January 19, 2024 • 54 mins
This episode focuses on what it is to be a Christian: renewal, transformation, and discernment.
We dive into a deep examination of Romans 12.
Being a Christian is primarily a transformation of mind, heart and character which God directs when we “present ourselves”, mind and body, to be a living sacrifice for Him. The discussion touches upon the process that begins with repentance, and renews our mind, attitudes, and actions from the day we surrender our hearts to him.
The transformation that happens in this spiritual process is complete. Some have called it a “gradual bending heavenward” of that which naturally bends earthward. The host also explores the usage of the Greek term 'Dokimazo', suggesting it implies a process of testing, questioning, and ultimately approving of the circumstances that emerge under God’s guidance. It is God who works within us to will and to do His good pleasure.
Lastly, the episode underscores the notion of testing or experimenting to discern God’s will, and then approving or accepting the will of God.
God, it turns out, is not a perfectionist — he forgives and loves us until we become a vessel suited to the great work of mediation and mutual edification that he plans for us to engage in as the world of mankind is taught the principles of life in the future.
00:07 Introduction to the Series
00:09 Understanding Christian Growth: Renewal, Transformation, and Discernment
01:39 Exploring Romans 12: Using the Blue Letter Bible
02:10 Deep Dive into Romans 12:1-2
06:25 The Concept of Discernment in Christianity
08:28 Marks of a True Christian: Growth and Change
13:36 Overcoming Evil with Good: A Christian Perspective
13:55 Revisiting Romans 12:1-2: The Meaning of Sacrifice
04:54 Understanding Worship in Christianity
26:13 Interpreting 'Age' in Biblical Context
27:21 Exploring the Greek Word 'Aeon'
28:06 The Concept of 'Ages' in Biblical Perspective
30:17 Christianity and the Future Age
31:52 The Process of Transformation in Christianity
37:33 The Concept of 'Dokimazo' in Christianity
47:08 Understanding God's Will: Good, Acceptable, and Perfect
51:47 The Role of Christians in the End of the Christian Era
This new podcast is meant for serious Christians -- people who are focused on following Jesus faithfully, until death. The trials are real, but the joys are beyond expression. Eye has not seen, nor ear heard ... the things God has been preparing for those who love him supremely.
The more we pay attention to the terms of discipleship and predictions of the actual deeds of Jesus' truest followers, there have not been many humble, meek Jesus followers who made it into the pages of history. Most genuine, obedient Christians have been laboring in anonymity, ignored or even hounded by the powerful forces of the outwardly respectable, "orthodox" Christian geopolitical system.
For the most part, the true followers of Jesus were not famous, they did not have official recognition, they did not seek or gain political power, and often they were oppressed, persecuted, neutralized in this life. Probably, few made their living as "ministers of the gospel". They were like the ancient prophets of old
-- men and women who suffered for their faithfulness-- "of whom the world was not worthy."
But the future era will be different. Jesus will exalt his obedient followers. They will be revealed by him as having been victorious in his eyes. He will promote them to places of power and influence in his future "government of the world, when the times are ripe for it." (Ephesians 1:9,10 -- Weymouth translation.)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
Welcome to We Are Near.
This is Episode 2, and for thenext several episodes I'd like
to do a series on what it meansto be a Christian and how
Christians grow.
And I want to start with Romans12.
And we're going to look at threeaspects of the message in Romans
(00:27):
12.
The themes of renewal,transformation, and discernment.
Being a Christian is a mentalthing primarily.
Obviously, we do things, we act,we live lives in a human body,
but what's happening, the realheavy lifting that's happening
(00:48):
in the life of a Christian ishappening in the mind.
It's a transformation of themind, the heart, the character.
It's learning to have mentaldiscipline, to grow and mature.
We drink milk, and then we eatsome pre digested food, and
eventually we learn to handlegrown up foods.
(01:10):
We learn to like broccoli.
We learn to eat salads.
Hard to chew things like steak.
Those are things that we do asChristians as we're growing.
But the focus of Romans 12 isgoing to be renewal,
transformation.
(01:30):
What are we transforming from?
