Grace Thoughts

Guest (Male): Hello friends, welcome to Grace Thoughts, the radio ministry of Grace Connection Church with Pastor Tim Kelley. Grace Thoughts has been dedicated to preaching a clear gospel of grace for over 20 years. Here is Pastor Kelley.

Tim Kelley: Turn to Romans chapter 12. We're going to finish the miniseries we started last week: Winning the Battle with Sin. This is Part 2. To quote my friend Dr. Steve Smith, who will actually be here in about two or three weeks speaking to us on a Sunday morning. He's a South East Director of Converge International and he's got about 80 churches under his care. He asked this question in his book, Unfinished Business. In John 5:6, the man at Bethesda, you know the story.

He was at the pool of Bethesda and they had a belief or a tradition that angels would come and stir the water up in the pool and the first one that got into the water after they were stirred up would get a healing. They'd be healed. This man was crippled. Some people would have their family members there and they'd wait for the water to stir and they'd throw them in the pool. But there were dozens of people there and they were all just waiting and waiting and waiting for that moment.

It was very tenuous whether or not this man would ever make it, be the one that made it in the pool. Jesus came up to him and he asked him this question. This is a big question and it's a question I really want to start this message with and it's a question I think we all have to answer as individuals. He looked at the man and says, "Do you want to get well?" Do you want to get well? That question demands an answer. Do you want to get well?

Do you want to be healed? I think the obvious answer to that man was, "Of course. Yes, I want to be well." And we know that the Lord healed him. But I ask that question to myself today, I ask that question to you and I'm going to add a part B to that question as we speak about winning the battle with sin. Do you want to get well? And if you're saying, "Yeah, I want to get well," then my follow-up question is: Will you do what it takes to get well?

If I have a doctor give me a prescription and I come home, I put the script on the refrigerator and I don't take the pills and I go back to the doctor and I say, "Your prescription didn't work for me." "Have you taken it?" "Well, no, I didn't know I had to take it. I thought the pills were supposed to be a little thing on my refrigerator." "No, you're actually supposed to take the pill and then it'll work for you." See, I didn't take the steps. I wanted to be well, that's why I went to the doctor, but I didn't take the appropriate steps to get myself well.

That's what last week was about and this week is about. It is answering that question, "How do we get well?" We talked a little bit about addictions. I'm okay with Alcoholics Anonymous' 12-step programs. Recovery programs are what I was looking for. They started in 1946 and have helped tens of millions of people overcome the grips of alcohol and different addictions. Now, there are over 500 addictions. Think of that. They have everything "anonymous".

The latest addiction that I'm aware of is a media addiction. People are addicted to their media, addicted to their cell phones. If you don't have your cell phone with you for like 15 minutes, how do you feel? A little nervous. I might have this addiction because I drove out of my home the other day and I left my cell phone at home. I was only going to be gone for about an hour, not even that. I left my cell phone at home and I was nervous the whole time.

I had nothing. What if someone tries to reach me? I can't reach anyone. What if I break down on the side of the road? What if I get a flat? Whatever it was, I started drawing all these scenarios of why I would need my cell phone for the 45 minutes I was on the road and I realized I have a problem. I think my nine-year-old has an addiction to that. Anyway, we'll get another message on that. There are addictions, so we have all these things that we would say are addictions today.

Or things that control our lives or, as I would say, the things that we've used to fill the voids in our lives. We're talking about sin. Sin in its nature, sin in its overarching power within our lives, sin as being mankind trying to meet his own needs by his own strength. I should say his own God-given needs by his own strength. Sin that came into the human race because Adam and Eve ate a piece of fruit they weren't supposed to eat.

Up until that point, the need for love, significance, affirmation, acceptance, all those basic human needs were met by God. And then sin came into the human race and drove a wedge in that relationship. So man started looking, instead of to God for these needs being met, horizontally to each other and life for these needs to be met. And that was the birth of sin singular. Sin plural is individual acts of sin. Your sins may be different than my sins, but we all have sin in our lives.

And it manifests differently in all of our lives. I may never have a problem with alcohol, but I may have a great problem with pride. I may not have a problem with this particular substance abuse over here, but I may be a professional worrier. Some of you are good at that. And so it all comes underneath the umbrella of sin. I want to use this little play on words here. Do we find ourselves working towards recovery? Because I'm looking at the recovery programs.

Please understand, I'm in the process of starting one here, Celebrate Recovery. It'll be a while before we get it going, but that's on the radar screens. I see the value of it, I see the purpose of it. They help people, they bridge people. I'm not criticizing any of those things. But here's recovery by Webster's definition: The act of regaining, retaking, or obtaining possession of anything lost. Not a bad definition at all. I'm going to get back what I lost, I'm retaining it.

