"Unified Body Life in the Church"

Romans 12:1-6

Rev. Min J. Chung

(Friday Night Large Group, October 15, 1999)

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. 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. For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith." Rom 12:1-6. NIV

  1. Introduction
  2. What does a good church or small group look like? What should one’s Christian life ought to look like when we’re unified and serving one another? Someone once said, "Unfaithful friends are like a shadow. They are there in the sunshine but gone in the rain." That’s so true. In troubles, good friends are consistently there. That’s how the church ought to be. Tonto and Lone Ranger were riding through a canyon together, when all of a sudden, both sides were filled with warriors on horses, dressed for battle. The Lone Ranger turned to Tonto and asked, "What are we going to do?" Tonto replied, "What do you mean ‘we’white man?" When things were fine, they were "we", but when problems came, they were not "we" anymore. A. W. Tozer said this inPursuit of God, "There can be union without unity. Tie two cats together by their tails and throw them over a clothesline. Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshipers [meeting] together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be, were they to become ‘unity’ conscious and turn their eyes away from God for closer fellowship." "Snowflakes are one of nature’s most fragile things, but just look at what they can do when they stick together." (Vesta Kelly) We are weak ones away from each other, but when we’re stuck together, we can be a powerful people of God who can do mighty things for His glory. Diffuse light has no power; gathered light can go through steel bars. We’ll discuss four ways to have a unified body life, a unified church life, a unified Christian life. You can also check what it means to grow in the Spirit of God. Am I going in the right way in my spiritual life? Am I becoming the person I ought to be? Here are four ways to check.
  3. Body
  4. We Are Not to Become Living Survivors But Living Sacrifices
  5. We can individually survive on our own. Any time I am following the ways of the world I’m trying to survive on my own. I live to get. In Scripture we die to give. The call for us is to become living sacrifices. "Offer yourbodies." Of course,bodyis the embodiment of our being. It’s a picture of sacrifice. In the Old Testament, an animal’s body was sacrificed so that someone else could live. Sin was transferred to that animal and because it dies, someone else lives. In Romans 1-11, it talks about how Christ died for us; He became a dead sacrifice. He died once for all, so all we have to do is become a living sacrifice.
  6. In view of God’s mercy–that’s the basis of living sacrificially. The world sayssurvive. Scripture sayssacrifice. We are not to beliving survivors, butliving sacrifices. This is the most basic and fundamental thing for us to become unified members of the church, to sacrifice and live for one another. This must be basic.In view of God’s mercy.We are saved by His mercy. Chapters 1-11 talk aboutdoctrineand chapter 11 ends withdoxology. After talking about amazing doctrine Paul has to exclaim, "Amazing! Praise the Lord! Amen!" Then in chapter 12, he talks aboutduty. Theology, doxology, practicality. Paul often does that. He talks about great theology and then praises God. Then he talks about our duty in response. As he starts this duty section, he says we are to be living sacrifices, because Christ died in our behalf.
  7. One of the best movies I’ve ever seen isSaving Private Ryan. If you have a weak heart or if you’re pregnant, do not see this movie. It’s very graphic. However, it has great meaning and many spiritual implications. At the end of the movie, an older man goes to the grave on Veteran’s Day with his family following him. He bows down in front of a few graves and weeps and cries. Then he asks his wife, "Am I good man? Was my life worth it?" He is wondering this because the movie has described how a few men gave their lives to save this man’s life. The spiritual implication is this: We live because Christ died on our behalf. He sacrificed in our behalf. Now we are to live for Him, to represent Him. We can ask ourselves, is my life worth it? Is my life a living sacrifice? Am I trying to survive, or am I sacrificing? That’s the core and most basic philosophy of our lives. To survive or to sacrifice?
  8. We Are Not to Conform But to Transform
  9. That’s what verse 2 says. "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."Until God is changing us, the world is shaping us.That’s what Scripture says. If you live a passive life, the world is shaping us. It’s an ongoing process of transformation and a lifetime of change.
