Kennystix's podcast
Do Not Be Conformed to This World: The Indigenous and Pilgrim Principle of Christian Living
The following resource is from desiringGod.org. Scripture text for this morning's message is found in the book of Romans 12 verses 1 and 2. I follow along as I 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 wholly 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 the good and acceptable and perfect. Let's pray together. There are not many more wonderful things, Lord Jesus, than to know that when we're falling, you catch us and tell us who we are, we're yours. And for some of us, at 58, the words, "You're a flower, blooms for a little while, and gone, you're a wave, capping, and then smooth out, gone in the ocean," become very real. So teach us to number our days now, Lord, that we may get a heart of wisdom and be our wisdom in Christ. Fix our eyes on the cross, and there may we never see foolishness or weakness, but power and wisdom. May the cross be our great boast. And now, Lord, flower and wave, though I am, help me to deal faithfully with your word and to minister it in power, converting power, strengthening power, healing power, reconciling power, guiding power, hope-giving power, burden-lifting power for the sake of this year people. I ask this in the name of your Son, our Savior, and Lord, and treasure. Jesus Christ, amen. Oh, how many questions, verse two raises. Romans 12, verse two, "How many questions it raises for us?" How does the command do not be conformed to this world relate to Paul's practice as he expressed it in 1 Corinthians 9, 22, "I become all things to all people, if by all means I might save some." How do you not conform to the world and become all things to all people? How does the command do not be conformed to the world fit with his words in 1 Corinthians 10, 32, "Give no offense to Jews or Greeks or the Church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many that they may be saved." How does not being conformed to the world fit with not giving offense to the world? You can't please everybody if you refuse to be conformed to their way of thinking and their way of acting. Question after question, pour to my mind when I hear the words, "Don't be conformed to this world." A lot of questions here, and we will tackle them. We'll be at least three weeks on this verse because of so many things that have to be dealt with here. In fact, I'm unapologetic about lingering on verses 1 and 2 because verses 1 and 2 is the summary of the Christian life and the rest is detail. There are reasons that these questions emerge, and it's not because Paul is confused, speaking out of both sides of his mouth or can't figure out the Christian life. Sometimes you conform and sometimes you don't, and I don't know when you do it, and he's not confused here. He's articulating a tension of two impulses that grow right out of the gospel, calling us to live in that tension, bring these impulses into balance, and know when to do the one and when to do the other because we have a transformed mind renewed. Did it ever strike you as odd that Paul would call for Christians to have renewed minds, transferred minds that they may discern, prove by testing what is the will of God instead of saying, "Read your Bible and do what it says." I mean, keep the rules. They're written down. Why doesn't he talk that way? And he doesn't because you as well as I know, there are 10,000 choices you make every week that are not written in the Bible. You didn't get the answer from the Bible how to dress this morning. You made choices about what you ate for breakfast, what you put on, what you drove, when you came, what you did in your seat when you got here, all of those were choices. And you can't find in the Bible where this, eat this and sit this way and say this at this time. We are living our lives all day, every day, making choices and spontaneously doing things without even thinking about choices because of the kind of mind we have, the kind of heart we have. Living the Christian life is a transformed reality that comes out of the abundance of the heart. Unpremeditated most of the time, showing what we are really like. And therefore, the summons be changed is the biggest challenge of the world, which is why verses 1 and 2 are the sum and the rest is detail. Be changed, be new, be transformed and the non-conformity issues will get worked out. Let me this morning put some names on the impulses that are intention in the Christian life. My reason for doing this is because I have the sense that if I can help you get just a handle on the understanding of what's at issue in the tensions we live with, your minds will thereby be renewed so that you can navigate the waters between these tensions. The first name I'm going to take from this book, this is called the missionary movement in Christian history, studies in the transmission of the faith by Andrew Walls, former professor of missions and non-Western religions at the University of Edinburgh. And there are essays in here that I have found really mind-boggling and very stirring. His name for what we're dealing with this morning is the indigenous principle and the pilgrim principle. And he says both of these principles are rooted in the gospel and they are very much intentioned, indigenous principle. The gospel yields us or leads us to make the gospel at home. In every culture on planet earth, the gospel can and must be at home in all the cultures of the world. It must wear these cultures, it must put them on like a garment and be at home there. That's the indigenous impulse of the gospel. You don't make everybody an American and the pilgrim impulse of the gospel is that as soon as the gospel puts on the garment of another culture and begins to feel at home. It starts to criticize the culture. It starts to indict the culture. It starts to transform the culture so that everybody who's a Christian