Living Worthy…Transformation 1
Romans 12:2

Most of you know that our son Tony and his family have recently moved from Bakersfield to Angel Fire.  While they were struggling with the decision Tony made a remarkably mature statement for a punk kid.  The problem was his two boys were struggling with breathing, the smog in Bakersfield is notorious, but both Tony and Zee had jobs they liked.  They were a long way from family but life was good.  They had friends which they enjoyed, a small group of Christians they had really developed into this dynamic Christian support group.  They were going to be able to do the things they really wanted to do in their careers but family and health was a big deal.

So, as they were struggling with what to do and sending out resumes and debating options and formulating Plan A, then Plan B, then Plan B modified, I believe the Holy Spirit spoke to Tony and gave him this remarkable statement for a punk kid.  Don’t you hate it when the kids come up with the right answer?  I should have made this statement.  I am the wise old sage who should be able to dispense wisdom for all to marvel at.  But I didn’t come up with the thought, Tony did.  And it seemed to make all the difference in their decision making progress. 

Have I built up enough tension?  Are you curious enough about what he said, that I should have said?  Are you getting bored with me asking?  Well, here you go, Tony said,

Doesn’t that reshape your thought process?  It doesn’t matter so much whether you are in Bakersfield or Angel Fire, whether you are in Los Alamos or ________ (you fill in the blank.)  God is more concerned with who you are, you’re relationship with him, your relationships with your family, your being who you are designed to be then wherever you may live.  Isn’t that too big a thought for a punk kid to think?   But isn’t it true?

Well I’ve been thinking that thought a number of times over the last month and I have been able to elaborate on it; expand it.  I have been working hard at been the wise old sage.  Tony’s principle can be expanded.

People struggle with what should I do?  Should I take that job or this job?  Should I pursue this profession or that?  What should I be when I grow up?  The answer is, be who God created you to be.  You’re being is more important than your doing.

The Tony principle can be modified another way.

You could be tall or short, smart or not, handicapped or athletic, good looking or ugly as a stump, wonderfully gifted or completely average; healthy as a horse or sickly, what matters is who you are; being who God has designed you to be. 

Isn’t this principle amazing?  Isn’t the Tony principle freeing?  I don’t have to be anything but what God wants me to be.  I just have to be who he made me to be and I can do that.  “You mean I only have to be who I really am?” That is the point.  But this principle brings with it a serious question.  A question that all of you should be asking; what is it?   “How do I know who God wants me to be?”  Exactly. 
_____

One of the times I was thinking these thoughts recently I was jogging and listening to my MP3 player and a song came on that was singing about this very thing.  It captures the struggle of who we are called to be.  The song is by Chris Tomlin - The Way I Was Made.  Let’s work through the words. 

Caught in the half-light, I’m caught alone  (half in this world half in the next)
Waking up to sunrise and the radio (God and man)
Feels like I’m tied-up what’s holding me (Don’t you feel there is something…)
Just praying today will be the day I go free (To really be free…)

I want to live like there’s no tomorrow
I want to dance like no one’s around
I want to sing like nobody’s listening
Before I lay my body down  (Steve Irwin died last week…)
I want to give like I have plenty
I want to love like I’m not afraid
I want to be the man I was meant to be
I want to be the way I was made (Can’t you sing those words?)

Made in Your likeness, made with Your hands (We are made by and like God)
Made to discover who You are and who I am (That is the tricky part)
And all I’ve forgotten help me to find
All that You’ve promised let it be in my life (God promises so much)

I want to live like there’s no tomorrow
I want to dance like no one’s around
I want to sing like nobody’s listening
Before I lay my body down
I want to give like I have plenty
I want to love like I’m not afraid
I want to be the man I was meant to be
I want to be the way I was made

This song spoke to me.  It capture my feelings exactly.  I hope today is the day I am set free.  Does it speak to you?  Do you struggle knowing you really are intended to be so much more?  Don’t you feel the power of who you are intended to be, wanting to break out?  But it is tied up and unable to burst out of you in power.  God designed you to be this amazing person; this powerful person, this inspiring person.  But we are caught in the half-light of not being comfortable as a nobody, but not realizing our potential of who we feel we ought to be.  Instead we live worried about what people may think about us.  So we don’t dance, people might think we are weird.  So we don’t sing, they might think we don’t sing as well as we should. So we don’t love with all our hearts, they might not love us back.  We don’t give.  We don’t live.  We don’t love.  We just exist; knowing we are not really alive.  But there is so much more to life than just existing.  God has made us to be who he wants us to be.  It doesn’t matter where you are, or what you do, or what you are, nearly as much as it matters who you can become!  But we are still left with the same question?  What is it? “How do I know who God wants me to be?” Exactly.
_____

As I read my Bible I hear God calling for me to be who he wants me to be. I hear his voice echoing in my heart to come and live my potential.  I am slow to respond.  I am afraid of what I might be called to do.  I don’t know what he may make of me. But I hear him calling for me to be more than I am. I hear him calling for me to be transformed.  I hear him speaking to me…

Romans 13:14 Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

James 4:9-10  Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.  Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

Ephesians 4:22-24  You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;  to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

Colossians 3:10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.