And then We want to look at theconcept of discernment, which is
a theme in Paul's writings thatwe're going to look at tonight.
So let's look at Romans 12, andI'm going to use, um, the Blue
Letter Bible, and I have it onmy second camera, so that you
can see, you can read it alongwith me, and, uh, I hope this
(01:52):
will be big enough for you tosee.
And I'm going to show how to usethe Blue Letter Bible to Do your
own Bible study.
There are so many toolsavailable here that are really
helpful in understanding thepassage.
I'm going to start by readingall of Romans 12, and then I'm
(02:13):
going to go back and do a deepdive into verses 1 2.
And we're going to use the ESVtranslation.
By the way, that's right uphere.
The ESV is the English StandardVersion, and you can tap and
change to multiple otherdifferent translations.
And I'm going to stay with ESV.
You can organize it by verse orby paragraph.
(02:35):
If you prefer to read it inparagraph form, it does that.
And then the verse numbersappear.
And the verse numbers arehypertext linked.
So you can go to the tools byclicking on the verse numbers.
Or you can go back to the verse,and then you have a little
button for the tools.
(02:56):
And the tools, uh, include anumber of things.
They include the Greek text.
They, uh, order the Greek textas you choose.
And I'm going to keep it inreverse.
In line order, which means it isin the order of the English
words, the way we would say itin English.
(03:18):
Therefore, I urge you, brethren,by the mercies of God, to
present your bodies a living andholy sacrifice, acceptable to
God, which is your spiritualservice of worship.
That's verse one.
And notice that in each of thoseverses, underneath each English
word is, uh, the actual Greekword.
(03:38):
As it appears in the text.
And then that same wordtransliterated into English
letters.
Another thing that's neat aboutit is it has the Strong's
numbers.
These, the G stands for Greek.
And then this is the order thatProfessor Strong used.
So that, um, you can find thedefinition as he, um, defined
(04:02):
it.
How it's used or where it's usedin the Bible.
And then the Englishtransliteration of how it's said
in that situation.
This is the button here to closeout of the, all of the, um,
tools.
Close, and now we have theverses.
I'm going to read the wholechapter.
(04:24):
I appeal to you, therefore,brothers.
And by the way, we can roll overthis little function button, and
it'll say brothers and sisters.
That's a helpful thing to, toknow.
That the Bible does not have aGreek word that means Um, when
it says the word brothers, itdoes not mean, in most cases, it
does not mean um, males.
(04:46):
It means brothers and sisters.
It means siblings.
Okay?
So I appeal to you therefore,siblings, by the mercies of God,
to present your bodies as aliving sacrifice, holy and
acceptable to God, which is yourspiritual worship.
Do not be conformed to thisworld.
(05:07):
But be transformed by therenewal of your mind, that by
testing you may discern what isthe will of God, what is good
and acceptable and perfect.
So that's the living sacrificethat he calls each Christian to
engage in.
Notice that we're alreadyChristians, we're already
(05:30):
brothers.
When we are asked to take anadditional step, doing something
that we perhaps hadn't thoughtto do before this point.
Perhaps we started out assomeone who believed in Jesus as
our Savior, but we didn'tunderstand and it did not occur
to us to engage in a Spiritualworship, a spiritual, uh,
(05:56):
sacrifice, so to speak, thatinvolved presenting our bodies
and making our bodies and mindsavailable to Jesus as a way of
showing gratitude, appreciation,and a desire to serve.
The goals and the plans and thepriorities of the Heavenly
(06:16):
Father.
Now it says, Do not be conformedto this world, but be
transformed by the renewal ofyour mind.
And there's that idea ofrenewal, which we will come back
to.
That by testing you may discern.
There's the discernment concept.
And we're going to spend a lotof time on that tonight.
(06:38):
What is the will of God?
What is good and acceptable andperfect?
For by the grace given to me, Isay to everyone among you not to
think of himself more highlythan he ought to think, but to
think with sober judgment, eachaccording to the measure of
faith that God has assigned.
(07:01):
For as in one body we have manymembers, and the members do not
all have the same function,Obviously, you know, arms,
fingers, hands, eyes, ears,feet, hearts, stomachs.
