But Be Transformed

	"And do not be conformed to this world," Romans 12:2 urges, "but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect."
	Last time we considered the admonition to not be conformed to this world.  We noticed that the word translated here as "conformed" is related to our word "schematic."  It usually refers to the outward appearance of something.  We are tempted to conform to the world in obvious aspects such as our appearance, our talk and our activities.  We are also tempted to conform in ways which are less obvious...but are equally deadly.  These include our attitudes, our values and our priorities.
	What have you seen as you have looked in the mirror this week?  Have you seen an appearance which is trying to conform to the world?  Have you seen a talk which is trying to conform to the world?  Have you seen activities which conform to those of the world?
	What have you seen as you have looked inside yourself?  Have you seen attitudes which conform to the world?  Have you seen values which conform to the world?  Have you seen priorities which conform to the world?  If your answer to any of these is "Yes," then what are you going to do about it?
	The second part of Romans 12:2 instructs that we should be transformed by the renewing of our minds.  The word here is "metamorphosis."  So this concept is not at all foreign to us. It means to remodel, to change into another form.  The Greeks generally used it in reference to an inward change.
	The christian life is obviously one of metamorphosis.  Paul discusses this change in Romans chapter six.
	"What shall we say then?" we read in verses 1-7.  "Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase?  May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?  Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?  Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.  For if we have become united with {Him} in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also {in the likeness} of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with {Him,} that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin."
	As Paul points out in verse six, the first step in our transformation involves dying to ourselves.
	"He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me;" Jesus comments in Matthew 10:37-39, "and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.  And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life shall lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake shall find it."
	A caterpillar will go no farther if it insists on remaining a caterpillar.  It can never be transformed into a butterfly and still remain a caterpillar.  We can never be in Christ if we insist on holding on to our old lives.  Transformation requires dying to self.
	Returning to Romans six, we notice in verses six and seven that we must also die to sin.
	"Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?" Paul points out in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. "Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor {the} covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God.  And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God."
	If we are to be transformed, we must die to self and die to sin.  There is no other way.  But any metamorphosis which stops here is quite worthless.
	Being transformed demands that we die.  We must die to self.  And we must die to sin.  But this is actually only a small part of the picture.
	"Now if we have died with Christ," Paul continues in Romans 6:8-11, "we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.  For the death that He died, He died to sin, once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.  Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus."
	The only reason we die is so that we can live. The christian metamorphosis requires that we be made alive in Christ.
	"I have been crucified with Christ;" Paul proclaims in Galatians 2:20, "and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the {life} which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me."

song

	We must be transformed.  This means that we must die to self and die to sin.  And we must be made alive to Christ.  Paul discusses the significance of this transformation as he continues with Romans chapter six.  Before reading this passage, though, we should note one thing.  The Bible teaching is very clear that the point of metamorphosis is baptism.  I challenge you to read Romans chapter six and come to any other conclusion.  So those who pretend to baptize infants are not acting according to the Bible. There is no transformation when a baby is sprinkled with a little water.  And those who pretend that salvation is attainable without baptism are entirely in conflict with the Bible.  There is a transformation only when an adult sinner hears the Gospel message, believes that message in a way which changes his or her life, repents of sins, confesses Jesus as Lord and Savior, and is buried with Him in baptism in order to start a new life.  If you don't like this concept, you'll have to take it up with Paul, the Holy Spirit and God.  I didn't make it up.  You might as well try to make a caterpillar change into a butterfly without following the process ordained by God.
	"Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts," Paul goes on in Romans 6:12-18, "and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin {as} instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members {as} instruments of righteousness to God.  For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.  What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone {as} slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?  But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness."
	This is the point of our transformation.  We die to self and to sin in order to have a new life in Christ.  This is linked to what the Holy Spirit calls becoming obedient from the heart to a form of teaching to which we are committed.  This leads to the second part of Paul's instruction about transformation.  Romans 12:2 states that we must be transformed by the renewing of our minds.
	"This I say therefore, and affirm together with the Lord," we find in Ephesians 4:17-24, "that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality, for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.  But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in {the likeness of} God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth."
	To renew means to "make new again."  We must throw out the old.  And we must replace it with that which is right.
	Where are you in the process?  Are you still struggling with conformity to the world?  Or are you ready for a transformation, one which comes about through the renewal of the mind?
	"For we also once were foolish ourselves," Paul writes in Titus 3:3-7, "disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.  But when the kindness of God our Savior and {His} love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified by His grace we might be made heirs according to {the} hope of eternal life."
	Have you ever seen a caterpillar transformed into a butterfly?  A creature which once crawled along the ground is freed to soar through the sky.  That's what happens to us when we obey the truth and are set free.

Unless otherwise noted, "Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE(R), (C) Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977. Used by permission."