This morning I am going to speak on something that is difficult in many ways. It is difficult because it sets up for us a seemingly impossible goal to achieve and secondly it is difficult because this preacher is striving to get there as well. I was told early on in my ministry that you should never preach on what you do not know –what you have not experienced. And honestly, I feel more and more, the longer I serve as a pastor, the longer I live as a follower of Jesus, that I have a longer way to go. And so, the more I preach, the less adequate I feel in preaching something that I can say, “hey, come on and follow me!”
And I also know that this is something that a majority of us here who are followers of Jesus, whether we are new in our faith or have been a follower of Jesus for many years –perhaps decades, deal with as well. I have seen and talked with people whom I have considered very mature, very grown in their faith express their what can I say, discontentedness about where they are in this area. And I have seen many who just don’t seem to care –they don’t strive to grow in this area. So, rather than follow me I ask, come along with me. What is it I am talking about?
It is the area of maturing in our faith. Maturity in Christ is one of those hard to judge things. It is in some ways like growing up physically –we can see evidences that we are maturing physically –we start to crawl, walk, develop hand eye coordination, our thought process moves from gratification to concrete to analytical. We can look at someone and say, “My, how you have grown!” But when it comes to our spiritual growth it is not as easy. God works in each of us differently and just as some of us grow and mature differently physically –I walked at age 8 months but my brother was at 14 months for example, we all do grow and mature at different rates and in different ways.
And there are some indicators of maturing –the evidence of the spiritual fruit in our lives, our fulfilling the commands of Jesus to love one another, forgive one another, share the good news, use our gifts. These are things that we can look at on the outside and see if someone is maturing in their walk with Christ. But they do not let us see the heart –the inside of the person. One leader in a church I served many years ago made a very astute comment when a young man came into our church and seemed to have all the outward appearances of maturing in his faith –he was gifted and used his gifts, he was talking to people about being a Christian –he attended church, bible study and had the look. But after a few weeks of attending something seemed lacking. The outward zeal didn’t seem to have any substance. Everything seemed on the surface –but he held some deep resentment towards others in his former church, he had a critical spirit against others, he just didn’t seem to have the substance of a deep faith. The leader said, when this young man’s name was brought up to teach a Sunday school class, “I don’t know how else to describe it except the lights are all on but there seems to be no one home.” He had said it almost in jest, but there was real truth to it and as we talked we agreed, something was not connecting, he was not maturing and growing on the inside –his zeal was there but the substance seemed lacking.
Now, I say that again with some hesitancy because spiritual maturity is something that is often hard to judge. We can look on the outside and someone who is very active in their faith, doing a lot of things and yet may be complete empty inside, or struggling with some deep issues. And we can look and see someone who seemingly does little in the way of spiritual life stuff and may be somewhat inactive and yet they have deep, deep mature faith.
The purpose of God in us, the goal of God working in us IS consistency –that we are maturing, growing in our inward self as well as out outward. Let us look at a couple of key passages this morning and let God speak through His word to us. I invite you to stand as we read together Romans 8:28-29, 12:1-2, Philippians 3:20-21.
The words that Paul uses in these three passages for transformation or conform are based in the Greek word morphis. We are familiar with this word as morph or transform or metamorphisis. It means, of course to change. But it is more than just a physical outward change. Let’s take a brief look at each of these three passages and gain an understanding of what Paul is teaching.
In Romans 8:28 we have an often quoted verse when people are going through a tough time. “God works all things out for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.” Trust God to know what he is doing. And we should. This is a key aspect of faith –trusting God that He knows, that He is at work, that nothing surprises him, and as tough as things may be it will work out for our good and His glory. One of the keys to understanding this is that it is God who is at work. He has a purpose and his purpose is given in verse 29.
“Those He foreknow he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son…” God has in his calling us, in calling us to faith and belief in His Son Jesus Christ as Lord and the atoning sacrifice for our sins, He has a purpose, a purpose he chose long before us, a purpose he seeks to work in us –he predestined us to be conformed to the likeness of His Son. The word conform is based on that word morphe. The actual word is summorphous and means having the same shape.
God has predestined, planned, that when we become His children, when we come to faith in Him and believe in the One He sent, Jesus, that we become the children of God and that we would take on the same shape as Jesus –His image or likeness. This word likeness which is used is of Jesus himself when Paul writes in Colossi ans 1:15 that Jesus is the image or likeness of the invisible God. The implications of this are huge for us as followers of Jesus. God has it in mind, in his plan, that we would be summorphous, conformed to the image, the likeness of Jesus Christ. When people see us they see Jesus! Let that sink in a little –God’s Goal, his plan, is that we would become like Jesus even to the point that when people see us they see Jesus.
We could stop there and almost give up in despair. I know what I am like, I know who I am, I know I am nothing close to being like Jesus. And I could become very discouraged, and honestly sometimes do. At least I could if not for two things. First is to realized that I am a work in process. This conforming is a present action with future results. The old saying, be patient, God is not finished with me yet, could apply here. More on this in a moment. And second, as that saying implies, It is God at work in me. This does not release me from responsibility, I am directed, even commanded to continue to work out my salvation (Philippians 2:12).
God is working in me (and that is one of the implications of summorphous) on the inside and outside to conform to the image of Christ –not to become Christ, but to be like Him, to bear his likeness.