All of these different membersor parts of our body have
different functions.
(07:21):
So we, though many, are one bodyin Christ and individually
members one of another.
And so therefore, even if ourrole is that of a fingernail or
a piece of hair, it's animportant part of the entire
body and should be valued assuch.
(07:43):
Verse 6, Having gifts thatdiffer according to the grace
given to us, let us use them.
If prophecy, in proportion toour faith.
If service, in our serving.
The one who teaches, in histeaching.
The one who exhorts, in hisexhortation.
(08:03):
The one who contributes, ingenerosity.
The one who leads, with zeal.
The one who does acts of mercy,with cheerfulness.
So each of the members of thebody have different things that
they can do.
When they present their bodiesand make themselves available to
God, each one should discoverwhat their gift is, what they
(08:25):
can do, and then they should doit with all their heart.
That's the message of thosefirst eight verses.
Verse nine.
"Let love be genuine." The,there's a subheading, it's not
part of the Bible, but it's,it's added by the translator,
and I think it's, in this case,it's a good summary point for
the rest of the chapter (08:46):
the marks of a true Christian.
These are qualities that weshould see in ourselves, growing
as time goes on.
And sometimes our, our growthwill be less impressive than we
would like it to be.
Sometimes we'll feel like we'rebacksliding.
(09:07):
Uh, sometimes our motivationwill be lacking, and therefore
some of these qualities will notbe as apparent as they should
be.
But the goal of the Christian isto actually grow and change in
character, attitude, and youknow, basically thinking skills,
(09:28):
learning to think like Jesus andthe Heavenly Father.
So the first one of these marksof a true Christian, he says,
the very first one he leads withis.
Love.
Let love be genuine.
Abhor what is evil.
Hold fast to what is good.
(09:50):
Love one another with brotherlyaffection.
Outdo one another in showinghonor.
Do not be slothful in zeal.
Be fervent in spirit.
Serve the Lord.
Rejoice in hope.
Be patient in tribulation.
Trouble.
Tribulation is a word thatrefers to what you do to, um,
(10:13):
wheat grain when you're turningit into flour.
You, you roll it and it crushesit.
And that's called tribulation inthe Latin language.
"Rejoice in hope.
Be patient in tribulation.
Be constant in prayer.
(10:34):
Contribute to the needs of thesaints.
And seek to show hospitality.
Bless those who persecute you.
Bless and do not curse them.
Rejoice with those who rejoice.""Weep with those who weep".
So we're talking here about thedevelopment of empathy.
(10:55):
Humility and empathy.
"Live in harmony with oneanother.
Do not be haughty, but associatewith the lowly".
There's humility again.
"Never be wise in your ownsight".
This is a learned skill that allof us can learn and most of us
have a tendency to as we getolder and, um, see how much the,
(11:18):
uh, weaknesses that we have andthe mistakes that we make
outweigh the good that we'reable to accomplish in most
cases.
"Repay no one evil for evil, butgive thought to do What is
honorable in the sight of all."I'm going to read that one
again.
"Repay no one evil for evil, butgive thought to do what is
(11:40):
honorable.
in the sight of all.
If possible, so far as itdepends on you, live peaceably
with all.
Beloved, never avengeyourselves, but leave it to the
wrath of God, for it is written,'vengeance is mine, I will
repay', says the Lord." And wecan be sure that if God is going
(12:03):
to handle the question ofvengeance, the question of
justice, meting out justice, wecan be sure that it's going to
be perfect.
It's going to be fair.
It's going to be instructive.
It's going to be corrective.
It's going to actually helpsomebody learn a lesson if they
(12:24):
found themselves corrected.
And it's going to berestorative.
God's justice is restorative.
Very rarely does God resort to,uh, actual, Destructive, uh,
intervention in a person's life.
To the contrary, it says inverse 20,"If your enemy is
(12:47):
hungry, feed him.
If he's thirsty, give himsomething to drink.
For by so doing, you will heapburning coals on his head." Now
this is talking about somebodywho is an enemy.
If your enemy's hungry, feedhim.
If he's thirsty, give himsomething to drink.
