The world is pressing you into its mold — and it never asks permission. Paul's answer is not mere escape but metamorphosis: a mind renewed until you resemble Christ.
Who is shaping you — the world or God? In this exposition of Romans 12:1–2, Dr. Toby B. Holt shows that everyone is being molded by something. The world presses believers toward its priorities, attitudes, and appetites, while God is at work remaking His people in the image of His Son. Paul's answer to that contest is one of the most consequential commands in the New Testament: “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2, NKJV).
Dr. Holt begins with the Nazirites of Numbers 6 — Samson, Samuel, and the spirit of John the Baptist — men visibly set apart from their culture. Yet he presses further: nonconformity by itself is not the goal of the Christian life. It is not enough to shake a fist at the culture or merely avoid sin; separation must be yoked to transformation into Christlikeness.
From verse 1, he traces the great “therefore” that pivots Romans from doctrine to duty, and asks what kind of sacrifice God actually accepts. Cain's offering, the blemished lambs of Malachi's day, the idol-crowded temple of Ezekiel's — Scripture is full of sacrifices God rejected because hearts were far from Him. Since Christ's once-for-all sacrifice fulfilled every type and shadow, believers now offer something different: themselves, a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.
Finally, Dr. Holt turns to the means of transformation. Like a ball bearing suspended between two magnets, we live between competing pulls — and because sin has darkened our minds, renewal comes only as our thinking is saturated with the truth of God's Word. Listeners will leave with a clear, searching question: God has already begun the work of regeneration; what will you do — intentionally, this week — to be renewed, transformed, and made more like Christ?
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To be conformed is to be pressed into the world's mold — to absorb its priorities, attitudes, appetites, and behaviors until you are indistinguishable from it. Dr. Holt pictures the believer as a ball bearing suspended between two magnets: God and the world both exert a real pull, and even when nothing appears to move, both forces are acting. The world celebrates whatever affirms itself and punishes whatever does not, so conformity is always the path of least resistance. Paul commands Christians to reject that pull and to be shaped instead by God through a renewed mind.
Under the old covenant, worshipers brought dead animals whose blood pointed forward to Christ, the Lamb of God. Since His once-for-all sacrifice fulfilled everything those types and shadows anticipated, believers no longer bring an offering — they become one. To present your body a living sacrifice is to hand over the whole of yourself — affections, attitudes, habits, time, and behavior — to God, continually. Practically, Dr. Holt says, it means cutting off what is unholy and giving God your best rather than your leftovers, because the worshiper himself is now the offering that is to be made holy and acceptable.
Not by willpower or self-improvement techniques. Paul locates transformation in the mind: as thinking is renewed by truth, the life is reshaped. Dr. Holt's prescription is saturation in Scripture — reading, meditating, studying, and applying the one book that is entirely true — until we begin to see and value things as God does. The Bible does not script every left or right turn in life, but it contains the principles by which every decision should be made; and the more our decisions flow from those principles, the more Christlike we become. This requires intentionality: a deliberate resolve to be in the Word, beginning now, not someday.
The noetic effect of sin is the Fall's corrupting impact on the human mind. We readily admit that sin brings disease, aging, and death to the body, yet imagine our minds remain neutral free agents capable of reasoning their way to truth. Scripture says otherwise: fallen minds are forgetful, easily deceived, and bent away from God from birth. That is why Romans 12:2 commands the renewing of the mind — the intellect itself needs restoring by God's truth, not merely more information. Recognizing this humbles our confidence in unaided reason and drives us back to the Word as the instrument of renewal.
The Nazirites of Numbers 6 — Samson, Samuel, and later the spirit of John the Baptist — were visibly set apart, their outward signs testifying to inward dedication. Groups like the Amish and various monastic movements have pursued similar separation, and Dr. Holt grants that nonconformity is good and even biblical. But it is not the end goal. It is not enough to shake a fist at the culture or merely avoid sin; Romans 12 yokes nonconformity to something positive — transformation into the likeness of Christ. Holiness is finally defined not by what we abstain from but by whom we increasingly resemble.
Paul grounds his appeal in “the mercies of God” — everything unfolded in Romans 1–11. Dr. Holt recounts them: God formed you, placed people in your life, sustained you with food and shelter, gave you His written Word, forgave your ongoing rebellion, purchased you at the cost of His own Son's blood, gave you His Spirit, and set you in a church community. In light of all that, whole-life consecration is simply the rational, fitting response. Reasonable service is not payment for grace — grace cannot be repaid — but the sane answer of a redeemed heart to mercy of that magnitude.