  10. We need to define the wordsconformandtransform. The verse implies that you are already being conformed ("Do not conformany longer…"). What is conformity?Conformity is outward change that comes without inner change. So when you say I am conforming to this, you are confirming externally but not internally. He world shapes us but it doesn’t cause us to sin. It alters us and motivates us to express our sinful nature, but it does not cause us to sin. We can’t blame the world when we sin. We are merely shaped by the world. We are born with a sin nature, so the world shapes us to express our sinful hearts in a sinful way. It shapes us and justifies our sinful heart without change within. The world’s philosophy is: obey your thirst. That’s a survival philosophy. It means that you do whatever you want. If you look at advertising philosophy, it goes along with the sinful desires of the human heart. It says gratify your desires. Live for that thirst. Do whatever you want. Basically this world’s advertising system and really the entire philosophy of the world is: When your sinful desires are stimulated, don’t abstain. Rather, obey. That’s the philosophy of the world. Look at all the commercials. Out of a hundred commercials, how many things are advertised that are really needed to survive? Probably one, or not even that. So what do they have to do to sell these products? They must say: You have to gratify your desires. All of them are selling unnecessary things. Do we really need tires? Do we really need Gatorade? Do we really need all this food? When you fast, just watch TV. You’ll notice how many commercials are about food. What these commercials are doing are not causing us to sin, but stimulating us to sin. The world causes us conform to what already exists in our hearts.
  11. Transformation is different.Transformation is outward change that comes from inner change. I tell you right now, nothing can change a human heart other than God. Nothing. Anything and everything this world can try to change a heart, but nothing can change the inside, the heart of man. Everything we do without Christ is conformity. Every other religious system of this word is the same thing; there is nothing that can change us. The Spirit of God, the Word of God washes away our evil intentions and motives. Through political systems, communism, we are conformed but never transformed. Christianity transforms us. We change inside and the proof is outside change. There is a lot of conformity within the church but real change comes from transformation. The reason why Christ’s name is defamed is conformity. There is behavior modification but no heart transformation. We might not sin by going to certain places, but we sin in our religious activities by being pharisaic. Why? Because there’s conformity but no transformation. When there is transformation, Christ is glorified. Change takes place from the inside out. Some people say, "I don’t want to conform to CFC ways." My response is, "I hope not!" I hope you don’tconformto CFC ways, but youtransformto CFC ways. Not only change outside and look like you’re different, but change within.
  12. Let me try to define CFC ways, whatever that means. CFC girls are a certain way, CFC guys are a certain way. Who created that? Let me define CFC ways two ways. There are some biblical CFC ways. Read your Bible. Pray. Love each other. Sing praises with all your heart. Those are all biblical CFC ways. There are also just CFC cultural things. You need to distinguish between the two. Does only CFC have a culture? No, every church has a culture. There are neutral things they have decided to do in a certain way. It might not be explicitly biblical, but by agreeing upon certain ways, it has become its culture. Every church has a certain way of praying. We have a lot of ways of praying, positions of praying. Every church has a culture. You can distinguish between biblical and cultural ways by asking, "why?" Why do we do the things we do? For example, why do we take notes? Is it a sin not to take notes? No. So it’s not a biblical thing. It’s a CFC culture thing. Why does everyone take notes? Because Pastor Min’s sermons are so long. He preaches so long and with so many points that you have to take notes to remember anything. If you don’t ask why, you’re conforming, not transforming. You gotta know why. Is it a good reason? Ask not out of rebelliousness but out of a desire to learn and discern. You take notes because when more senses are involved, more learning takes place. A lot of times you need to go home and review your notes, to remember and chew and meditate on the Word of God. I prepared this sermon for hours. So here is ten to twenty hours worth of things coming at you as you sit there and listen for forty-five minutes. Of course it takes chewing and meditating for you to get it. So take notes. It’s so helpful. I don’t know how many people talk about how good it is to do it. This whole issue is important because later on, when you serve at another church, you need to emphasize biblical ways, not cultural ways. Let’s say you’re teaching a youth group. You need to emphasize biblical things like, "You gotta pray." Otherwise, you’ll take a whip out when they don’t take notes–pshaaw! Isn’t it OK for kindergarten kids not to takes notes? If you don’t ask "why", you’ll enforce cultural things in a wrong way. If it’s a cultural thing, you should discern whether or not it’s appropriate in a certain situation.