In a sense, the word recovery means I'm going to take my sin and I'm going to control it. I'm going to corral it in and I'm going to control it. Now, in the actual lingo and the verbiage of the recovery programs, they will tell you you will always be that sin. You're just controlling it. If you've got this addiction, you're still that addiction, you're controlling it though. And thank God you are and praise God that you are, and you ought to be commended that you are.

But you never go beyond being what sin has defined you to be. My friends, I believe that falls short of recovery in the New Testament. Let me give you another word that we find in our passage we'll be reading here in a moment: The word transformation. Transformation is a change of heart and man by which his disposition and temper are conformed to a divine image. That's Webster's also. So it's a change of the heart. It's not a controlling of the flesh.

It's not a rallying in of the old nature. It's a change of the heart. Something really changes. There's a difference. While recovery implies self-effort and struggle to regain something lost, transformation, on the other hand, implies an action performed on us, in us, and for us. Let me quote the apostle Paul, Romans chapter 12, verses one, two, and three. It says this, "So dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you."

"Let them be a living and holy sacrifice," that's your body, "the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by the changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good, pleasing and perfect." Verse three: "Because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning: Do not think you are better than you really are."

"Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith that God has given you." I love that statement, "Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves." So he uses this word transform here in verse two. It's the Greek word metamorphoo where we get our English word metamorphosis from. You know the butterfly and the little beetle thing going on there. This is a definition of metamorphoo: To undergo a complete change which, under the power of God, will find expression in character and conduct.

Now the word morphe which is the root word here, lays stress on inward change. So it's to undergo a complete change under the power of God. God does the change, that's very important. And then God does the change and it changes my conduct and changes my character, which will sometimes drive my conduct. But it comes from God, not surrounding myself in. I'm going to give you a little bit of Greek here because I think it sometimes adds a lot to the verse if you understand it.

The verse is in the present passive imperative. You don't have to know what that means because I'm going to tell you. Which means it is a command to do something in the future which involves a continuous or repeated action. Thus, we are transformed on a repetitive and continuous basis. It goes on our entire life. When you retire, you don't retire from being transformed. You are transformed up to the time you're totally transformed coming into the presence of God through death or, hopefully, the rapture of the church.

It's in the passive voice. The passive voice is important. The active voice means I do the action, the passive voice means I receive the action. So I receive the action of being transformed. It's something God does for me consistently throughout my Christian life. The process of transformation is thus acted upon me, not acted by me. Jesus Christ takes on the task of transforming the believer from the corruption and the damage that sin brought into their lives.

Into a believer that is always being transformed into somebody not simply recovered but brand new. 2 Corinthians 5:17: This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone and a new life has begun. Philippians 1:6, one of my life verses: For I am certain that God who has begun a good work within you will continue his work until it's finally finished on the day when Jesus Christ returns.

Unto him that is able to keep you from falling, Jude said. There's a wonderful word embedded in Philippians 1:6 called epiteleo. Some that know me for years know that that's been my screen name for years in different things I use. If you see epiteleo somewhere online, it's me hiding behind that name. And the word means it actually has the implication of being carried to a finish line. If I'm racing and I'm in the home stretch and I can't make it, I'm picked up and I'm carried to the finish line.

Jesus Christ says, "I'm epiteleo. I will carry you to the finish line of life. I will transform you every day of your life. If you allow me to, I'll transform you every day of your life. I will make you like me. I'll take on the responsibility of it through my Holy Spirit. I just need you to show up." I took a shower this morning. I cleaned up and scrubbed and I turned the water on and I stood next to the water a few feet away and just, "That's good. Water is running over there. I'm over here."

Then I got dressed and I came to church. I took a shower. I mean, I turned the shower on. Imagine if I did that for a couple of weeks. We'd have the exterminators in here looking for a dead rodent somewhere around here. But no, it doesn't happen. No, the shower only works if I get under the water. I have to use the water, I have to get into the place where it actually can impact my life. I can't say I took a shower if I didn't actually get in the water.

I didn't actually soap up and lather up and wash my hair. And that's the principle of spiritual transformation. It's this flow that is running down to God's people. Will you get in the flow? Will you get in the shower? I'll make you clean. I'm the water, I'm the shower, I'm the water pressure, I'm everything. I'll clean you up, I'll make you like me, I'll change you from the inside out. Just get in the shower, step in the water.

So the first principle of spiritual transformation, I believe, is we present our bodies as a living sacrifice. And what I refer to this is simply, my friends, the lordship of Christ.