God refused Cain's offering; through Malachi He rebuked worshipers bringing blemished animals instead of their best; in Ezekiel's day the temple sacrifices continued while idols stood in its courts, and God hated the whole spectacle. The common thread is worship that goes through the motions while the heart is far from Him. Jesus gives the sobering New Testament counterpart in Matthew 7: many will recite their religious activities on the last day and hear, “I never knew you; depart from Me” (NKJV). God does not measure a life by its catalog of church activities but by the degree to which it resembles His Son — which is exactly what Romans 12:1–2 calls for.
Regeneration is God's sovereign, once-for-all act of new birth: He takes out the heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh, as promised in Ezekiel 36 — a work He performs alone, for His own purposes. Sanctification is the lifelong renewal that follows. The Westminster Shorter Catechism (Q. 35) describes sanctification as the work of God's free grace by which we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God and enabled more and more to die to sin and live to righteousness. Dr. Holt captures the relationship simply: God has already started the transformation, and He now calls you to work with Him — intentionally — in the renewing of your mind.
John Murray, longtime professor of systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary, treats these verses in his commentary The Epistle to the Romans as the great hinge from doctrine to duty: the entire exhortation rests on the mercies of God set forth in chapters 1–11, so that Christian obedience is always a response to grace, never a means of earning it. Murray also stresses that the transformation Paul commands is progressive — an ongoing renewal of the mind rather than a one-time crisis — and that believers are genuinely active in this consecration. Dr. Holt's sermon moves along the same lines: indicative before imperative, and sanctification pursued deliberately by a mind being renewed in God's Word.
Yes — Dr. Holt is blunt that it certainly will. The world celebrates what affirms itself; refuse its appetites and it will call you a prude, demean your convictions, and cost you friendships and standing. But that rejection is often evidence you are doing something right. And the cost purchases something: a visibly transformed life proves — puts on display before a watching world — “what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:2, NKJV). Holiness that costs nothing testifies to nothing; holiness that costs something demonstrates to everyone watching that Christ is real and worth more than the world's approval.
1. The Great “Therefore”: Grace Before Duty
Romans 11 ends in doxology, and Romans 12 opens with “therefore.” Dr. Holt shows that this single word is the hinge of the whole epistle: eleven chapters of what God has done give way to what believers are now to do. And Paul does not merely command — he beseeches “by the mercies of God.” Dr. Holt pauses to recount those mercies: God formed you and purposed your existence, placed people in your life, sustained you with food and shelter across years and decades, gave you His written Word, forgave your ongoing rebellion, purchased you not from some heavenly treasury but at the cost of His own Son's blood, indwelt you by His Spirit, and set you in a church community so you would not walk through this world alone. This is the Reformed grammar of the Christian life: the indicative grounds the imperative. Obedience never earns grace; it answers grace. That is why consecration is called “your reasonable service” — the only rational response to mercy of this magnitude.
2. A Living Sacrifice: The Worship God Accepts
Scripture is full of sacrifices God refused. He rejected Cain's offering at the very start; through Malachi He rebuked worshipers who brought blemished animals instead of their best; in Ezekiel's day the sacrifices kept running while idols stood in the temple courts, and God hated it. The common thread was not merely wrong ritual but hearts far from Him — worship reduced to going through the motions. Jesus issues the same warning in Matthew 7: many will recite their religious activities on the last day and hear, “I never knew you; depart from Me” (NKJV). Dr. Holt presses this into Romans 12:1. Since Christ's once-for-all sacrifice fulfilled every type and shadow the dead animals pointed to, the believer's offering is no longer something external — we offer ourselves, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God. That means cutting off the affections, attitudes, and behaviors we know are wrong, and giving God our best rather than our leftovers. God's assessment of a life is not its catalog of activities but the degree to which it resembles His Son.
