From first Presbyterian Church of Chattanooga, here's Dr. Michael Milton. Things don't always line up in life the way they should. Our dreams don't always line up with the way we want them to turn out. Our plans don't always line up the way they should and their places in our lives who are we have to mine the gap. Sometimes in our faith, things don't always line up. We can march against abortion as evangelicals and then kill the souls of our children with criticism and anger. And we need to mine the gap. We can listen to Christian preachers and our luxury cars as we pass the hungry on the street without even a prayer. We need to mine the gap.
The Bible declares faith comes from hearing and hearing for the Word of Christ. Welcome to Faith for Living with Dr. Michael Milton, the radio outreach ministry of first Presbyterian Church of Chattanooga, a ministry with one great passion and belief that faith comes from proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ as found in God's Word. And that faith in Jesus Christ is faith for living. This week Dr. Milton brings to us a message entitled Mind the Gap. The Bible exhorts us to present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God. At no time since the early church, do we see this more clearly demonstrated than during the Reformation when the Gospel spread like wildfire? How can Christians today transform the world like the faithful believers during the Reformation era? The Bible text for today is from Romans 12, verses 1 and 2. Here once again is Dr. Michael Milton with today's message entitled Mind the Gap. We must not think of the Reformation of the 16th century in terms of some sort of political realignment. We must not think of the great awakening that happened in America as some sort of political maneuvering and movement that needed to happen before our country came into being. For these were first and foremost revivals. There was a fire that was burning through the church at that time and in the case of the Reformation up until that day no revival could equal that since the day of Pentecost. Pentecost and the fire that burned was a fire that was kindled out of the book of Romans which is where we're going today. Romans 12, verses 1 and 2 marks a significant transition in this book. Paul begins in chapter 1 if you've got your Bibles take and look in Romans chapter 1 and verse 1 and you get the idea of where Paul is going from the very outset. We read Paul a servant of Christ Jesus called to be an apostle set apart for the Gospel of God, the Gospel of God. What Paul is going to say truly is going to be a word from another world. Some of it is going to be so high, so ethereal that it's going to be even hard for Paul to understand. In fact in chapter 11 after Paul hammers down the truth of the Gospel that it is a righteousness of God by God for a believer who expresses faith in Jesus Christ that in fact we are made declared righteous before a holy God only because of the work of Jesus Christ and his righteousness. And only through faith, through no other means, once he hammers down line upon line, precept upon precept, the sovereignty of God, justification by faith alone through God's grace alone. Paul in chapter 11, look there in chapter 11, verse 33 he just breaks out and prays. Oh the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsurchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways for who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid for from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever, amen. Now if you can imagine Paul's just unburdening his soul of this word from another world, getting now to chapter 12 it is as if Paul is just exhausted. He's given all of this and he said praise be to God, I can't even figure this out, it's too glorious, but I've given it to you. And for Paul, you see all theology is practical, it must be applied. It's always got to be applied in a human being. So it's as if Paul sort of picks himself back up now and he makes a turn and he applies all of these glorious theological truths. And that's what chapter 12 is about. May the fire that kindled a reformation and revival kindle in our hearts, a love for Jesus Christ that will bubble out and pour out into other places in our lives so that God is glorified with that prayer. Let us read Romans 12 verses 1 and 2. I appeal to you therefore brothers by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Many of us have been to London and been on the famous underground tube, but if you've been, you know that when you step off of that platform, in the underground, when you step off the platform and you step onto that carriage, onto that train, what are you here? A recorded voice. Mind the gap in perfect BBC English and you know mind the gap has a story behind it. You see when they were digging the tunnel to make what became the tube, the underground of London, it is said that the diggers had to go around the vaults of the bank of the England which were so deep in the ground. And they had to go around those vaults and they had to make a dramatic sharp turn at several places in the lines, particularly on waterloo line and on the circle line. And the turns were so sharp that when they finally put the whole thing together and the trains came up to the platform at the station because of the angle there was a gap between the train and the platform so that you had to be careful and you had to mind the gap. Well, mind the gap would not have been something that the designers in the engineers would have liked to have heard because that essentially was an admission that things did not line up the way they should have. And see, that's the truth about life. Things don't always line up in life the way they should. Our dreams don't always line up with the way we want them to turn out. Our plans don't always line up the way they should and their places in our lives were we have to mind the gap. Not too long ago I had a conversation with a child whose parents were divorcing. Things didn't line up in that little boy's life and he was forced by another's brokenness to start minding the gap in his life. And do you know what? Sometimes in our faith things don't always line up. We can march against abortion as evangelicals and then kill the souls of our children with criticism and anger and we need to mind the gap. We can listen to Christian preachers and our luxury cars as we pass the hungry on the street without even a prayer and we may need to mind the gap there. You know in our classes and our Sunday school classes we can say amen to reaching the world for Christ but never dare to speak the name of Jesus to someone who needs to hear it at work. Unless we be deemed a religious nut or something. We need to mind the