The second passage I would like for us to note today is a little later in Romans. 12:1-2. Here in verse 2 Paul says that we are to be transformed, metamorphousthe, by the renewing of our minds. Just to note, in the NIV we read in the first part of this verse, do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world. The word transformed is not the word morphe by a different word that means the outward shape or mold. This picture is one of the outside forming and shaping the inward. Paul is talking to Christians here who are facing pressure to conform to the image, or the ways of the culture. Rome is the centre of many forms of worship –particularly emporer worship. But even more subtly is the pressure to conform to be like everyone else –to fit in, to do as they do. Paul speaks a lot about this elsewhere in our not conforming to the world around us in places like Ephesians 4-5, I Thessalonians 4 and other places.
This “conformity,” this molding from the outside will have and does have an impact on the inside. Paul says we are to live the other way –being shaped, metamorphousthe, from the inside as Christ through His Spirit shapes us and matures us to be more in His image.
This word Paul uses, metamorphouthe, means transformed from the inside. This use of the word is clearly a word of process. It is a continuing process of transformation that changes our thinking and therefore our actions.
This word is used in some particular places in the scripture. It is used of Moses in the OT when he came down from Mount Sinai having met with God. In Exodus 34 we read that the skin of his face shone after his conversation with God. (cf. II Cor. 3:12-18). It is used in the NT when we read of Jesus and His transfiguration. Matthew 17:2 reads, “There he was transfigured (metamorphouthe) before them –his face shone like the sun and his clothes shone like white as the day.”
The renewal of our minds, the transformation, the metamorphosis of our minds, our intellect, our thinking is a process which reflects the glory of God! But note something essential in both examples –that of Moses and that of Jesus. Both times this word metamorphouthe is used it is in the context of having met with God –Moses went to the mountain and talked with God, Jesus in the transfiguration, has this cloud come (just like with Moses) and the voice of God speak. I don’t think there is any doubt that the heavenly father came and met with His son on that mountain. The presence of God transforms us. The presence of Christ transforms us. The renewing of our minds happens when we focus on and meet with the living Christ. What is renewing our minds? It is the continual focusing on Christ, that finding of newness and freshness in Him.
This renewal, this newness is spoken of over and over in the NT. We are new creatures, we are new wineskins, we are a new creation, we have a new covenant, we are given a new commandment to love one another, we serve a new way. Paul says in II Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation, the old is gone, the new has come.” Earlier in 4:16, Paul says we are being renewed day by day. This renewal comes as His Spirit works in us. Turn just a few pages back in II Corinthians to 3:17-18.
His purpose to conform us to the likeness of his son by the renewal, the transforming of our minds as His Spirit works in us. And this metamorphouthe, this summorphous, is both inside and outside. It is the inside eking out to the outside, the inside affecting and changing our outside, our actions our speech, our relationships, our attitude.
Let’s turn lastly to Philippians 3:20-21.
This time when Paul says transform he uses a another variation of the word this time it is synmorphos, but it carries a strong impact for us. The word used here means to alter or change the outward appearance. Although Paul, here in Philippians, uses it to speak of our future bodies –that we will have bodies that are transformed like Jesus’ from corruptible to incorruptible, from flesh into spiritual, we cannot ignore the connection between our inner and outer life in the here and now.
This prefix “syn” means with. It is not a covering like putting on a piece of clothing, but the transformation permeates the inner and outer. Our inner self is controlled and transformed by Christ and “by the power that enables him to bring all things under his control, will transform, synmorphos, our lowly bodies…” Christ seeks not just to change our thoughts but our entire being –to become more like himself in mind, soul and body! But even more this word synmorphos carries something important for us to note.
There is the danger here in thinking that we can and will lose our own personality, our identity. This word “synmorphos” means that Christ works with our essential character not dissolving our own persons, but shaping us to conform to Himself. That we take on that which is Christ-like in our mind –renewed thinking, that we live out this Christ-likeness which the Father prepared –had in mind for us to do when he called us and justified us through His son Jesus Christ –the firstborn amoung many brothers and sisters –us! That we are Christ-like in our mind and in our actions –the inside reflected on the outside –a consistency of being.
We read that we are to live such godly lives that people will give glory to God. We are to live in such a way that our faith is evident –that the inside is lived out on the outside. James speaks of this in his letter when he admonishes he church to show our faith by what we do, and faith without deeds is useless. To try and separate our inner life from our outer life is quite frankly, heresy. The early church fought against this with the rise of a teaching known as Gnosticism. Gnosticism in its various forms basically said what we do in the flesh, in our bodies, has no bearing on our inner self. I can be saved on the inside and sin on the outside! Friends that is hypocrisy, it is spiritual schizophrenia. To live in a duality –a separation of our inner self and outward actions is counter to what the Bible teaches and to what God calls us.
We are saved by God through Christ to be transformed and conform to the image of His Son Jesus, inside outside, heart mind body soul, words, deeds, in the totality of our being. And in this we live out the great command –love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength!
I know I have a long way to go. I look at my life, my actions, my thoughts and I say, who are you to talk? But like Paul earlier in Romans 7:25, can say, But thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! The life I live in the body I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me (Gal. 2:20).
I cannot live this life, live this Christlikeness on my own. I can only do it as He lives in me –transforming me from the inside out –metaporphouthe to completely change me, synmorphos into His image (summorphos) by the power of His Spirit at work in me.
Reflection: Are you becoming more Christ-like? Are you giving is Spirit control of the inside and the outside? Are you letting Him conform you more and more into the likeness of His Son? If you are called, if you have accepted the call of God to come to Him through Jesus Christ, that you believe Jesus is the son of God, died for your sins, redeemed you and brought you life, if you believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus and his coming again, then you are called to a purpose –to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.
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