3. Nonconformity Is Not the Goal — Christlikeness Is
The sermon opens with the Nazirites of Numbers 6 — men like Samson and Samuel, visibly set apart by vow, whose outward signs testified to inward dedication. Church history offers its own versions of the impulse: monastic movements and communities like the Amish that treat separation from the world as the substance of holiness. Dr. Holt affirms what is right here — nonconformity is good, even biblical — but insists it is not the end game of the Christian walk. It is not enough to shake a fist at the culture or simply avoid sin; separation must be yoked to positive transformation. Paul's word pictures metamorphosis, and Dr. Holt reaches for the caterpillar and the butterfly: the believer is not called to remain a cleaner version of what he was, but to become something gloriously different. And this will cost. The world celebrates what affirms itself and demeans those who refuse its appetites. Yet holy living proves — displays before a watching world — what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
4. The Renewing of the Mind: Fallen Cognition and the Word's Remedy
Why must the mind be renewed? Because something is wrong with it. Dr. Holt names the noetic effect of sin: the Fall corrupted not only our bodies, which age and fail, but our cognition. The mind is not a neutral free agent that weighs truth objectively; it is forgetful, easily deceived, and bent away from God from birth. Renewal, then, is not sharpening the brain with puzzles but re-forming thought by truth — saturating the mind in the one book that is wholly true, until we see and value what God sees and values. The Bible will not script every decision, but it supplies the principles by which every decision should be made. And this renewal sits within the Reformed order of grace: God has already sovereignly begun the work in regeneration, replacing the heart of stone with a heart of flesh as He promised in Ezekiel 36. Now He calls His people to work with Him in sanctification — deliberately, intentionally, starting this week — so that the transformation becomes visible to spouse, children, and a watching world.
About The Speaker: Dr. Toby Holt serves as the third President of New Geneva Theological Seminary (Colorado Springs, CO), founded 1993. An expository preacher with over 1.9 million sermon downloads on SermonAudio.com, Dr. Holt brings over 17 years of pastoral experience to his verse-by-verse Bible teaching. New Geneva offers fully online, Westminster Confessional theological education — M.Div., Th.M., D.Min., and other degrees.
Summary. Dr. Toby Holt expounds Romans 12:1–2, the great “therefore” where Paul turns from eleven chapters of Gospel doctrine to the Christian's duty. Beginning with the Nazirites of Numbers 6, he shows that separation from the world is good but is not the goal — believers are called beyond nonconformity to transformation into the likeness of Christ. He surveys the sacrifices God rejected, from Cain's offering to the blemished lambs of Malachi's day, to press home what it means to present yourself a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. Because sin has darkened the mind, that transformation comes only through the renewing of the mind — intentional saturation in the truth of God's Word, working with the God who has already begun the work in regeneration.
As Christians, we believe that God is at work fashioning and refining us. We believe that He is remaking us in His own image. However, the world is trying to do the same thing. The world is trying to conform us to its own ways, to have worldly priorities, attitudes, and behaviors. Well, in Romans 12, the Apostle Paul says that we are not to let that happen. We are not to be conformed to this world, but are to be transformed through the renewing of our minds.
Earlier this morning, we heard a Scripture reading from the book of Numbers. Specifically, Brian read from Numbers chapter 6, and what he read was about a group called the Nazarites. Now, what do you know about the Nazarites? Give me one famous Nazarite. Who? Samson. All right, that's a good call. If you remember early on in Scripture, especially there in the book of Numbers, you find that a group of individuals, a sect, so to speak, with an intention to live and to act and operate in holy ways that were different than what the rest of their culture was doing.
And so in Numbers chapter 6, as Brian read, you see that the Nazarites, they lived in ways that were different. They had behaviors that were different. They did things that others did not do, and they didn't do other things that others did do. This is a separation. In fact, that's what the word Nazir even means. It means to separate. Now, practically speaking, how would you recognize a Nazirite? Well, how did you recognize Samson apart from his prodigious strength? The hair was one of the main ways. They didn't let a razor touch their head or their beards. They also abstained from alcohol. They abstained from touching a dead body of any kind, including animals. They had a number of outward signs that spoke to everyone around them about their inward convictions. You see, it's not that long hair or short hair by itself makes you holy per se. However, these sort of behaviors spoke to a separation and a holiness and a dedication to God in the face of what anyone else in the world around you might be doing. So Samson is a familiar Nazirite. There were others. Samuel was dedicated.
Remember Samuel? He was dedicated as a Nazirite from his birth. And even when you go into the New Testament, there were individuals who operated as Nazirites. John the Baptist is an example of someone who operated as an ascetic, as a Nazirite. He was someone who was not confused with the rest of the world around him. He absolutely lived set apart. Luke 115 said John would be great in the side Lord. He would neither drink wine or strong drink. He had the Spirit of a Nazirite even if he was not formerly one. So Nazirites, Nazirites were those who were set apart from the world. They lived in holy ways. Now in our day and age, it goes without saying there's not a lot of Nazirites or even people who attempt to live as Nazarites do.
