Patterns
Notes
Transcript
So, brothers and sisters, because of God’s mercies, I encourage you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice that is holy and pleasing to God. This is your appropriate priestly service. Don’t be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you can figure out what God’s will is—what is good and pleasing and mature.
This week we start a sermon series on Romans 12 titled, get this, When in Romans XII.... I know it is a trendy title and so original, what can I say, I thought it all up myself. Don’t hold it against me. The series came about as I was reading the lectionary text for the week, which was Romans 12:1-8, and thought how those verses could be split into two sermons. Then I read the rest of chapter 12 and realized there were 4 sections that would make for a 4 week series.
For a little background regarding Romans. It is a letter, thought to be written by the apostle Paul to the church in Rome. Paul did not plant the church in Rome but felt the need to encourage them and help them through their journey with his letter. Paul’s letter to the Roman Christians was a very in depth letter and was sent to a church that was kinda split. Why do I say kinda split?
Well, the Roman church had Christian Jews and Christian Gentiles. The two groups really did not see each other as equals and felt Paul’s talking to either group was a turning of his back on the other group. The Christian Jews felt like the Gentiles were not able to be followers of God and the Gentiles felt like the Jews had fallen from God’s graces. This was all happening while the Roman government was going back and forth over what to do with Christians within the Empire.
The Roman Empire had exiled Jews and Christians at different times throughout the reign. Each emperor had a different feeling for the groups and Christians lived a life that was uneasy because of this. Christians in Rome lived a life of fear because for the most part, they were hunted and killed by the Empire. The reason for them being hunted and killed is because they refused to bow down to the emperor as their lord. For them, the only person they professed loyalty to was to Christ as their Lord. This worried the emperor that Christians would rise up against him.
Now you know the purpose of the writing and who Paul is writing to. The letter is an introduction for Paul to prepare the church for his arrival as he traveled from Jerusalem to Spain. Paul felt the importance to let them know who he was prior to his travel to Rome. He wanted to encourage the formation of disciples within the church.
Chapter 12 comes after Paul tells the church that all followers will be saved not just one group and he says “So, brothers and sisters, because of God’s mercies, I encourage you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice that is holy and pleasing to God.” Paul, is encouraging the people to focus on serving God to their fullest. A living sacrifice would mean to live a life that glorifies and honors God. Live a life that would please God through words and actions.
That all makes sense to us. What I want to focus on this morning is verse 2. “Don’t be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you can figure out what God’s will is-what is good and pleasing and mature.” This scripture is used a lot in Christianity today. I’ve seen a number of posts lately that imply this verse. It is interesting because in order to bring people to know Christ we must be part of the world set a part from the world to tell others of Christ.
One of the things that I and some of my pastor friends have been talking about deals directly with these verses. In fact, I had a RIM group meeting Monday and the person that facilitated the meeting hit on this without even talking about Romans 12:1-2. You’re probably sitting there saying, “what is that, Todd?”
Well, it is that we do not talk about the difficult topics in church any more. In fact, a friend posted a meme this week that basically said our society struggles to talk about politics or religion because it has been off limits in public discussions. This has made it difficult to have a conversation regarding these topics. The other thing it has caused is how we define stuff.
What I mean by this has caused a change in how we define stuff is how we look at things are tough issues. We always talk about not conforming to the world but we have allowed the world to conform us in the church without even realizing it. We have stopped talking about the tough issues because we are afraid of disagreements and discussions. It is a time to call that to an end.
Jesus did not avoid talking about the difficult stuff, so why should we. Why should we avoid talking about the tough stuff? The way we have stopped talking about the tough stuff in church is by saying these topics are political. We can talk about religion in the church but we tend to avoid politics in the church. Now, I will not talk about politics in the church but some things we have named as politics are actually church issues.
Many of you are probably thinking about one of those tough issues and your probably hoping that I am not going to actually talk about those issues. I am not but want you to think about the tough issues that we claim are politics in order to avoid them. One of the biggest ones right now is racism. The only thing I am going to say about this topic is that racism is not a political issue but a human rights issue, and the church must confront it in order to end it.
But, what does this have to do with Paul’s words? The way the church has allowed things to be deemed political is following the patterns of the world. Society does not want to talk about these things so they deem them political to keep others quite. The same thing has happened in the church. Issues are deemed political and when the pastor brings them up it is said the pastor is preaching a political agenda.
Why is this? Well, we are uncomfortable with talking about these concepts. Sometimes it is because we have underlying issues that we are dealing with or we know someone personally who is struggling with the issue. We hide from these issues because if we discuss them we risk being changed and humanity does not like the idea of change in any form, especially when it is ourself.
Friends, it is time that we stop conforming to the patterns of the world by avoiding the tough issues and to face them head on. As those who have been transformed by the words found within the scripture we are called to face the issues head on and to challenge anything that oppresses, outcasts, or marginalizes one of our sisters and brothers. Instead of conform, we must transform the patterns of the world to match the patterns of Jesus.