1. The topic this morning is “Christian Worldview” and the text is Romans 12:1-2. It is such a familiar passage. But we should start reading in the previous chapter to see where Paul’s mind was heading. Let’s look at the doxology of 11:33-36:

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
“Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?”
“Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay them?”
For from him and through him and for him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.

Paul’s reference in Isaiah to the mind of The Lord is not only about the mind of The Lord. Let’s look at that passage:

Isaiah 40:10-11:

See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power,
and he rules with a mighty arm.
See, his reward is with him,
and his recompense accompanies him.
He tends his flock like a shepherd:
He gathers the lambs in his arms
and carries them close to his heart;
he gently leads those that have young.

Yes, God is Sovereign and powerful. Yet, the glory and the mind of The Lord is not pure reason or intellectualism but a combination of power and comfort. Awe and caring. That is the what Isaiah and Paul are both talking about – the unfathomable majesty of God and the careful tending of God. There has to be both. Neither of them are sufficient on their own.

Look at the story of Jesus’ birth in Luke. It is the same. There are angels and animals. God comes into the world not just to overwhelm us with His majesty but to care for us as people.

That is the starting point for Paul’s words this morning and is the basis for what we are calling a Christian worldview. It is not finding a specific Christian position on every issue as it has sometimes been used for doing. It is not developing a perfect “Christian” grid through which we can see the truth and falsehood of everything in our lives. After all, is there a specific Christian position on economics, government, education, global warming, war and peace, capital punishment or immigration? No. There are Christians who differ on these things so this morning is not our opportunity to define a particular Christian position on every issue. It is a time to look at what Paul means by having a transformed and renewed mind that has a purpose beyond the intellect.

Romans 12:1-2 in The Message:

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

2. A transformed mind and life begins with worship – and the offering of our ordinary lives. I still laugh at the old phrase I heard years ago. “The problem with a living sacrifice is it is always trying to crawl off the altar.” It is not a grand gesture or self-martyrdom. It is daily gratitude for the mercy and compassion of God. It is beginning each day with the recognition that our lives are in His hands and our confidence is in Him. We do not live for ourselves today. We are here to point people to God in whatever way that happens in the course of our day. It is our “reasonable” worship.

3. What does it mean to be conformed to the pattern of this world?

I like the way J.B. Phillips paraphrases that: “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould..” It gives you the sense of the constant pressure of the world to shape us in a particular way.

However, I don’t think it means what we sometimes use it to mean. I can remember all sorts of behavior that was discouraged when I was young that was justified by this verse. Don’t shop on Sunday. Don’t dance, smoke or drink. Don’t go to movies. Don’t get a tattoo. All sorts of behavior was discouraged as conforming to the world. There are whole communities of people who have built their rules and regulations around not conforming to the world – of being separate. I think they are missing the point of the verse. It is not just about behavior. After all, there is a certain amount of conforming that is healthy – if not perfect. To want to fit in or be in style is fairly normal and not a sin. What we call “socialization” is not sin. Following social norms or styles is not conforming to the world. If it were, our lives would be parched and colorless. If we are forever reacting against the legitimate pleasures of our generation we would be sterile and joyless people. There is a difference between being in the world but not of it.

I do think we are living in a time where the balance of Christian values is being removed.

I took a Google Earth tour this week of the neighborhood where I grew up. I went from house to house remembering what it was like to be a child in the 50’s. We walked to school. We saw movies for 10 cents at the YMCA across the street. We rode our bikes everywhere. We played in the woods and stayed out of the house all day in the summers. I know there was darkness on the inside of some of those homes but I never knew about it. The world was on my side and shared the values I knew.

That’s not true now. In fact, the world no longer is content to ignore Christianity but it has become the enemy. Tim Keller said recently, “The world has said people need saving from being saved. They need to be redeemed from the need for redemption. The world says the world needs to be saved from Christianity.”

Earning a living has morphed into greed. Freedom has become license. Education has become indoctrination. I think even some of the Christian virtues have been hijacked and distorted. Charity has become dependence. Tolerance has become intolerance. Equality has become the excuse for discouraging excellence. The virtue of achievement has become the pursuit of winning.

Stil, I think Paul is talking about something much deeper here than merely being conformists. He is talking about our being pressured into becoming an adherent and slave to the basic values of the world…and that term world means something more serious than customs and fads. Let’s look at it two ways.

First, the ultimate nature and desire of the world as Paul uses it in Romans 1 is to “exchange God’s truth for a lie.” The world’s pattern is not love of God but self-love and self-deception and there is a daily pressure to move us in that direction. It does not mean drawing us into great sin. In fact, there are some great sins that may wake us up to repentance and some small sins that may draw us further down the path to self-love. The world’s goal is by whatever means to move us away from God. To isolate us. To gradually deceive us into worshipping the creation and becoming incapable of repentance or our need for God’s mercy. The purpose of the pressure to conform is to create a resistance to God that is permanent and unchangeable. It is a will that cannot be reached.