But there are within greater Christendom, within the greater visible church, there have been sects, both past and present, who attempt to live in ways that are different from the world around them. And you think of any groups that do that in present-day North America, you might come up with the Amish or example, mennonites and the like. There are groups that see nonconformity as very desirable. There are groups that see nonconformity even as scriptural based on what we see here in this text.
And that's good. Nonconformity is good. However, it can be taken in ways that depart from the scriptural teaching. The Amish, for example, will avoid buttons and electricity and all those different things. That's not really what God was teaching. But there are some, past, present, and future, monastics and others, who think that you have to absolutely flee from everything in the world in order to honor what Romans 12 verses 1 and 2 say.
For what it's worth, nonconformity is not the end goal here. You see, it's not enough to raise up Christians who will stand there and shake their fists at culture or shake their fists at politicians or shake their fists at whatever. Now, we can do that, and a lot of times we're given every good reason to do it. We have a lot of reason as Christians to shake our fist at a lot of nonsense going on in the world around us.
Absolutely. And we have a lot of reason to step back and say, ah, that's not for me. Absolutely. But nonconformity is not the end game of your Christian walk. What is? Well, here, here we see in Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, we see that nonconformity is desirable, but it's to be yoked with something called renewing your mind. It's not enough to be cut off from that which is wicked. You are supposed to be conformed to that which is Christ-like.
You see the difference? It's not enough to say, I'm going to avoid that sin. What we're called to do is to avoid that sin, but also to embrace the personal work of Jesus Christ and to be more like Him. So in Romans 12, verses 1 and 2, just two verses, there is a wealth, there is a depth of theology that speaks to this idea that we are all called to be holy, not just in what we believe, because that's the easier part, not just holy in our theology, that's simpler, not just holy in our orthodoxy, but also holy in our orthopraxy, in what we do with it. And that's the great transition to the imperatives that begins in Romans 12, verses 1 and 2. All right, I'm going to go ahead and reread verse 1 for us briefly, then we'll study it, and then we'll move on to see verse 2. So verse 1 says this, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. All right. If you were to go one chapter back at the very end of chapter 11, you would see that chapter 11 ended with a doxology. Well, here we have this transition, and we know it's a transition because of the word therefore. Paul has told his audience what they are to believe, what they are to understand about the Gospel, and now it's therefore. Now it's here's what you are supposed to do with it. So he makes this pivot to the imperative. So what is the imperative?
If this is the pivot, the demarcation line between that which he was teaching before and that which we're supposed to do with it now, what are we supposed to do? Well, here in verse 1, we see this much at the outset. We see that we are to present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God. You know, there are a lot of sacrifices in the Bible. There's a lot of sacrifices in the Old Testament. But guess what? God didn't like a whole lot of them.
Can you give me an example of a sacrifice God didn't like? Did someone say Cain? Yeah, start right from the get-go. You got two brothers. They both offer different things. God likes one of the sacrifices. He liked the motivations, the heart, the intentions of one of those who was performing the sacrifice, but not necessarily the other. Now that continued, whether you're talking about Saul or whether you're just talking about the sacrifices during the age of guys like ezekiel and the like. They had all manner of sacrifices going on in the temple for centuries
and centuries. But for huge swaths of that time, God looked down upon those sacrifices and the smell of it rose up to his nostrils like a stench. Why? It was not because they were offering the wrong animals, although they did do that. In the book of Malachi, God got on them. He says, come on guys. I said, give me the good stuff, the first fruits, the best of what you have. You're giving me the three-legged, lazy-eyed, buck-toothed lambs or what you throw up here on the altar. He says, you're regularly giving me that which is bad.
So sometimes it was a function of that which was bad. And other times they gave them the right stuff, but their hearts were gone. Their hearts weren't into it. They were doing it just out of compulsion or out of habit. Or, God forbid, they would march on in with a sacrifice to Yahweh, a sacrifice to Jehovah, and then march right down the street and honor the pagan gods of their neighbors. In the days of Ezekiel, that's exactly what was going on.