It's not saying that you'regoing to be doing vengeance.
(13:09):
What you're going to be doing isyou're going to be making him,
his head, his thought process,conscious of his own littleness,
of his own inadequacies.
If somebody who, uh, doesn't owehim anything, and who he has
actually wronged does him a goodturn, does him a favor, shows
(13:30):
grace toward him, the tendencyis going to be that that
person's heart will soften, andthat person's head will start to
change.
That's the, that is the winningway of love that Christians are
called to do.
And finally, verse 21, Do not beovercome by evil, but overcome
(13:51):
evil with good.
So we're not going to overcomeevil by going to war.
We're going to overcome evil bydoing good things for others and
for the very people who aretrying to do evil to us.
Okay, now I want to go back andreview a little bit in the first
(14:12):
two verses of the chapter.
To do that, let's start in verse1 and then spend most of the
time in verse 2.
Okay, so in verse one, uh, itsays,"Therefore I urge you,
brethren." And the word brethrenthat I talked about as being,
referring to both brothers andsisters.
(14:33):
The word is Adelphos.
It means men and women.
When Paul tells us to do anaction, he uses a verb,
peristemi, It means, uh, topresent.
And Paul, of course, wasschooled in the ancient Jewish
scriptures.
(14:54):
He was an expert in thescriptures of the Old Testament.
And when he uses the word"present", he's, he's pulling
from something that happened inthe book of Leviticus quite
often.
Um, animals were brought Bypeople, to the priests, and the
(15:14):
priests then presented thatanimal to God, to the altar that
God had told them to build.
They were offering a concretething, an animal, and we learn
from other of Paul's writings,and even in this verse, that
(15:35):
he's referring to what our mindsdo with our bodies.
We present the body, we make itavailable, we lay our hands on
it, and that blood is, uh, usedas, to symbolize the very life
itself, all of the hopes, aims,and blessings, and privileges.
(15:56):
of that animal.
The human being is what is meantby the animal.
The animal pictures thesacrifice of the priest or the,
or the sacrifice of the personwho brought it.
And, um, so by presenting, um,It's like, it's, it's basically
(16:18):
taking the animal, tying it inplace, restricting its liberty,
and saying, Okay, you, the, thehigh priest, who becomes a
picture, we are told, of Jesushimself, the high priest has the
ability to do with that animalas he chooses.
And all the animal can do ismake itself available and allow
(16:43):
itself to be tied, you know.
to in a place next to the altarwhere it can be dealt with by
the high priest.
That's what we do as Christians.
We make a decision to makeourselves available and
circumstances that are presidedover and arranged by, overruled
(17:06):
by God, invisible forces movethrough our lives and give us
opportunities.
And sometimes we don't alwayssee that happening.
Sometimes we wish we could domore and we can't.
Sometimes we have setbacks.
Sometimes we have to take asecond job and, and work harder.
(17:27):
Sometimes we have an illnessthat keeps us from doing what we
would like to be doing to serveGod.
Sometimes we, in the case ofPaul, he lost his vision.
Soon after he became aChristian, and he, he had to
labor very hard in order to tryto, um, read anything.
And he was a reader.
(17:48):
He was a studious man.
And here he was, he, his eyeswere weeping and he, and he
couldn't see very well.
And when he wrote his name, hecomments at the end of a couple
of the epistles how he had towrite his name in very large
letters because he couldn't seesmall letters on the page.
(18:08):
And when he read, it was mostlyhe had to have a servant.
You know, somebody read to him.
Somebody like Timothy orEpaphroditus or, um, you know.
He could speak.
But he, he couldn't, he couldn'tsee very well, but he presented
himself and he asked Godactually three times to have his
(18:32):
thorn in the flesh, he calledit, be removed.
And I think most people who readand reread what Paul writes kind
of come to the conclusion thatit must have been something
about his vision that was asuper problem for him, a big, a
big issue.
But all of us, at one time oranother, almost all of us, I
(18:52):
should say, We have these timeswhen we are presenting
ourselves, but we don't feellike we get to see much action.
We're like, we're like afootball or basketball player
who sits on the bench sometimes.