gap. Now the Reformation was a time when there was a gap between the platform of Rome and the train of the Bible. And Martin Luther was the one who had to nail those 95 theses, those 95 protests, those 95 reforms from Scripture on the church door at Vittenburg because he was concerned about the gap that existed between the church and the Bible. Paul is calling really for a Reformation. Now I want you to remember that the people Paul wrote to were Jewish believers in Rome. In fact if you look in your Bible you'll see in chapter 12 he says I appeal to you therefore, therefore after all 11 chapters of this great theological treaties, therefore I appeal to you brothers. There were gaps in the lives of those who professed Christ at the church in Rome. All of us would agree that we need Reformation in our land today but how many of us will admit today that there are gaps in our lives, maybe some of mentioned or maybe some others. You see what Paul is really dealing with is what we profess on Sunday. That's got to be the same thing we live on Monday and we've got to mind the gap and discover where those gaps are. That takes an act of spiritual courage that is really an act of the Holy Spirit to say Lord where the gaps in my life. There's three words that I want to use to work through Romans chapter 12 verses 1 and 2. Here are the three words, deformation as in deformed, transformation and reformation. And I think that will help us to see what Paul is talking about. First of all Paul is talking about deformation, something has happened in the lives of the believers, something has happened in the world that is caused Paul to say that you need to present your bodies as a living sacrifice to God. You don't need to conform any longer to this present evil age. You see the truth was some must have been presenting their bodies in a way that wasn't holy, a way that wasn't pure. Or maybe some were getting caught up in a Greek philosophy that said well the physical things or of no interest to God, only the spiritual, only your heart, your mind, your soul, only that interior being is of interest to God. And Paul is saying no, your whole person is of interest to God. You see Paul is talking about a deformation in two areas in Romans chapter 12 verse 1. And that first area is personal holiness, the way I present my body to God each and every day. That is what Paul is talking about. And the other thing that Paul is talking about is the way that we respond to culture, a deformation in the way we're able to discern or not discern culture. And the way we become conformed to culture. I read this week a very interesting article that was quite disturbing to me. It was in a journal that I received. And the article was entitled prominent sociologist reports. Christians do not live like they say they believe. Now the sociologist's name is Alan Wolf and he serves as the director of the Boise Center at Boston University. And he is a self-describe agnostic. And he wrote a book called The Transformation of American and Religion. And the way he set out to get his findings was deceptively simple. He went out across America and visited specifically evangelical churches and just observed. Here are his conclusions. In every aspect of the religious life American faith has met American culture and American culture has triumphed. Whether or not the faithful ever were a people apart they are so no longer. Talk of hell, damnation and even sin has been replaced by a non-judgmental language of understanding and empathy. Far from living in a world elsewhere, the faithful, he says with scorn, the faithful in the United States are remarkably like everyone else. Despite what one may think, Wolf seems to be torn and even wistful about the results he's uncovered. So he reflects on the state of what he has seen in Earth and the churches, particularly the preaching. And he says watching and listening makes one long for an evangelical willing to stand up looter like and proclaim his opposition to the latest survey of evangelical taste. So anxious is evangelicalism to copy the culture that it loses what religious distinctiveness it once had. The article concludes by saying what Wolf describes is a massive credibility gap by professing Christians. You see it's what Paul is dealing with here, a credibility gap in personal holiness and in the response to culture. Eugene Peterson paraphrases this and says, so what's, so here's what I want you to do. He paraphrases Romans 12, one and two. Here's what I want you to do. God helping you take your everyday ordinary life, you're sleeping, eating, going to work and walking around life and place it before God as an offering. And that's what personal holiness is. It's an offering of God of our very selves in everyday ways and this according to Paul becomes an act of worship. Now the Roman Christians were also having a problem with the culture around them. JB Phillips translates this and says, don't let the world squeeze you into its own mold. And yet this is exactly what was happening then and what can happen in our own lives. I want to ask you, are you in your life being squeezed by entertainment, the media, into the mold of an ungodly and an unhealthy spiritual life? Are you being squeezed into the mold of the world? And now when I ask a young people here a question, what is cool? Is it conforming to a culture that tells you what to do, what music to listen to, what things to see, how you must look, how you must act, is that cool or is cool? Taking a stand and saying, here I stand for Christ, I can do no other. What's more courageous? Now how are we going to do that? You see, that's the setting for this entire passage, a deformed culture and life, the possibility that even brothers and sisters in Christ could be caught up in the world, could compromise their own bodies and their personal holiness before Jesus Christ. That is the setting. But how are we going to do this? How are we going to not conform? How are we going to present our bodies as the next word, transformation? Because we are told, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Now that transformation and that word transform the Greek word is the root word for our word metamorphosis. And here it's in the passive. This transformation is something that comes from the outside and comes to us. First we've got to be transformed, something has got to happen to us. You know what's got to happen? All of those 11 chapters that have gone before in the book of Romans has got to kick in in your own life. The free offer of eternal life through Jesus Christ has got to be received by you. Jesus offers you eternal life today if you've never received it. And Jesus Christ offers believers abundant life. He stands at the door of the church