God hated it. God gave vision to Ezekiel and says, come see what's going on in my temple. And he shows them all the drawings and all the false gods they'd propped up right there in the temple court. Yards. Now, they still had sacrifices. They were still sacrificing. At 10,000 feet, you'd see the guys in the tall pointy hats sacrificing lambs and goats. And if you looked at it, you'd say, all right, they're doing what they're supposed to do. Wrong. God looked at that same stuff and He says, I hate it. They're going through the motions. They're doing some of that which I prescribed, and yet they're doing it with a heart that is far from me. Some sacrifices stink. Some sacrifices amount to nothing in the eyes of God. So what do we see here? God says that you and I, we no longer go to a temple in Jerusalem in order to lay down our fatted calf.
We no longer go someplace, make a pilgrimage somewhere to slay an animal on our behalf. Rather, we do something better. We don't offer a dead animal. We offer a living us. Romans 12, verses 1 and 2 talk about us as the sacrifice. Fortunately, it's not a mortal sacrifice. Fortunately, it's a living sacrifice. In verse 1, what does Paul say? He says, this is a wonderful transition. In the economy of God, we have done away with the signs and shadows and types that all pointed to Jesus Christ. Every dead animal that was ever slain in the Old Testament pointed forward to Jesus Christ, the Lamb, the Lamb of God who was slain for us all, right? So we're no longer in that economy where we're slaying the animals with the idea that we need to do that. Once and for all, Christ's sacrifice accomplished everything that those things pointed forward to. With that said, we still approach God when we worship Him with sacrifice in mind. I hope when you come into church, you see that sacrifice is part of it. We usually go, how? How is that supposed to work?
Well, that's because we've strayed so far sometimes from Romans 12, verses 1 and 2. you and I are to be living sacrifices, holy sacrifices. Verse 1 said, by the mercies of God, I beseech you. He says, I beseech you. He says, please get this right. Please don't miss what I'm about to tell you. I beseech you. I'm begging of you. I'm pleading with you. By the mercies of God, present yourself, present your body, present the you-ness of you to God, holy.
Present your body as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God. Not as the three-legged, buck-toothed, lazy-eyed lamb that they used to give in the days past. Not as an afterthought, not as seconds, you know, seconds to God. But give him your best, and by giving him your best, you're refining yourself because you are the sacrifice. What that means, practically speaking, is cut off all the stuff that ain't holy. If there's affections and behaviors and attitudes and emotions and things you've been doing that you know are wrong, that you know you shouldn't do, what God is saying is if you want to present yourself to me, get rid of these things. If your left hand stands, cut it off. The idea is that we are willing to separate that which we shouldn't do so that we might be more Christ-like. We cut off that which we shouldn't engage in so that we might better resemble his son. So we present ourselves to him wholly. For many of us, we're happy just to present ourselves at all. I was
there. I was at church. I went to church, you know, not every week, but most of the time. I did this, I did that, right? God's going to have all sorts of people who are going to come to Him and say that. Matthew 7 says on that great day, there's going to be all sorts of people who are going to come and say, Lord, didn't I do this? Didn't I do that? Didn't I do these other things for you? What's He going to tell them? Depart from me. I never knew you. I never knew you. You thought you were sacrificing something for me? Come on, man. You thought you did those things? It was never about doing those things. It was about you being different. It was about you cutting off the sins. It's about you being more like my son. When I see you, I see someone who went through the motions. I see someone who did some activities. What I don't see is Christ in you. Newsflash, at the end of time, no matter what it is that you've ever done, no matter what activities your life has pursued, no matter what your vocation has been, no matter how you've been used, a little or a lot in the kingdom of God, none of that's going to be the basis on which God looks at you. God looks at you and assesses you even now with this in mind, to what extent, to what degree does this Son or daughter resemble my son, Jesus Christ? To what extent does this individual reflect my son?
Not all the things that you did, not all the motions that you go through. To what degree are we more Christ-like? That's the focus. That's the function. That's the aim of the Christian walk. Whether God gives you 10 years, 50 years, 100 years to pursue it, that's the aim. That's the objective, and that's what we see here. I beseech you, Paul says. He says, please get this, which is why I'm talking passionately, because I want to try to reflect some of his passion.
It's like he's grabbing the early church by the lapel, shaking them, saying, I beseech you, I beg of you, get this right, if you don't get anything else right. Jesus died. He didn't stay dead. He rose. He sits at the right hand of God the Father, and your reasonable service, your reasonable response, is to make your life more holy, more like the guy who saved you. But so often we're content to go through the motions.