in the culture feels I'm a pilgrim now. I'm not at home anymore here. I'm not at home anywhere except heaven. Those two impulses, the indigenous impulse and the pilgrim impulse are intention and they create issues for us. He puts some biblical names on those. We talk about them in a lot of ways. Here's the first one. We say Christians are in the world but not, you know that one. That comes from John 17. Jesus prayed like this in John 1715. I do not ask Father that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world just as I am not of the world. So there you have it. Don't take them out of the world. They've got to be salt. They've got to be light. They've got to hobnob with unbelievers. Otherwise this gospel will never spread in any culture. Don't take them out of the world. But oh God, don't let them be mastered by the devil or be of the world. And all of you live there and your tensions are great. Being at work is hard. Here's the second way we talk about it biblically. We should be separate from the world and we should participate in the world. I don't want to minimize at all. In fact this verse stresses the biblical doctrine of separation. These tensions that we feel create tensions in churches, families and between denominations. There are whole denominations built around the doctrine of separation. It's called fundamentalism and we should thank God for those who have lifted the banner over the years of a pagan culture saying come out from among them and be you separate says the Lord. That's a biblical thing to say. In this church we are dealing big time with these issues. The elders will meet this Tuesday night and every time we meet these days at the root of our discussions and the knocking of heads until midnight is this tension between indigenousness and pilgrimness. We long as a church for every culture in the Twin Cities to where the gospel we preach. We want them to be at home here and we want the gospel to be at home there and we are a counter cultural church with a message to say we are not Americans and we are not any culture. We are God's culture trying to be 11, trying to be light, salt in this world. Those two things crack heads at the Council of Elders. You need to pray for us. Worship issues, youth ministry issues, urban ministry issues, all of them relate squarely to this issue. And the Bible does not tell us precisely how to do worship corporately. It doesn't tell us a philosophy of youth ministry in detail. It doesn't tell us the nature of youth ministry in any urban ministry, in any detail. It says to the elders, be transformed by the renewing of your minds. Get the people to pray for your minds. So do that seven o'clock Tuesday night and do it every day for the pastors of this church and for the elders of this church. We spare you a lot of controversy folks. We get it worked out, pray for us. We get in each other's face, big time about these things. If you get little wins about discussions and disagreements, just say these guys love each other to the bottom of their feet. We're not worried. If anybody tells you, oh, there's controversy brewing. So what's new? I've been here 24 years. I wear controversy like a garment. And I love like crazy because the Lord hasn't made a mistake in pulling together the men that he has on this council of elders, the 25 who are there. Just pray for us that we would have new minds. I'm explaining the words separate and participate. I quoted one verse already, therefore go out from among their midst and be separate from them says the Lord. That's not the only thing Paul says. He qualifies it like this in 1 Corinthians 5 and 9. I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with the sexually immoral, not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world. Since then you would have to go out of the world. He assumes everybody sexually immoral in the world. Rather, I wrote to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother who is guilty of sexual immorality. You're supposed to hobnob with unbelievers who sleep around but not with unbelievers who sleep around. Church discipline involves a corporate holy ostracism. Do not even eat with such a one until they say like my son did at one point. I'm not a believer anymore. I don't think I ever was. Then you hobnob with him at Pizza Hut all the time until he believes again. It's attention. Come out. Be separate. You're the salt of the earth. The light of the world. Participate. Here's the third way we talk about this. Adaptation versus confrontation. Listen to the adaptation call of the New Testament. First Thessalonians 4, 11. Aspire to live quietly and to mind your own affairs and to work with your hands so that you may live properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. How do you paraphrase that? Don't make any waves. Fit in. Look for proper behavior. Do it. That's why Paul tells us to pray in 1 Timothy 2 2 that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life godly and dignified in every way. That's adaptation. And there are some of you who really like that message. Just let me be a good comfortable American. John, let me fit in. Bible says so. And then comes words like these from Ephesians 5, 6 to 11. The wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore, do not associate with them. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. That's not going to help you fit in. That will make waves. If you don't participate and not just don't participate, but expose the darkness. Make people feel guilty for living comfortably in the dark. So there they are names given to this tension, adaptation and confrontation, participation and separation in the world, not of the world. Don't be conformed. Become all things to all people. It's indigenous and pilgrim. There they are. And our job as Christians in the fallen world is to navigate the waters of this tension. And the help I want to give you in doing that this morning may seem remote, but it goes like this. I want to show you how those tensions are rooted in unique Christian teachings about creation, Christ, conversion and kingdom. I think if you understand biblically where this is coming from, how do these tensions arise? Why do they? Is it because we're carnal that we're having these struggles on the contrary? It's because we're rooted. The elders are rooted down in the gospel, longing to be pilgrim people and longing to be indigenous people, longing to confront and longing to adapt, longing to find the biblical way. This is all rooted in Christ and creation and conversion and kingdom. So let me briefly show you how it is. And you'll see it right off the scriptures. First, the indigenous pilgrim tension is rooted in the Christian view of creation. When Paul faced in Corinth a culture where they sacrificed animals and then they sold the animals and hung up the meat in the marketplace with no labels like clean and dirty or sacrificed and not sacrificed, the Christians wondered what should we do. If we go to the market and buy meat, we might eat meat offered to an idol. And here's Paul's answer to that question. Eat whenever is sold in the market without raising any question on the ground of conscience. And here's his reason. For the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. God owns the meat. Is God's meat eat the meat? You're a child of God, eat God's meat. That's his answer. He roots the freedom of the Christian to go to the market by anything they want and eat it without worrying whether it was sacrificed or not in creation. The doctrine of creation, a big, robust, strong doctrine of creation frees you to embrace the world. The world cannot religiously co-opt meat. It cannot morally contaminate meat. God owns it all. However, that's not the only thing God says about creation. Listen to these words Romans 8, 20. The creation was subjected to futility. The creation was subjected to futility. The whole creation is groaning together in pains of childbirth until now. In other words, the creation, even though God owns it, is fallen, broken, has gone wrong. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7, 31, the present form of this world is passing away, which brings a relativizing force into how you deal with meat. It isn't that simple as he owned it, we eat it. Listen to this, when Paul addressed some overly indigenous Corinthians who hadn't dealt with attention yet on this issue of food, he quotes them first like this. They say food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food. It's that simple. And then Paul adds, true enough, and God will destroy both the one and the other. So you've got creation. It's owned by God. It's good. Eat it. And then they start to say stomach for the food, the food for the stomach for free. Do anything we want with meat, food. And Paul says this form is passing away. God's going to destroy your stomach and that food, you better not just think in terms of God's creation, ordinances, and purposes, but his redemptive ordinances and purposes. God has things to do with meat that have to do with consciences and salvation and weakness and strength and love, not just he owns it. We eat it in the garden of Eden before the fall. You might have been able to say he owns it. We eat it. Period. But the period is now a semicolon with the fall. There's more to be said. Give me another illustration about this tension in creation. If you just dealt with the issues of creation, you'd probably say everybody should be married. Because Genesis 2, 18 says it's not good for a man to be alone. Pre-fall statement. No sin in the world. It's not good for a man to be alone. So, come on. Everybody should be married. And then you get to chapter 7 of 1 Corinthians and you have this bachelor Paul say it's so right for me to be single. I'd kill a wife with my lifestyle if I weren't single. She wouldn't be able to tolerate my back and its lacerations, my imprisonments, my shipwrecks, my danger and risk. And I would that many of you were single like I am that you might devote yourself in this way. And you actually knock on the door and say Paul, did you ever read Genesis 2, 18? And Paul would say I read it. I memorized it. It would be nice. But that's not the world we live in. It's fallen. There are other issues besides creation issues going on in this world. Redemption issues, redemptive issues are going on. That whole nice, nice, nice creation thing that God set up at the beginning has gone to seed and we deal with brokenness and pain everywhere. And it is God's call on many to be single. And He will make that up to you someday if you feel like you've missed something in the king. That's the first root, the doctrine of creation. Here's the second one. The indigenous pilgrim tension is rooted in who Christ is. Just who He is. This is very simple. Christ came into the world and took on human flesh. That's the indigenous principle. I'm one of you. He was one of us. He became a human being. Do that, He says. As the Father has sent me, so send I you, incarnate yourself, indigenous in every culture. Do what I did. I humbled myself and war, human nature. And then we killed him. Why did we kill him? Why did we kill him? He was one of us. He came to his own. His own. He did all he could to look like us. Tempted in every way like we are. Got hungry, got weak. And we killed him. That's the pilgrim principle. That is, he was different. He was so good. He was so pure. He was so holy. He was so loving. He was so merciful. He was so meek. He was so unlike us in His likeness to us. We hated him. The darkness hates the light. He will not come to the light because his deeds are evil. Puts the light out if it can. And there is the pilgrim. Jesus became indigenous and Jesus was a pilgrim. And He says, all right, join me now. And this is the way the gospel has spread