and knocks. And whoever will let him in you'll come in and suck with him. 11 chapters of Paul nailing down justification by faith. And now the transformation that has got to happen in our lives is always receiving that free gift, opening our heart and receiving Christ. John Calvin says, what is happening in Romans 12 verse 2 is nothing less than a call to be born again. To receive the gospel and to be born again. And you know what believers? It means that we've got to receive the gospel and experience transformation in every area of our lives. Yes, you've received Christ and you've been born again, but this is a letter to professing believers to examine their lives and see where the spiritual deformities are. And then through the transforming power of Christ, something's got to happen and there's got to be a renewal of our minds. There are people in this very place today who if you had known them before they received the free gift of eternal life through Christ, you wouldn't recognize them because of the way they thought. I was one of them. The way I thought in those days before Christ is quite different from the way I think today. But here's the thing. As I continue placing my life before the Lord, when I do that, I find that there is continual transformation which of course is called sanctification going on in my life. As the Holy Spirit takes His Word and reveals to me the gaps that I need to mind and then invites me to receive His power through the gospel. Harry Blomar is one of the most important books I've ever read, The Christian Mind. It's simply called The Christian Mind. If you've never read it, it's well worth reading. He speaks of a life of cultivating our minds. He says in his book, which is an indictment, it was written in the early 1960s, an indictment of the Western Christian culture which had given up thinking as a Christian about things. Do you reflect on things that are in your life and think biblically and reflect about your work, about your decisions, about your family life, reflect on it from the perspective of God's Word? Paul says, whatever is true, whatever is noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, anything excellent or praiseworthy, think about these things. And then we are told in 2 Corinthians to take every thought captive to obey Christ. Now more than ever in our image-saturated society and an entertainment-addicting culture, we need a renewal of the Christian Mind. And we need to not only think right, theologically, first 11 chapters of Romans, we need to think biblically and apply that to every area of our lives. Where is God showed you that you need renewal of your mind? Maybe it's in the way you relate to your wife or your children or the jokes you use and the expense of others or your speech or your attitudes toward the poor. Maybe the way you need to relate to authority, maybe a critical spirit towards others, maybe a laissez-faire approach to discipleship, be transformed. And renew your minds by trusting in Christ alone and following Him, and the Holy Spirit will come into you and give you power, that your mind may be renewed, that you may think thoughts after God in every area of your life. And that leads us to the third and final word, reformation. Something's de form needs to be fixed. It can only be fixed not by religious duty or following some system, but a transformation from the outside that comes and works from the inside out. And you know where that leads? That leads to this in this passage. When this happens, be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that, this is where it goes, by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. And that word is reformation. That is what reformed is or should be. It is the outworking of the Holy Spirit in a believer's life so that he or she begins to discern things according to the mind of God, according to the renewed mind, which has been given that believer through the work of Jesus Christ. You begin to see things in a different way, and then when you see them in that way you want to do something about them, you want to test and discern. You want to begin to nail the thesis up on the Vittenberg door of your life. You see things that need to be changed in your life, and you want to respond to the work of the Lord. I was reading the works recently of Leslie Newbig, and who was a missionary to India for many years, and then he became a missionary to the inner city of industrial cities in London. He began to talk about Christ and culture in his work, and how the gospel works out in a pluralistic society. And he said, it works its way out, it begins to reform the society in this way. Christians don't look at culture and let culture go its own way. Christians look at culture and say it's got to be taken under the Lordship of Jesus Christ because this is God's world. And the way that happens is through Leslie Newbig and says the local church. He says the best hermeneutic for the gospel, that is the best way to understand and receive the gospel, the best hermeneutic of the gospel is the local congregation, living out its life in simple ways, in faithful ways in their community. And people see and ask about the gospel, and then the believers have an opportunity to say here's what God has done for me through Jesus Christ. Your life is the best apologetic, your life is the best hermeneutic, that is way to understand the gospel. Who you are on Monday, matching up with what you say and I say on Sunday, the gospel works and it's working through you, the gaps in the lives of human beings are being closed but Jesus Christ. You see Jesus Christ is always the one who closes the gap in our lives and brings conformity to the gospel. It can't be through duty, it can't be through, I'm really going to turn over and you leave, I'm really going to do it, it's got to be a power working within the transforms and it's working. God is working through you.
The Reformation changed the course of history as believers willingly presented themselves as living sacrifices for the sake of the gospel and the glory of God. For audio copy of today's teaching, be sure to call or write and ask the message entitled Mind the Gap. Right to Isat, Faith for Living, 554 McCauley Avenue, Chattanooga, Tennessee, 37402, or call 423-648-7914. You can also hear today's teaching on our website at faithforliving.net Faith for Living with Mike Milton is an outreach ministry of first Presbyterian Church of Chattanooga. Now until next time, on behalf of Mike Milton and first Presbyterian Church of Chattanooga, may you grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, with a living faith and a faith for living. I'm Dan Parker and this has been a presentation of first Presbyterian Church of Chattanooga.