“Compromising It All”  Romans 12:1-8  8-24-08

1Therefore, 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^[a] act of worship. 2Do 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.  3For 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. 4Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his^[b]faith. 7If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; 8if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.
 

    Fashion is a very interesting thing. Americans spent $335 Billion on fashion and clothes last year.  Fashion and beauty change with culture.  There is a tribe in Central Africa (Saras-Djinges) that see beauty in large lips.  When the women are young, their lips are pierced with extended wooden plates.  The plates are made bigger and bigger until they reach about 12 inches wide.  This is beautiful to them.  In China for thousands of years they bound the feet of women to keep them small, because small feet were seen as a beautiful thing.  Some of the Mayans sought to have flat heads for their girls, so newborn babies had their heads tied to boards on either side until their heads were flat.  In England in the 1700s and early America wigs for men was very fashionable. Why in the west do we wear ties and high heel shoes?  When I was in high school the fashion was tie-died t-shirts and miniskirts.  I look back to some of those old annuals, and think about how much we paid for torn, worn-out jeans just to look “cool” and see how wasteful it was.  Some people live their whole lives trying to be fashionable.  Really this is their effort to try to be liked, and to fit in.   Christianity has lost much of its salt because we have compromised so much with the world, that the world asks, “why should I bother with church, there is no difference?”  As the world has gotten darker, you would have expected the light of God to shine even brighter, but we have dimmed our lights.  What was shocking to us morally 50 years ago is everyday occurrence.  What was an X rated movie when I was a kid is PG-13 today.  We have compromised and conformed until our light is almost gray.
I. DO NOT CONFORM
JB Phillips translation- don’t let the world squeeze you into its mold. The Greek word for transform (suschematizesthai- root word schema). Basically means don’t camouflage your faith.  Don’t be like a chameleon which changes its color to suit its environment.  Don’t be consumed with trying to be fashionable.                            
                A MAN IN Brooklyn had his name changed from Kelly to Feinberg.  Then a year later he changed from Geinberg to Garibaldi.  The judge was upset.  “Are you trying to make the court look foolish?”  “Not at all your Honor” was the reply from the applicant.  “My neighborhood keeps changing.” 
                I believe God is looking for people who don’t care about fitting into a dying world.  God is looking for people who are willing to imitate His Son.  I also believe fitting in is unreachable.  The minute something becomes normal, people lose interest in it.  People are really hard to please.  We absolutely need to ask ourselves, do I seek to please others more than seek to please God? 
II. HOW WE FIGHT CONFORMITY- In our passage, Paul tells us three ways to fight conformity- by sacrifice, by seeking to change the world around us, and by getting our mind right.
                A. SACRIFICE- What does Paul mean when he speaks about giving our bodies as a living sacrifice?  I believe he means give ourselves physically- time and space- to God.  In our culture there is a tendency to divide up the spiritual from the physical.  So we may think we're doing our spiritual thing one hour on a Sunday morning, and then we do the physical thing the rest of the week.  The Bible doesn't divide life up like that. Really God wants all of us - body, mind, and soul.  The body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Take the physical things you have to do and give them to God.  Take the mundane things.  Christian Celtic Spirituality did this.  Every time they would leave a house- they would bless the house and ask for God’s blessing as they went.  When they would light a fire, they would say, “I bow my knee before God who gives warmth, and I pray that I would always see His light.”  They took the mundane and made it spiritual.  The person who says God can have my soul, but he can’t have my education, or my work, or my money, or my time, has not let God have his soul.  God made us complete and whole. He made all of us.  As we sacrifice ourselves to Him as Lord, we free ourselves from the grip of conformity.  
                B. TRANSFORMATION- Who is changing who?  Are you seeking to be like everyone else who thinks this is it?  Or are you seeking to change the world around you for the glory of God?  One of the very basics of Christian thought is that God can change the world, and can change the individuals in the world.  If we do not believe anyone or anything really changes, then somehow we have lost faith in the power of God.  Many lose faith in God’s power, because some people are just determined not to let God change them, and others who claim to be changed go back to their old ways.  There are many stories I could tell about change, but I like one.
