Re-NEW-al: Packaged for Transformation

We have celebrated a “new” year.  This year will bring new ideas and new uses of grace.  Our obedience to God on how we “apply” this grace is essential for our success.  What is God’s will for us in this new year?

Scripture:  Romans 12:1-2 “And 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—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 changing the way you think.  Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

The Apostle Paul calls us his church family and then passionately challenges us that God’s will is to think rightly of His precepts. Then Paul pleads with his church family to make their faith real so it impacts others around them.  Our thinking prompts our behavior.  So our thinking needs renewal.  What are your thoughts when you hear the word transformation or renewal?  Let’s look at the word renewal.

Re-:  Prefix—Again and again
NEW:  Freshness
-Al:  Suffix—action; a process
Renewal:  The action of being refreshed, again and again.

I am going to use an analogy here.  I am going to refer to the Good News—the zoe life in Christ—as the gospel song.  We are storage containers of the everlasting gospel song.  We are daily being changed and transformed by this life/song.  We are packaged for transformation from the Inside Out—a place of constant renewal or freshness. We must position ourselves for God’s favor.  It is the work of the Spirit to lead us into all truth.  That truth is a place of worship and it is birthed from the Inside Out.  From that place of obedience or worship, we are to sing our heart’s melody to God—our gospel song. 

II Corinthians 5:17-18, 20 “Therefore if any person is in-grafted in Christ the Messiah he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old previous moral and spiritual condition has passed away.  Behold the fresh and new has come!  But all things are from God, Who through Jesus Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave to us the ministry of reconciliation that by word and deed we might aim to bring others into harmony with Him.  So we are Christ’s ambassadors, God making His appeal as it were through us.  We [as Christ’s personal representatives] beg you for His sake to lay hold of the divine favor and be reconciled to God”

Colossians 3:16 “Let the word spoken by Christ the Messiah have its home in your hearts and minds and dwell in you in all is richness, as you teach and admonish and train one another in all insight and intelligence and wisdom in spiritual things and as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, making melody to God with His grace in your hearts.”  The zoe (Greek for “life”) has been given so we can make melody to God with our lives—again, this is a place of worship from the Inside Out.

Titus 3:5 “He saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but because of His own pity and mercy by the cleansing bath of the new birth and renewing of the Holy Spirit.”

Ephesians 3:16-17 “May He grant you out of the rich treasury of His glory to be strengthened and reinforced with mighty power in the inner man by the Holy Spirit [Himself indwelling your innermost being and personality]. May Christ through your faith dwell [settle down, abide, make His permanent home] in your hearts@  May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love.” Our strength and power is from zoe-giving Spirit. From the Inside Out.

There are  two NT “news.” We learned the words: “tomil” (past; in front of) and “mahir” (future or behind).  This past week have you been looking at the losses and gains of the past year only to find that God has been guiding your path?  We are communication packages—storage media—of the gospel song.  I want to look back at a bit of history for a moment when it comes to storage media packages that went through transformation. I have here many different kinds of storage media for the “gospel song”—a 78, 33, and 45 record, an 8 track and cassette tape, a compact disc, and an iPod.  As a congregation, we are quite similar to these many different types of media.  Some of us can identify with one more than the others.  Our young people are all about the cds and iPods.  They cannot relate to the 78s.  Although the gospel never changes, the media packaging for the gospel must undergo constant transformation. We need to find a way to reach out to our children, young adults, and young families with a fresh Word that is relevant to their lives.  The Spirit will lead us.  Our part is to allow the Spirit’s renewing work.

Personal Application:  Allow God to transform you from the Inside Out; offer yourself for “renewal.”  In Romans 12:11, the Apostle Paul urges us to “never be lacking in zeal.”  We must experience continual renewal by inviting the Spirit to fill us.  Go the distance with God; be a passionate witness to the grace in you.  Passion for God will never go unrewarded in heaven.  However, if you decide to devote yourself to God you can expect all hell to break loose around you. The enemy does not want you to be excited and passionate about God!  Be passionate, anyway!

Ministry Application:  Just as we look back to see that the “gospel song” packages have experienced transformation, it is reasonable to understand that God will continue to do new things in this ministry.  We must embrace God’s will for His Body—the church.

What is required of us?
Micah 3:8 “God has showed you, O man, what is good.  And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, and to love kindness and mercy, and to humble yourself and walk humbly with your God?”  We are called as the Body of Christ to use God’s gifts, deposited within us, to bring reconciliation between God and this world.  How we do that will ever be changing.

Let’s embrace the renewal of the Spirit and offer ourselves to God and His will for us in 2010.
John Wesley’s Covenant Renewal Prayer

I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
thou art mine, and I am thine.
So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven.
Amen.