But we are part of the team, andwe need to keep our head in the
(19:13):
game.
And we need to keep learningabout the, uh, opportunities and
the needs and the, the skillsand the, and, and what's
important.
The New Testament places a greatdeal of emphasis on growth and
maturity and, um, we'll talkabout that a little bit more as
(19:35):
we, um, as we consider this,these, these verses.
Now, I want you to notice theword living.
It says, present your bodies aliving sacrifice.
A living sacrifice.
The sacrifice that Christiansare called to make is not self
(19:58):
destructive.
We are not asked to go to hell.
kill ourselves.
We're not asked to do, to laydown, you know, in some kind of
dramatic way that callsattention to ourselves, that
forces people to commit violenceagainst us.
Early in the church, there werea lot of people who thought that
(20:19):
if they wanted to follow Jesusand, and have Uh, and make a
sacrifice for him, theyliterally would go up to people
and ask them to kill them.
They actually would ask, theywould commit suicide, they would
turn their own suicide into ahomicide essentially.
They would make people, theywould hand people a weapon or
(20:42):
demand that they be killed onthe street right then as a, as
some sort of sick means of, ofshowing that they were really
devoted to Jesus.
This is not what Christians arecalled to do.
Not at all.
In fact, it was a sign of theperversion and the destruction
(21:05):
of real faith that was happeningin the early church already in
those days when this startedhappening.
It was really not very longafter the apostles died that
this sort of madness startedspreading.
Yes, the church has always hadmartyrs.
And, what does the word martyrmean?
(21:25):
It means to be a witness.
And it came to mean to bewilling to die, or actually to
die.
And there have been plenty oftrue, faithful Christians who
have given life itself, uh,rather than to have their
freedom of speech, um, good,wholesome speech.
(21:48):
want to emphasize, to have theirfreedom of, of, of speaking
calmly, kindly, but truly, tohave that be prevented.
Uh, the, the apostles, James andPeter, um, were commanded by
the, um, Jewish authorities notto speak about what they
(22:12):
believed about Jesus.
And they said, well, you tellus, should we obey God or man?
Um, they actually.
were, were pretty kind and nottoo terribly flamboyant in the
way they stood up for theirrights.
(22:34):
But they did stand up for thoserights, and they were willing to
go to prison as a result.
And, um, in the case of James,he died in prison.
In the case of Peter, he wasdelivered and released from
prison.
Uh, the point is, the sacrificewas done by the priest, and the
(22:57):
Making of oneself available wasdone by the person who was
pictured by the animal in thebook of Leviticus.
Okay, and it says it's not onlya living sacrifice, it is holy.
What does holy mean?
The, the, um, the Greek word is,is, uh, agios, or hagios.
(23:22):
Some people say it meansdifferent.
Let's look at what it says in,uh, Strong's.
Go ahead, we'll click on theletter, and it says, um, from
the word hagos, Which means anawful thing.
Strong's, what Strong says, hesays it's from Agos which, which
(23:44):
means an awful thing and itmeans sacred.
Physically pure, morallyblameless, religious.
Ceremonially clean andconsecrated or dedicated.
And it's translated Wheneveryou're in Strong's definition,
uh, there's a colon and a dashtowards the end of it, and after
(24:07):
the colon and the dash is theway it's actually translated in
the King James Bible.
So, uh, it's translated holy, ormost holy, or holy one, or holy
thing, or saint.
Those are the ways in which thishagios word is, uh, is used.
(24:28):
That's the Strong's definition.
How is the, what's the biblicalusage?
It's very simple.
A most holy thing, a saint.
Now, this is interesting.
Every Christian is a saint.
You know, we tend to, we tend touse the word saint to describe
somebody who is like reallyspecially pious.
(24:50):
Somebody who just never seems tolose their temper.
Someone who is, uh, you know,just really admirable in every
way.
That's not the way the NewTestament uses the word.
Uh, the New Testament describesanyone who has answered the call
(25:12):
to become a Christian and whohas done this thing, Romans 12,
1 and 2 thing.
They become saints.
That's what makes them a saint.
And all of the New Testament iswritten to them.
When Paul writes to Ephesians,he says, to the saints who are
at Ephesus.