Ephesians 2:10  For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

1 John 4:4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.

1 Peter 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

2 Peter 1:3-4  His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.  Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

Ephesians 5:8-10   For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord.

But that is the question isn’t it?  How do I find out what pleases the Lord?  What clothes do I put on because I am a new creation? I am new but how? I am transformed into the image of the one who created me, but what does that mean?  I know I am his workmanship but what tool am I? His divine power has given me so many precious promises but how do I respond?  I participate in the divine nature, wow, but what does that mean?  I know I am a child of the light but how do I please the Lord?  I know transformation is possible because I hear God calling for me to be transformed, but what is God’s will for me? 
______
I know transformation is possible because of a preacher I know who began to experience it.  This preacher was arrogant. When he got out of college he knew everything he needed to know.  He had all the answers and he did not hesitate to tell them to anyone who would listen.  His sermons were hard.  He assumed his audience was stupid and all he had to do was tell them that and they would have to change.  Criticism didn’t faze him because he knew he was right and the critics were idiots.  Elders were old men who had lost touch with reality years ago and they needed to simply listen to his wisdom.  He treated his wife and other women as nice tools to be used to accomplish his mission.  He did not lack any confidence, courage or boldness.  He was going to change the world.  That was his destiny. But he did not suspect how it was really going to happen.

But God was patient with the young preacher.  God knew who he had created the preacher to be and began to work slowly on him; slowly because of his “do-it-yourself” attitude.  But over the years the preacher began to realize he could not do it himself.  He realized he was the one who was mostly stupid and that he was going to have to depend upon God to-do-it.  It was his own self-confidence; his own “I can figure it out myself” attitude that was standing in the way of being the man of God he was intended to be.  After being a preacher for more than 30 years that the message began to sink in when his son, the punk kid said, “It doesn’t matter where you are or what you do or what gifts you may have, so much as it matters who you are.” The not so young preacher was beginning to experience transformation.  If transformation is possible for not the not-so-young preacher, I know it is possible for you.  But how?  But who?  What is God’s will for our lives?  

 

_____

The process of transformation is laid out very succinctly in one verse of scripture.  The process is straight forward and easy to explain.  It is not so easy to do, but it is easy to lay out. Here is the transformational process.

Romans 12:2 Do not conform any longer 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.

There are three parts of transformation based upon the three parts of this verse.

1) Do not conform to the pattern of this world.   The first step in transformation is the recognition of how we are molded into the world.  I am not so much talking about being materialistic or worldly sinful stuff, but rather we conform to the pattern of the world in adopting their worldview; their approach to life; their assumptions about how everything works.  We approach life with the same needs and fears. It is the taking on of something other than Christ as a pattern of how to live your life.  First we must be willing to lay down the world’s pattern of how to live. We must become empty.

2) The second part of transformation is the renewing of our minds.  Once we have given up the pattern of the world, then we must transform the way we think.  Becoming empty toward the world’s perspective within us is the first step. We then change the way we think.  Change the paradigm from which we operate. Then we begin the renewing through worship and listening to the Spirit.  We adopt the Spirit’s perspective of our lives. We worship in the emptiness and in the Spirit’s presence.

3) We then are in a position to discover God’s will for our lives.  We then will see who God wants us to be.  We learn to exist in his pleasing and perfect will. 

I realize those are only words and they perhaps don’t really mean much.  But over the next several weeks we are going to be breaking down these three steps and we are going to explore what giving up the pattern really looks like. And then we are going to see what becoming empty feels like.  And then we are going to learn to worship in that emptiness and then we are going to listen.  How hard it is to listen in a world full of noise.  But listen we must.  Then we will be in a position to become what God has always intended us to be.  We must not conform and then renew so that we can learn God’s good and perfect and pleasing will for who he has designed us to be.

Does this sound like something you want?  Isn’t that really what you want more than anything else in the world?  Isn’t it thrilling to think God loves you so much that He wants to use you for his glory?  He has a picture tapped to that huge refrigerator in the sky of you. A picture he drew of the way he intends you to be.  “Look at this picture.  That is who Tim Stidham really is.  Hey, look here see that drawing that is who I designed Tanya to be.  Look at her, she’s beautiful.  She is a princess…”   To be the powerfully alive person God designed you to be has to send chills up the spine of every Christian.  Isn’t that what you want?  Do you want to be God’s man?  Do you want to be God’s woman?  Do you want to be God’s husband, or wife, or father, or mother or grandparent?  Do you want to be transformed into the person God has stuck on his refrigerator?  It is possible, all you have to do is let God.