throughout all the world, isn't it? First the missionary learns the language and strives to know the culture and begins to put it on and doesn't try to make any waves. I just want to fit in. I want to love you. I'm here for you. And then they get killed. So that's the second explanation for this tension. Christ Himself was indigenous and a pilgrim. Here's the third one. The nature of conversion is the root of the indigenous pilgrim tension. If you need words to put on that, the theological words are justification and sanctification. Romans 3.28, we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. We've been on this for six years at Bethlehem. In the twinkling of an eye at the graciously given emergence of the first mustard seed of saving faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord and treasure, you are reckoned righteous before God. This is the glory of the gospel. No long period of penance, no long time of performance is to prove that you made it. Rather, the little child like I give up, I need a Savior. I trust you immediately. The divine judge reckons you, counts you, righteous in Christ. Or to put it this way, counts you indigenous to heaven. You are there, risen as the Father's right hand already in heaven, indigenous. That's justification. And then, chapter 6 of Romans, sanctification, you're not fit for heaven, Christian, justified, sinners. You're not fit for heaven. You see in every day, become what you are. That's the pilgrim principle. I'm at home. Heaven is my home. I've been counted righteous in Christ. There is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. I will now by grace through faith become that in my life. I will present my body a living sacrifice. I know I'm a sinner justified by grace alone, through faith alone on the basis of Christ's righteousness alone to the glory of God alone. Praise God. I know that. And therefore, not in order that, but therefore, I will put to death what is earthly in me. There's a great verse that sums this up. It's Colossians 3.1 to 1 following. It goes like this. If then you have been raised with Christ, passed, passed. If you have been raised with Christ, that's indigenous. You're home in heaven. You're wearing heavenly garments because they belong on you. Christ bought them for you. All your righteousness is key. If you have been raised with Christ now, set your minds, renewed minds on things that are above and not on things that are on the earth, that is, become a pilgrim. If you're home, be a pilgrim here. Now apply that to missions. Apply cultural justification and cultural sanctification. I know it's dangerous to use language like that, but just think about it. The principle of justification by faith alone moves into a culture with a missionary. And the missionary says, "I'm for you. I want to wear your culture. I want to love you. I'm not here first to indict you. I'm here to bring good news, good news. And the good news is God accepts you like you are by faith alone. Polygamy, bribery, and wife burning are here. Believe Jesus and you will be justified." Before anything changes, do we believe the gospel? And then immediately, as you begin to put on this culture like a William Carey in India, you know that's got to change. We don't burn widows. Christians don't burn widows on the grave pyre of their husbands. No. It's got to change. One wife, one man. If it takes a generation or two, that's got to change. Polygamy won't go. Bribery, that takes longer. That's got to go. It may take a hundred years, two hundred years as the gospel leavens. How long is it taking you to get over your anger? You and God to cast you out after about twenty years of battle with anger? Now do you want justification to be true? Huge implications for missions. And huge tensions do we live with, right? Third, or was that three? Yeah, that was three. One Christ conversion. And now finally, this indigenous pilgrim tension is rooted in the nature of the kingdom, the Christian understanding of the kingdom of God. Luke 11, 20, Jesus says, "If it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, the kingdom of God has come upon you." You Jewish people that have been waiting for two thousand years for the prophetic fulfillment of the kingdom coming and the arrival of the Messiah to establish his kingdom and rule is here, is here. Or Luke 17, 21, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you, Jesus says, and that's the indigenous principle. It's here. We're in it. And now he says, for example, on the other side, Luke 22, 18 at the Last Supper, I tell you that from now on, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. I thought it was here. Jesus, you said, "If I cast out demons by the finger of God, the kingdom of God has come upon you, and now you say you won't drink again until the kingdom comes. Help me." And he does. The mystery of the kingdom, it's the way he calls it in Matthew 13. The mystery of the kingdom is the arrival of the king and the kingdom in fulfillment without consummation. That's the mystery. It isn't what they expected, which is why John the Baptist got so mixed up. Are you the one or aren't you the one? I don't get it. You look like you are the one, but then the Romans are not being defeated, and I'm about to get my head chopped off. This is not the way it happens when the kingdom is here in fullness. Jesus says, "Tell John the lame are walking, and the deaf are hearing, and the blind are seeing, and the good news of the kingdom is being preached, and blessed is the one who doesn't stumble over me because I know it's not the way you expected it. There's now an overlap of the two ages. There's an overlap. The kingdom is coming, and yet the old kingdom has not been blown away. We are overlapping. We live in the kingdom. We live in this world. We live in tension. The Lutherans have a whole doctrine of two kingdoms. Martin Luther was right to talk about. We