Transformed

Read Romans 12:1-2

Who are you?

The world says that you are 5’10” with blonde hair, slightly overweight, sunburned, and well dressed.

Maybe 6’1”, bald, but in need of a haircut, skinny as a rail, and dressed for winter as a homeless person.

Maybe you’re the guy with the 2019 Porsche.  Can’t remember what you look like, but you’ve got a nice car.

The world will size you up by the world’s measures and standards.  So is that who you are?  If I have to describe you to the police sketch artist, that’s probably how it will come out.

If I do have to describe you to the sketch artist, I might just go a different route.  

She is fearfully and wonderfully made.

He is completely loved by God.  I’m not talking 99 and 44/100ths loved.  I am talking 100% loved by God.

She is the salt of the earth.  He is the light of the world.

These people were worth dying for.  The blood of Jesus was shed for them.  God created in him a pure heart. 

These are the people who don’t’ stumble because they have God’s word as a lamp unto their feet.

She is created in the image of God and being made into the image and likeness of Christ.

When the police sketch artists asks me if I could give them something more useful, I’ll reply:  Well, I could give you their name and address, but where’s the fun in that?

Who are we?  Does it depend on whether we throw on a shave that day?  Are we the clothes we wear?  Are we our intellect or our physique?

Are we the degrees and titles that we hold?  Are we the cars that we drive or the investments that we own?

Anyone every try Kimchi? It’s fermented cabbage.  The traditional stuff is put into a container in the ground and taken out just when the Kimchi Master decides it’s fit for human consumption.  If you have never tried, don’t’ be afraid.

It will give you a new identity.  For the two weeks following your Kimchi meal, you will become known as Kimchi Breath.  No amount of mouthwash can change that.  No breath mint can alter your new identity.

We have an identity.  It is love.  We belong to the Christ and we are to be known by our love.  That’s from John’s gospel.  Paul very much parallels these thoughts on love.

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.  Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.  Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.  Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.  Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone.  If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.  Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.

Jesus said, “They will know you are Christians—my disciples—by your love.”  We have talked about love for half a year.  We have a church motto that is GOD’S LOVE IN ACTION.  We believe that we have great fidelity to that motto.  It’s not like we came up with it out of thin air.

In everything that we do, we must be motivated by love.  We must continue our journey to become love as Christ is Love.  If there is vengeance or retribution due to another person, we trust God with all of our hearts and do not lean on our own understanding that justice will be satisfied.

All of these things are so easy to do because that’s how we have always lived.  Well, not exactly!

Even if we were brought up in the way that we should go since birth, the world taught us a lot.  Hate and prejudice, selfishness and overindulgence, and of course the It’s all about me way of thinking came out of our worldly mentors.

But we are not content to remain that way.  God is not content to leave us that way.  His Spirit is always at work in us.

We are charged to move this transformation along as well.  We have a part.  This is discipleship.  We are called to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

We pray with much listening.  We read our Bibles anticipating that God’s own Spirit will illuminate these living and active words.  We put these words into action.

God’s Spirit is working with us as we listen, read, meditate upon God’s holy word, and take what is in our minds and put it into practice.

We are making our minds new.  Out with what the world says.  In with what God says.  It is surely a trust in the Lord with all of your heart exercise that we should engage in daily.  Our own understanding replaced with God’s wisdom and love.

We are to be transformed by the renewing of our mind; yet, this is not an academic exercise.  For our mind to be renewed we must put these words of our Master into practice.  Otherwise, we are just thinking about thinking his way.  We perform the finest functions of metacognition without the essential element of trusting fully in him and thereby never seem to get around to putting his words into practice.

We are hardly transformed if we can’t convince ourselves to do what the Lord requires.  But to the one who has been transformed by the renewing of the mind:

We trust fully in God when we set aside our own understanding and put his words into practice, and without hedging our bet.

Sometimes this is simply a cup of cold water or a meal for someone in need.

Sometimes it is speaking the truth in love.

Sometimes it is much more.

All the time we will know what we are to do.  How is this possible?

Listen to Paul’s words once again.

Do not conform 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.

We will be able to know, and test, and embrace what God wants us to do—the good and pleasing and perfect things that he wants us to do.  And it is all so easy.  Well, sort of…

My yoke is easy and my burden is light does not mean that suddenly life becomes free of conflict.  It does mean that what Christ calls us to do is not such a heavy burden that we should be afraid of it.  And it does get easier the more we put his words into practice.  Which brings us to wind sprints.

I have shared this analogy with some of you before, but I had to run them so you get to hear about them again.

Once upon a time, I was going into my sophomore year in Mangum, Oklahoma.  We had arrived in the Mangum area from Texas about a week before, just in time for summer two-a-days.  Those were the days.  A gulp of water and 14 salt tablets and back to the practice field you went.  That was sports medicine in the 1970’s.

We lived out in the country on a farm that we had bought years before and now we had come to live on it,  and I was sure that nobody knew me except the guys on the football team, but out of the blue, I got a phone call from the girl that lived a quarter of a mile down the road asking me if I would go with her to the dance.