I'd say I checked off this list I did these things you know seem to satisfy my spouse my father my pastor whoever but that's not the metric the metric is this do we have faith in Jesus Christ and through that faith through the regenerative work that God has started in us are we becoming more Christ-like day by day are we living sacrifices devoted to him and the end verse one says amen this is reasonable service reasonable that's a nice way of saying if God has done all that for you, if he has saved you, if he's purchased you back from sin and death, don't you think, don't you think that today or maybe this week when you go out in the world, that you could be a little more like his son, the guy who saved you? Wouldn't that be reasonable?
Let's briefly recap, just for a few moments, let's recap some of the things God has done for you, just to remember what a reasonable service might be. Number one, he formed you, he made you. Let's start there. If you had nothing else to work with, that would be enough. The fact there is a you-ness to you is because he made you. The fact you're here at all, the fact you exist at all is because God knitted you together in the womb. God formed you from before you ever existed. He purposed your existence. Even if you had no other reason to be grateful and to thank him, even if you had no other reasonable service to offer except that alone, that should be sufficient. You have life in your bodies. You have breath in your lungs because he formed you. Secondly, after he formed you, after you were born, after you were brought into this world, God put people in your life.
He put people in your life to teach you, hopefully to love you, hopefully to be some encouragement to you. Hopefully that was your family. In some cases, it's been others external to your family. Beyond this, for you to have gotten this far in life, for you to be in this room at all today, there is this presumption. God has provided for you to get here. You have had sufficient food and shelter across yamany years or decades in order to get to this point. That's not an accident.
God has made provision for you. He's given you sufficient food, shelter, and other needs to sustain your life to this day. Furthermore, he's given you a 2,000-page book. He's provided for you materially. He's also provided you spiritually. He's given you a 2,000-page book that details his plans for you and for the rest of humanity. He's forgiven your sins despite your ongoing rebellion, despite your ongoing transgressions. He purchased you back from sin and death, not just at any cost, not just he had to go open the treasure chest in heaven and say, hey, boy, that Roddy, I'm going to have to really dig deep here.
Not that he did anything like that. Rather, there's no treasure chest in heaven that he used. Rather, in order to purchase back Arati or myself or you or everyone gathered in this room, He gave that which was most precious to himself. More than any coffers in heaven could ever have, he gave this lifeblood of his own son on Calvary. Furthermore, he's given you heavenly promises that he's not done with you. He's given you a Spirit, even now it indwells you, sanctifies you.
He's given you a church community. I hope it's this one.
If not, I hope it's another one. But he's given you a church community so you'll not have to go through this world alone. We could go on and on and on with all the things that he's given you. With that said, what's your reasonable response? To live with faith and dedication in he who did all these things. So that's the reasonable response we see at the end of verse 1. All right, let's look at verse 2 now.
Verse 2. And 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. If you were to take a ball bearing, let's say you have two magnets on either side, equal distance from that ball bearing. What's going to happen? What's going to happen? Well, outwardly, nothing. If you have two magnets and there's a magnetized object in the middle, but directly in the middle, what's going to happen is nothing to the outside eye.
It's just going to sit there. Why? Because the different forces are acting on it equally. So there'll be no movement. And yet, that doesn't mean that the forces are not acting. Even if the thing doesn't move at all, it does not mean that it's not being affected, that it's not being influenced by these two competing forces. Now, in a similar sense, you and I, we live out our days between what you might call two competing forces, and this is true even for us as Christians. Now, on the one hand, we have our Creator, we have our God, we have our Maker, and our Maker obviously has the dominant pull on our life and should have the dominant pull on our life, and yet there is a competing force.
Even as Christians, we acknowledge that the world has a certain pull on us. And we experience that at a very young age. When you were a kid in high school, especially in junior high, do you remember the pressures of conformity? Do you remember what it's like to have peer pressure? You know, I was a kid in the 80s, and you had to have the gotcha shirts and the swatches and all these different things, the OP shirts.
I wasn't that cool, so I didn't have a lot of that. But the cool people did. With that said, there was all these things. And if you had those things, then you kind of walked the line. What if you were to walk into a room in 1987 and what if you were to walk into junior high with, say, a pencil protector in your pocket? How would that have gone for you? Well, they'd say, boy, look at that nerd, right?