                Ernest Gordon was chaplain of Princeton University, and he described his time as a prisoner during World War II in the death camp of Chungkai in Burma.  People were dying all around him, they were being forced to work harsh labor and not being fed enough, plus they were beaten daily.  The allied soldiers began to give up and started behaving like barbarians.  They stole from each other, robbing dying colleagues.  They fought for food, and servers would hold back food for themselves.  Lucado says, “The law of the jungle became the law of the land.  Gordon, however, was too sick and went to an infirmary. Two new prisoners who still had hope transferred in and took care of Gordon.  Though they are also sick and weak, they share their meager rations with Gordon, treat his ulderated wounds, and massage his weak legs.  They gave him a bath.  Slowly his strength returned, and his dignity too.  Gordon began to follow their example to share his rations.  He even gave away his few belongings. Sacrifice replaced selfishness.  They began holding Bible studies and worship services, and there was a spirit of life and hope even in that terrible place.  As Gordon wrote, “Death no longer had the last word at Chungkai.”  In our world, where people rush, and the illusion that jobs and money are scarce, it would be easy to descend into the law of the jungle.  It would make more sense to believe in the law of sacrifice and love that Jesus showed us.  (Lucado- Facing the Gians pp. 53,54).
III. THE RENEWAL OF YOUR MIND
As we change our minds, we fight conformity with the world.  One of the things I think we can learn from the Olympic games or really any athletic event, is how much the mind effects our bodies and our abilities.  If you put the image in your mind that you’re going to win, you are more likely to do so.  The 400 meter swimming relay illustrated this perfectly.  Who would have thought that the American swimmer Jason Lezak, who was 32, would catch up to Alain Bernard, in the last fifty meters? Lezak said at one point he thought "there's no way" he could win.  But then he says he changed the way he thought- that he was giving it all no matter how much it hurt- and he won.  He changed his thought pattern.   Most of us will not run in the Olympics, but we will run our own race before God.  It is important what we think of ourselves. 
                A) HOW YOU THINK OF YOURSELF- (vs. 3- "Do not think of yourselves more highly than you ought- but think of yourselves with sober judgment.") Dr. Spock told two generations to love themselves no matter what they do- to the point that guilt is seen as bad.  In contrast to this, the Bible says you are loved by God, made in His image, and Jesus came to sacrifice himself for us.  Yet, if we esteem ourselves too much, we put ourselves in the place of God.  We, in effect, become God judging what is right and wrong according to how it benefits us.  We should never place our esteem above God's commands.  We need to change the way we think about ourselves in order to change the world from a self-centered-all-about-me world, to a God-centered, other centered world.
                B) WE ALL NEED EACH OTHER- Another thing special about us, that should change the way we think about ourselves is our gifts. God has given each of us a special gift.  We are all unique.  We all have a role to play in the church, and in the world for the glory of God.  We all need to use our gifts correctly to transform the world.
        I believe one of the greatest gifts God gives us is faith.  Anything extremely valuable is  often counterfeited and falsely imitated.  Gem buyers must be careful that they not buy fakes.  Synthetic gems are lab grown stones that closely duplicate a gem’s physical properties- but they aren’t the real mccoy.  Simulate gems like cubic zirconia is the same color as an expensive gem, but it is just a kind of glass and will easily break.  Enhanced gems are stones that are real, but have some flaw- like bad color or bad shape.  Color can be enhanced through radiation and heat, and shape can be changed through wax.  I believe the world see our faith, and tries to imitate it in the flesh, leaving out the things they think are hard- like belief in the supernatural, following the commandments, stepping out in sacrifice or the risk of faith.  We aren’t to buy into that.  We are called to sacrifice our bodies, renew our minds, and not be afraid to be a little different.