  13. As you ask these questions you’ll have one of two attitudes. One attitude is:Unless it’s biblical I will not follow.Another attitude:Unless it’s unbiblical I will follow. They sound similar but there’s a drastic difference. What’s the difference? In the first one, your attitude, direction and propensity is, "I willnotfollow." There are issues the Bible doesn’t specifically address. So you say, "That’s not in the Bible so I will not follow." When you don’t follow in the natural course of things, it becomes rebellion. I won’t take notes, because the Bible doesn’t talk about that. Our thinking should be: Is it unbiblical to take notes? No, it’s no big deal. I’m not sinning, so I’ll do it. Unless it causes me to sin, I’ll do it. It’s generally good to follow and have a submissive heart. The first attitude isminimum submission–bare, bare minimum. The second attitude ismaximum submission. The first ends up being rebellion. The second is an excellent definition of submission. Ladies, this is an excellent definition of submission. The neutral must be followed in a spirit of submission.
  14. How does this happen? "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is." Well, obviously this kind of inner change takes place through Scripture. The Word goes into our hearts (this Sunday I’ll talk more specifically how this transformation takes place through the Word of God). The Bible goes in, and we learn not a TV philosophy, but a philosophy that says "deny yourself, carry your cross, and follow Me."
  15. Do you want to know the will of God? How do you discern? When the Scripture goes into your mind and heart (verse 2) then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is.Testandapproveare important words. These two words are translated from one word in the Greek. English cannot capture it with one word. It’s saying that you know something not only in your mind (test), but you agree with it in your heart (approve). When the Word of God changes you inside, you not only know it’s yes or no, but in your heart you desire it. When inside change takes place, you don’t need to ask, "Is this what God says?" but you kind of know it in your mind. And not only do you know it but you want it. This one word pictureshead knowingandheart loving. You not only know the will of God but you love it. It’s not only aboutcognitive discerningbutcardiac desiring. Not onlyright thinkingbutright valuing. Not onlyright testing, butright treasuring. When inside change takes place, you are able to discern because of spiritual knowledge, and you love it because you love to do the will of God. That’s how you test and approve. We have new spiritual taste buds. We love it. We want to do it. Heart change takes place.
  16. Here is the process of biblical transformation. The world challenges your philosophy: Obey your thirst! So my heart says, "Obey your thirst." The Bible comes and boom! it says, "Deny yourself." Then you struggle between knowing and loving: "I know that God wants me to deny myself but I love to sin and to exalt myself, to have fun doing the things I want to do." There is a struggle between knowing and loving. You have occasional repentance coming in tears, "I sinned and failed again," but don’t be discouraged in that process. What you know will become what you love by the power of God. It has that kind of power, because transformation is taking place. The transformation of your desires. Then when your desires change, you don’t want to do those things anymore. Then transformation of your behavior occurs. You can quit smoking, drinking, whatever, because you don’t want to do it anymore. That’s the slow profess. Struggle even if you fall. Confess and repent and keep praying. Then through that process you’ll be able to disassociate yourself because you’ll be transformed within. That’s why the Bible says that David was a man after God’s own heart. What does that mean? Not only did he know the will of God but he desired it. It matched in his heart. When it is like that in our hearts, there’s clarity of conscience. When you sin, you can’t sleep because there’s guilt. The more you grow, the more smaller things bother you. Not only that, but the more you grow, the more you desire good things. To pray, to worship, to love people, because the desires of your heart match the desires of God. Not living survivors, but living sacrifices. Not to conform but to transform.
  17. Not Intoxicated Judgment, but Sober Judgment
  18. As you give your life as a living sacrifice, there will be transformation within. Judgment of yourself must take place. Isn’t that what verse 3 says? "For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourselfwith sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you." Sober means not intoxicated. What does it mean by intoxicated? The world makes judgments based on performance and ability. When you are good at something you are valued highly. You get more money in your job.