(25:33):
It's a great honor and a greatprivilege to be in this
category.
There's no denominational tiehere.
There's no set of beliefs thatare required to become a saint.
You have to commit yourselfcompletely, present your body
completely to Jesus to let Himtake you and use you in His
(26:00):
service.
Um.
If he's willing.
That's all it takes to become asaint.
Holy and acceptable to God,which is your spiritual worship.
And by the way, worship Let'sjust think about that for a
moment.
Everybody talks about worship.
(26:20):
Here it is in Romans 12 1.
It's, it's part of what we'recalled to do as Christians, and
what does it mean?
I don't think it has anything atall to do with singing or even
going to church.
It's talking about how we liveour lives.
Presenting our bodies as aliving sacrifice is our worship.
(26:45):
Okay, Romans 12 2.
Do not be conformed to thisworld.
All right, let's note this.
The Greek word here is age, notworld, but age.
And so the big issue forChristians is to start
understanding that there aretime periods in God's dealings
(27:08):
with the human race, timeperiods.
And the Christian is to learnnot to be conformed to this time
period, this age.
We need to not Act and not thinklike the people around us in
this age.
(27:28):
Why?
Because the people in this ageare focused on the needs and the
pursuits and the priorities ofthis age.
They're focused on earningmoney.
They're focused on, you know,uh, their lifestyle and their
possessions and, and, um, theirrelationships and their
politics.
(27:49):
Those are all the things thatpeople are focused on in this
age.
Don't be conformed to the thingsof this age.
I want to look at the tools hereso that we can see this.
Uh, reverse inline, which putsit right here.
And do not be conformed to thisaeon.
(28:09):
The Greek word is aeon, and inthis case it's aeoni.
It's Strong's number 165.
Let's look at it, look at itreal quick.
Um, the word is aeon.
It sounds like this.
Strong's G, 165.
I own.
I own.
Obviously, I didn't say itright.
(28:30):
I own.
From the same as Uh, Strong'snumber 104, which means properly
an age, by extension perpetuity.
He says that often times theymean the world to come, or what
I would say, the way I would sayit is, when the Bible talks
(28:52):
about the world to come, itusually means the age to come.
Because the world stays thesame, the planet stays the same,
the age that we're living inchanges.
And so the Messianic period,which will be in the future,
will be the future age for thehuman race.
(29:13):
And it's translated manydifferent ways.
Age, course, eternal, forever,ever, etc.
Now let's look at, uh, Thayer's.
Thayer's says, When, theetymology goes back to the idea
of breath or breathing.
And it's tended, and so it comesto denote anything that causes
life or vital force.
(29:34):
That's an interesting idea.
Then it says, the age, in the,um, Latin use of it, was, uh, a
human lifetime.
So, uh.
And Homer used the word to implylife itself.
In the Bible, it's prettyprecise.
It's pretty precise.
It's not as, it's not, doesn'thave all the poetic meanings
(29:57):
that, uh, you know, Plato or, orSocrates might have used.
He quotes Jude 125.
There's a phrase that means, tothe age of the ages.
It's, it's saying that there'smultiple ages and they all, uh,
if you stretch them on out,it's, it's, it's, it might as
(30:17):
well be to the human way ofThey're imagining and thinking
it might as well be forever, butit isn't.
It isn't forever.
I mean, now that we've, now thatwe've discovered that the
universe is 13.
7 billion years old, we knowthat long periods of time can be
(30:38):
contemplated for the materialcreation of God.
And we are living at, um, animportant juncture in the, the,
uh, future, um, dealings of Godwith planet Earth.
And that's what my otherpodcast, It Is Near, is focused
on.
It's focused on prophecy andages and time and so forth.
(30:59):
But I just wanted to show youthat in this verse, in Romans 12
2, when we talk about do not beconformed to this world, to this
age, we're saying that the dutyof a Christian Is to be focused
on, focused on the things thatare going to happen when God
(31:21):
takes control of planet Earth.
We need to start living now theway we would like to live or we
will need to live when God isfully in charge and the human
beings are obedient to God.
That's what we want to do.
