - it's highly portable. Number 2, it experiences emotions. Number 3, it can rewire itself as it learns. And number 4, generally it is the most sophisticated piece of machinery ever known to man. I mean this brain that you carry around with you that theoretically, you're using right now, is a very, very sophisticated piece of machinery. Very different from Watson, of course.
Over the last few years, we've learned a lot about how it functions. And we're still learning some. But one of the things that we've learned about it's function, is that when the alarm center of the brain goes off - which is called the amygdala. It fires and releases adrenaline, and begins to communicate to the hippocampus neurons - through them, to the hypothalamus. And it's sending these message around our brain - and when it does, this alarm center goes off. It begins to cause an increase in the ventral medial prefrontal cortex. Which decreases the functioning of the dorsal lateral pre-frontal cortex.
Which essentially means this in human non-biological language. That when the alarm center of your brain goes off, your emotions and emergency responders begin to react. Which means that your ability to strategize and reason goes way down. Way down.
So in essence, when you sin - and everything is out of whack in your emotions and in your soul and in your spirit and in your mind - the ability for you to reason and function at your best goes way down. And when you are out of line with the truth, and you're conscious begins to grab hold and take a - control of your life, your functioning for reason is all out of whack. And gentlemen, I find this to be very interesting in light of Romans 12, verses 1 and 2.
I woke up early this morning. I was reading God's word through the Psalms. And there was a few moments as I was reading God's word, that captured my mind. Where I was convicted by something that maybe God wanted me to pray about or confess to him, or line up with his truth. This happened multiple times in my reading of Gods word today. And every time that happened, I turned immediately to prayer. Confessed those things, tried to realign my heart, my soul, my mind around God's truth.
And what's happening in that moment, is I'm renewing my mind around God's truth. Because God's truth allows the full functioning - not only of my mind, but my soul and my spirit. And when my life is aligned with his truth, then I am offering my body - which is the thing that wants to grab a hold of my life. And I am not conforming that body to the world, but I am transforming it by the renewal of the mind - to offer myself as a living sacrifice to God. That what's happening in those moments that I'm reading God's word, and I'm renewing my mind - is that I'm offering myself as living sacrifice. Holy, pleasing and acceptable to God. And I'm realigning myself with God's truth.
I think it's interesting that our mind is really out of whack and imbalanced when the alarm center of our brain, our conscious is overwhelming our ability to reason and strategize. Don't you find that interesting. Because maybe Paul is right. Maybe God is right about the best way to live life. That when we're living in truth, we are well balanced. We're living the best life that we can possibly live.
And that when we are not living in truth, and we're being disobedient - like Adam and Eve were in Genesis 3. And everything's out of whack, and fear begins to take hold. And shame begins to take hold, and blame begins to take hold. And because of that, our ability to reason and strategize goes down. And then we are no longer offering our bodies as a living sacrifice. We are actually worshiping the flesh. We're being conformed, rather than transformed.
Men, I think this is our challenge. I think this helps me to understand maybe more deeply, how God would prefer me to live my life as a living sacrifice. Gentlemen, my challenge to you today is this as an action item. To get your mind in front of God's word on a regular basis. And when you are convicted of sin - that you move quickly away from that sin, and you offer your body and your mind as a living sacrifice to God. Holy, pleasing, good and acceptable.