“Thus gradually there comes to exist at the center of the creature a hard, tight, settled core of resolution to go on being what it is, and even to resist moods that might tend to alter it. It is a very small core; not at all reflective (they are too ignorant) nor defiant (their emotional and imaginative poverty excludes that); almost, in its own way, prim and demure; like a pebble, or a very young cancer. But it will serve our turn. Here at last is a real and deliberate, though not fully articulate, rejection of what the Enemy calls Grace.” C.S. Lewis

Second, the word for “world” here is the same word Paul uses elsewhere to mean forever. It is not talking about passing values but about things that are forever. It is describing a fundamental, immutable and permanent way of seeing. To be conformed to the pattern of the world is a permanent condition that has exchanged the truth of God for a lie. It is a life given over to self-deception and self-adoring. Not temporarily but completely. To be conformed to the pattern of the world is to be changed forever.

4. What does it mean to be transformed and to have our minds renewed?

First, the word for mind here (noos) is not just the intellect. It means the will and that goes far deeper than our intellect. It is not merely knowing more or becoming more sophisticated intellectually. Some of the most hardened intellects I have known have been the finest and most brilliant. No, Paul is talking about our wills and not just our thoughts being transformed and renewed.

We cannot do this on our own and that is why Paul does not present it as self-improvement. It is an exchange of life in the same way the world exchanges truth for a lie. We exchange a dead life for a new one. We exchange a will that is hardened and fixed for one that is always being renewed and growing. The renewed will is not stagnant. It is growing toward something. After all, that is the purpose of growth – to grow into something that is mature.

5. But the purpose is not just renewed minds or wills. There is something beyond that.

“Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

We’ve talked about this before – the paralysis of finding God’s perfect will. An obsession with God’s will for my life may actually move us toward self-love and away from God and what He truly desires for our lives. I may be so concerned about personal growth and holiness that I miss the whole point of the exercise. I may be so careful that I become useless.

Perfect means mature and mature means suited for a particular purpose. It means that we can have confidence that we are becoming what God intends for us for his purposes – and not for our own self-fulfillment. An ability to test and approve God’s will means we have come to the point of relaxing in the recognition of His love for us. He is not just majestic. He is caring as well. His will is not a burden but it is good.

Oswald Chambers says it this way: “To be so much in contact with God that you never need to ask Him to show you His will, is to be nearing the final stage of your discipline in the life of faith. When you are rightly related to God, it is a life of freedom and liberty and delight, you are God’s will, and all your common-sense decisions are His will for you unless He checks. You decide things in perfect delightful friendship with God, knowing that if your decisions are wrong He will always check; when He checks, stop at once.”

In a sense, what Paul is saying here is we will gradually have the ability to be drawn alongside God in ways that make our will align with His. We will not have to be forever second guessing ourselves or agonizing about God’s will. It will become less about us and more about living our ordinary lives in ways that point people to Him. We worry too much about making just the right decisions about God’s will. What job to take. Where to move. Who to marry. What house to buy. I think the further we go in maturity and confidence in God the less we worry about these things as being in or out of God’s will for our lives.

6. And I think that leads us to the purpose for the whole passage, I think. It is not just about not being conformed to the values of the world. It is not just about having transformed and renewing minds and wills. That is just preparation for what is really important and ultimate in this life. That is in verses 3-21.

The whole purpose of a life that is focused on worship in the ordinary course of life and maturity is not personal perfection but fellowship with a group of people. In a sense, God desires for us to be a “peculiar people” but not a withdrawn people. Our peculiarity is that we love each other – not that we avoid the appearance of worldliness. The purpose of a renewed will is to love those around us and to see ourselves as part of a body of believers – not sufficient in ourselves and not focused on ourselves. The transformed will is about “one another” and not just personal growth. It is about discovering the simple nature of God’s will for our lives. What is the purpose of a transformed will? It is the ability to obey God’s commands and to align our will with His. So, what are his commands?

“Love one another”. I want something more than that. I want something that will tell me when I am right and others are wrong. I want something that will assure me I am doing just the right thing or keep me from doing the wrong thing. I want guidelines and rules – even if I choose to disregard them. I want certainty and clarity and definition for as much as possible. I want to know the Christian position on everything. What do I get instead? “Love one another”.

Romans 9-21 in The Message:

Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle.

Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality.

Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy; share tears when they’re down. Get along with each other; don’t be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody.

Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody. Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. “I’ll do the judging,” says God. “I’ll take care of it.”

Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he’s thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.

7. So there we have the Christian worldview. It is not the Christian position on every issue in our lives. It is not the Christian answer to every question. It is not uniform thinking about everything. It is the mind of Christ. Not having the intellect of Christ. Not analyzing and intellectually understanding the mind of Christ but sharing the mind and will of Christ as Paul says in Philippians 2:

“If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death….”

That is the Christian worldview – a selfless, obedient life.