What a dork that guy is. So with that said, we've experienced on some level what this is like. We've experienced the pressures of conformity. We've experienced the world looking and seeing something in us that it doesn't like or that it does like, and it celebrates that which affirms itself. The world will always celebrate that which affirms the world. And if you do the things that the world does, if you say the things that the world says, if you're in lockstep with the world's behaviors and principles and attitudes and appetites and affections, then things will go right for you.
Things will go well for you. But what if, what if you say, I'm going to live like a Nazarite, so to speak. I'm going to live holy. What if I'm going to do what God would have me do? Well, if you try to walk that walk, what you'll find is very quickly, others will see it. And the world around you will reject it. If you have a certain attitude towards sexuality, they'll say, he's a prude.
If you have a certain attitude, whether it's to wealth or finances or fame or what have you, they'll demean and denigrate you as not living up to their standards. The world wants you to be more like the world. And frequently, even Jesus himself identifies that that's the world's great desire, but your great desire as a Christian is not to be like the world, but to be more like Christ. So verse two of Paul saying that, he says, look, there's a pull, there's an influence, an emphasis that's being given both by the world and by God. You are to reject the world's call upon you. You are to reject its magnetism, its pull, even if it costs you, and it will cost you. It 100% will. If you try to live out your days Holy in this darkened age, even in our culture, if you try to live out your life in a holy way, it will absolutely cost you. It will cost you friendships and relationships, and people will rip on you, and when you won't engage in some of the things that the world engages in, people will look down upon you. But let them. Dear heavens, if the world looks down on you, you're doing something right. If the world rejects something in you, if the world looks at you and sees that
you're not tolling Islam because you're attempting to be more holy, more like Christ, you are doing something right. And God himself celebrates and calls us to that. Verse 2, do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove. You may prove what is good and acceptable and the perfect will of God. You may prove, not necessarily to God, He already knows these things, but you will prove it to the world around you. You will bear out your testament. When you do that which is right, it's like putting out a standard that the world sees.
It won't like it or reject it. It will fight against it, but they still see it. It demonstrates that Christ is our Savior when Christians act accordingly. There's all manner of good things that come when we do what we're called to do, that bear out, that prove, that give evidence to our faith. With that said, notice there where it says, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed. And the picture there is like a butterfly, really. It's a picture of transformation. You see a butterfly, you know, what does it start at? It starts with a caterpillar.
Now, I've always enjoyed, we've gone to the butterfly farms, you know, where the butterflies fly around. You're inside an enclosed netting, and they fly and land on you. You're like, oh, this is so awesome. But you put your finger, and the butterfly comes and lands on it. I think this is cool. Well, guess what? No one has the same reaction to the caterpillar. No one has gone to the caterpillar farm to lay there and let the caterpillars come upon me. Why? Because the caterpillars are gross, man alive, and no one wants any part of the caterpillar. But the good news. The caterpillar doesn't stay a caterpillar, but it goes through that process that I'm not articulate enough to describe, but that process, that metamorphosis by which it evolves, it changes, it transforms into the beautiful butterfly. In a sense, he says, that should be you. You used to be that ugly wriggling thing over there. You used to be that, but you've been called to be this, to be this thing that ascends up to heaven, so to speak, that takes flight. You've been called to be that. Well, that's said so often. We're content in the wriggling. We're content in the catapults.
We're content in sticking our head in the trough. We're content in all manner of things that are not the beauty and the flight that we're called to. In any case, it says, do not be conformed, verse 2, to this world, but be transformed, and then it gives us the means. Be transformed by what? By the renewing of your mind. The impetus here is that there's something wrong with your mind, and there is.
We've identified this before. It's what we call the noetic effect of sin. People get old and gray and creaky and they lose their hair. All of the above can happen to you. And the reason all that stuff happens to you, given enough time, is because you and our sinners and the wages of sin is death. Now, we oftentimes recognize the way in which sin has affected our flesh and life, but we think our minds are free from that.
We think our minds are like these neutral free agents, able to understand truth on its own and figure out logic and reasoning the world around us. Do you think that's the way it really works? I've asked this question, I know of you before, but what tide I were last week? What was it? Well, here's the thing, I don't even remember. You don't remember, I don't remember. Why? I made the conscious choice to put it on.