I didn’t even know there was a dance.  I had played baseball the summer before in Texas, didn’t have a summer job other than two-a-days, so I didn’t really have any money.  I didn’t have a license, was pretty sure I didn’t know how to dance, and did not have my own car.  Considering all of these things, I said yes!

I had to confess that I didn’t have a car.  Her reply was, “Oh my mother wouldn’t let you take me by yourself anyway.”  That part of the logistics was settled, and I was wondering if I had a reputation before I had my first date here in Oklahoma.

Her mother probably just didn’t want to see us as episode 15 on 13 Reasons Why some 40 years later.  In any case, I had a date for Friday.

Friday came and her mom got us to the dance.  When the music started, I looked around at the other people making strange contortions on the dance floor and decided I could dance too.  Here are some other facts of interest.

The dance ended at 11:30 pm

Football curfew was 11:00 pm

My football coach was also the faculty chaperone for the dance.

My date’s mom came to pick us up at midnight.

Come Monday, at the end practice which was always wind sprints and all the gut-wrenching sounds that go with that exercise, my coach called out, “All dancers back on the wind sprint line.”  Nobody knew what he was talking about, well, except for me.

So, while everyone else was getting some water and another dozen salt tabs, I was doing wind sprints.  I was exhausted before the regular winds sprints.  Now I had more.

After half a dozen 40-yard sprints, my coach imparted a little wisdom.  “A horse will run until it kills itself.  You will pass out first.”  Now there’s some reassurance.

I set my mind on finding out if I would die or pass out and ran the next sprint as hard as I could, and lived.  I did the next one the same way.  And the next one and the next one.

And at the next practice when it came time for regular wind sprints, I was yards ahead of everyone on the line.   I played tackle, end, and linebacker so that’s where I ran my sprints.  After a few sprints, I slyly switched over to running with the backs and outran all but one.

These were guys that half of them could outrun me before practice.  When we all had nothing left, I left them in the dust.  By the end of the week, I outran them all.

When the last sprint was done, I wanted one more!  Just one more, just one more wind sprint.

I had been transformed from a kid that dreaded these end of practice rituals to an athlete that looked for challenge after challenge.  A lot can happen when a girl asks you out on a date.

The prescribed analogies for transformation direct us to the root word of metamorphosis which is μεταμορφόω  (met-am-or-fo'-o) and the example of the caterpillar and butterfly.  It’s a good example, but we have example after example that we see in our own lives and the lives of our children and those in the community.

I was privileged to witness a type of large-scale metamorphosis as a series commander at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina.  To watch a bunch of—I’m sure that even this term is politically incorrect in some circles now—a bunch of momma’s boys be transformed into United States Marines was a sight that I observed every 13 weeks for about 3 years.

I witnessed many a young man who didn’t have a clue what was happening in the moment much less in his life, be transformed into a person of character and purpose and selflessness.

I have observed many inmate clients come to my office door, knock, have a momentary epiphany, and say, “You are going to ask me if I get what I want, will it get me any closer to my goal?”  They walked away having counseled themselves.

I spent a lot of time talking to inmate clients about efficacy.  Efficacy is the power to effect desired change.  Self-efficacy is the power to effect desired change in ourselves.  Understanding efficacy is powerful in itself.

We have the ability to transform ourselves into something better.  With God, we can be transformed into the image and likeness of Christ Jesus.  By renewing our minds, we can accelerate the process.

God is already at work on us.  We are being transformed.  Some of us are fighting the process.  Once we accept that we grow in God’s grace and are being transformed, we begin to see God’s good, pleasing, and perfect will.

Once upon a time, wind sprints didn’t seem as tough as they used to be.  In this time that we live in now, the more we seek this transformation, the more we desire the next step in the process.

Having embraced the transformation process, we are ready to serve God in everything that we do.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.

We are ready to be who God wants us to be.  We offer ourselves—everything that makes us who we are—to be a living sacrifice to God.  Our very lives—how we live—is our sacrifice and service and pleasing offering to God.

We are being transformed.

We are growing in God’s grace.

We are being made into the image and likeness of Christ Jesus, who is the image of the invisible God.

We are turning away from the ways of sin and the ways of the world and sprinting towards the ways of God.

We do this trusting fully in him and not our own understanding.

Have you ever walked into one of those hair places where the styles are in pictures on the wall or they have a book that they give you to pick from?  All you have to do is say, “Make me look like that.”

I tried that once.  I was told, “Sir, you don’t have enough hair for any of these.”

But the God of all creation doesn’t care about my hairstyle, clothing, or the car that I drive.  He sees my heart and says, “Let’s make your heart just like mine.”

He says, let’s do this transformation thing!  Renew your mind.

Study my word.  Listen to me when you pray.  Put my words into practice.

Be transformed!

God loved us exactly where he found us, but he loves us so much he will not leave us there.

Be transformed by the renewing of your mind!

Amen.