live in two kingdoms, render to Caesar, the things that are Caesar's, and to God, the things that are God's. And if you think that's easy, you haven't lived." We live in two worlds. We live. The kingdom has come. He's moving mightily through the world, gathering a people for himself, doing miracles, converting people, establishing the Lordship of Jesus in his people, sometimes transforming a culture, sometimes letting a culture slide into oblivion. It happened to Rome. It may happen to America. But he reigns. So summarizing. Yes, confrontation, and yes to missionary adaptation. Yes to separation, and yes to cultural participation. Yes, we are in the world. No, we are not of the world. Yes, become all things to all people that you may save some. No, do not be conformed to this world. Yes, we are indigenous in every culture. No, we are pilgrims in every culture. Because creation is the Lords and creation is fallen. Christ is incarnate and Christ was crucified. Conversion is justification and sanctification. The kingdom has already come. No, it has not fully come. Those are the roots of the tension you live with every day. And we live with as a church. So I close by asking a preliminary question, how are we going to navigate this balance? How are we going to live in this balance? Navigate these waters. Answer, be transformed in the renewing of your mind. My prayer for this message as I prepared it was, oh God, let this be along with all the others and all the other ways you do it. Let this message be part of the transforming of the Christian mind so that out of the roots of this truth, you will have a better ability to do verse two, namely to prove by testing what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect when there is no rule to keep. There's just a decision to make and you've got to make it. Here's where I'm going to go when I get back from vacation, which I leave for on Thursday. Pray for me and come to worship, give earnestly, and support all those on the staff who ministered to you while I'm gone. But here's where I'm going when I get back. I'm going to tackle the issue of homosexuality, head on, and the issue of the marriage amendment in these terms. I do not choose that arbitrarily just because it's a hot item, though that's reason enough for a pastor to address something that urgent in our culture. I'm going to do it because verse two of Romans 12 and verse 26 of chapter one are so closely connected you can hardly avoid it, and that's homosexuality. The word documodzo proved by testing is there. The mind is there since they did not prove by testing to have God in their knowledge. He gave them over. There's no strange leap here to deal with that issue. It is forced on us by the issue of the wording of the text as well as the cultural pressure of the moment. This moment downtown tens of thousands of people are gathered to celebrate sin. Oh my, I would like to get going on that right away, but we will wait. In fact, I believe there's a table. Just check it out. It was last night out here with information, just information about the issue of marriage amendment, that sort of thing, and we're going to have to be thinking about that a lot in these days. Is that a wise and good cultural political strategy? Is that a way to do Christianity in a pluralistic society? These are really tough issues, and I will do my best to help you with them when I get back. I hope this is a help this morning. Until then, here are my three concluding exhortations. Number one, toward a renewed mind, on every issue you face, every little decision you got to make this afternoon, ask the Lord for wisdom. Does any of you lack wisdom? Let him ask the Lord. Secondly, immerse your mind in the Bible. Oh, nobody in this room reads the Bible enough. You know you don't, immerse your mind in the Bible. That's the way the mind gets transformed mainly by the word of God, and thirdly, I would exhort you in your looking at the Bible, look steadfastly to Jesus. Because it says in 2 Corinthians 3, 18, by looking to Jesus, looking to Jesus, we are being transformed from one degree of glory to the other. If you want to be transformed, have a new mind to navigate the waters of the tension of the indigenous and the pilgrim, look to Jesus always. Let's pray. Father, the main thing I feel at the end of this message is desperation for the need of the Holy Spirit and the word. And I just thank you, thank you, thank you for the Holy Spirit. We're told to walk by the Spirit, bear the fruits of the Spirit, be led by the Spirit as the Spirit works to transform our minds, to enable us to discern by testing what is the will of God, what is beautiful and good and acceptable and perfect. We want to live that way, Father. And we know it's confusing at times. And so I just pray that you'd bring light to our church leaders, that you'd bring light to every family, just trying to make some family choices about the indigenous and the pilgrim impulse in what they buy, how they live, where they live, how they rear their kids, public school, homeschool, Christian school, all over the place, we've got issues to deal with. So give help to your people. I don't want to make life harder for them. I want them to enjoy your mercy in justification and make progress in sanctification. And so I asked that the potter's hand now would be strong, honest, shaping us, molding us, using us, magnifying Christ through us. Lord, we want to be a faithful church. We don't want to conform and just be an echo of the culture. And we don't want to be so weird, we can't have any impact on the culture. Oh God, give us wisdom. Help us to navigate these waters. Shape us now. Our loving father and potter through Christ I pray. Amen. 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John Piper | Jesus’s people are in the world, but not of the world. We work for the good of our temporary homes while we always long for more.