You looked at it for 45 minutes. What was it? I don't know, but that's the thing. Our minds are not as powerful as we like to think that they are. They're given to forgetfulness and dementia and cognitive defects and the like. We're born with sin impacting us just as sin will strip your body of its flesh in time and leave you disease-ridden, all manner of bad things will happen to your body, given enough time, given a long enough runway, although that's all true, our minds, things happen similarly. And we start in that condition. We start with a fallen cognition. We start with a fallen mind. With that said, what has to happen? Well, we have to be renewed. It says, don't be conformed to this world, be transformed through the renewing of your mind.
Your mind needs to be renewed. And that's not a function of simply working through puzzles to make your brain sharper. It's a function of renewing your mind and truth. Dear heavens, you've lived on this globe long enough. You've heard enough lies to fill a thousand books.
You've heard all manner of things that just aren't true. But there's one book that contains 100% truth from the first page to the last. And the more time you spend in it, the more time you spend meditating and reading, observing and studying and applying its contents, the better off you will be. Now, some people will say, well, but the Bible doesn't tell me everything I need to know. I'm deciding about this job, or I'm deciding whether to be engaged to this person.
I'm deciding on this, that, or the other thing. And the Bible doesn't tell me what I should do there. All right, granted, the Bible does not have the specifics for every left or right turn you'll ever make in your life. However, the principle by which you will make every decision you will ever make is in this book. The principles are talking about marriage. Who should I marry? Who should I not marry? The principles for what makes a good spouse are 100% in this book, aiding you in making that decision. The more time you spend in this book, studying what it says, studying the principles and the precepts thereof, the more renewed your mind will be. And then when you apply that renewed mind to the choices that are before you, you will make choices that not only make better sense, that are more appropriate, that work out better for you, but they will also make you more Christ-like.
The more you make decisions based on the principles in Christ's book, the more Christ-like you will become. But it involves some intentionality on our part. Most everything I'm saying here, you can say, yeah, yeah, read the Bible more. I got it. Read the Bible, and I'll get right on that. Most of us understand that, right? The key is to take some intentionality and go, all right, all right, renewing my mind is important, and honestly, I don't do much of it. Honestly, I encounter Scripture once a week when the pastor reads from it, or I encounter Scripture in these intervals of my life. Maybe I need it, maybe I don't. Remember, people argue with themselves. They'll say, yeah, other people need that stuff. Other people need the crutches of regular Bible reading about having it. We think that we can somehow be above it. Wrong! Dear heavens, this is an admonition. Remember Paul shaking the lapel of the church and saying, Dear heavens, get this right.
Renew your minds. You need to be transformed into something different than you once were. The good news is God's already started that process. It's what we call regeneration, being born again. He started to work in you. He changed your heart from a heart of stone to a heart of flesh. And that was His volitional work that he did for his own purposes. But he calls you to work with him in your sanctification, to work with him in renewing your mind and your emotions and your thoughts and the like. And that requires some intentionality. It requires you to look back and say, you know, I haven't been in the word the way I should be. I do feel convicted that I should do something different. Well, what would that look like this week? Honestly, if you're dragging, if somehow the word has not been a big deal to you and you haven't been renewed in it, despite knowing that you should, despite nodding your head and giving the holy, you know, when I say read your Bible more. Despite that knowledge, what are you going to do about it if you've been dragging last week or last month or last year? Do something. Be intentional. Make a choice. Say, I haven't been reading God's word. I will start. I will start today. I'll start tomorrow. I'll start on Monday.
I will start. I'll do something different. And what you'll find is that when you start and you continue and you perpetuate that approach that you will grow and your transformation will not be simply something that God sees, but your spouse and your children and the people around you will see it too, and you'll become more holy and more holy the more you not only study this book, but the more you apply its precepts to your life. That's what we're called to do as a start. In the next four chapters, which I will not get to, the study on the book of Romans is going to go through all of this in our Sunday school class. The next four chapters, Paul gives us more details. The end of the book of Romans is more details on what this looks like in the specifics. But that said, my encouragement to you this morning is that when Paul gave us the indicatives of what Christ has
done, who Christ is, what he did for you, and when you recognize that he has done that, the question is put before you, what are you going to do about it? For each one of us, we could answer that differently because each one of us are at different levels with regards to our sanctification and our spiritual maturity. But the fact remains, from the young people to the old people in this room, that tomorrow is a new day. What are you going to do intentionally to be more transformed, more renewed, that you may become more like Christ and that others might see him in you.
Pray on it, think about it, and act accordingly. Let's pray.
Continue the verse-by-verse series.