We want to set an example now ofhow it is to live.
(31:46):
in harmony with God as allpeople one day will.
Remember the Lord's Prayer.
What did Jesus say?
He said when they asked Him topray, He said, say it like this
Our Father, who art in heaven,hallowed be thy name, thy
kingdom come, thy will be doneon earth as it is now in heaven.
(32:15):
So there's a future age.
When things will be done onearth as they are already being
done, you know, where there's noimperfection in, in the heavenly
realms, in the realms we cannotsee beyond, beyond the planet
that we live on.
Um, okay, now it says, don't beconformed to this age, but be
(32:41):
transformed.
Okay, here's that idea oftransformation.
What does it mean to betransformed?
It means to be changed.
We're talking about something,uh, that is existing only in the
mind.
That's what the phrase says, betransformed by the renewal of
your mind.
(33:02):
You remember when, uh, Jesus hadthe conversation with the Jewish
Pharisee, Nicodemus?
Nicodemus was so afraid of,about losing his reputation by
talking to Jesus that he came tohim by night and they talked.
He told him that he should be,he needs to be thinking in terms
of being born.
(33:22):
Or begotten is the actual wordhe used, which is the word they
use to describe the inseminationof a new, a new baby, before
it's even born.
The, uh, it's first begotten.
He says it needs to be begottenby that spark of life, the same
(33:45):
kind of spark of life thatbrings a human embryo into
existence in the womb of awoman.
The same idea.
is what he's talking about whenhe says that a human being is,
um, begotten from above.
The word he uses in, in John,the third chapter is anothen,
(34:05):
which means from above.
And so, that's a, that's a newthing.
It's a, it's a renewal of life.
And for a human being who has,you know, grown up and is, uh, A
teenager or an adult, and theyare thinking about important
(34:28):
issues, and they decide to be,that there's an opportunity,
they hear, they hear a message,they read things in the Bible,
things happen in their life, andthey come to believe that it's
true.
A new spark of life is possiblewithin you.
That's what he's talking abouthere.
(34:50):
Don't be conformed to this worldbut be transformed by the
renewal of your mind.
What happens when your mind isrenewed?
Well, the first thing thathappens is that you repent of
things.
You change your mind.
Repent means change the mind.
Metanoia is the Greek word andit means to Changed the mind,
(35:12):
changed the thinking, changedthe attitude, changed the
intention, changed the will,changed the point of reference.
He's saying what happens is anew way of thinking, a new
approach to life.
That's what a Christianexperiences.
(35:34):
And, um, I should, what I shouldmake, what I should emphasize, I
suppose, is that it should beobvious that not every person
who calls themselves a Christianor who goes through even a
conversion of some sort, noteverybody in, is in this
category of what we're talkingabout here.
(35:56):
Jesus, when he addresses hisfollowers, he talked to, he
spoke of them and to them as alittle flock.
He didn't, he didn't expect, hedidn't seem to envision that he
was here to start some sort ofmovement that was going to sweep
across the world and would oneday envelop everybody.
You know?
The idea of reaching the worldfor Christ, which is a very
(36:20):
serious objective of many of ourChristian brethren.
I think that when we lookcarefully at what the scriptures
say about our goals, our jo, ourour, our job, our our, uh,
challenges, our tasks that we'recalled to do, it's not to reach
(36:41):
everyone, it's to help thosewhom God has drawn, whom God has
called to have.
Um, help and, and direction andencouragement to move forward
with that call, that littlebreath of invitation that they
got from, you know, the thingsthat God did in their heart and
(37:05):
in their life.
To bring them to the point wherethey were prepared to present
themselves to Jesus and tofollow in His footsteps and to
do what He did as best we'reable.
As our minds are renewed, wefirst do that first thing which
I mentioned, repentance, whichdeals with the past, not by
(37:29):
changing it necessarily, Or evenundoing it, but by recognizing
that it was wrong.
That it was in violation of someprinciple.
And a, a decision to nowhenceforth to live in a
different direction, a differentway.
(37:49):
Yes, sometimes there are, thereare opportunities occasionally
for us to make restitution forsome specific wrongs that we
have committed in the, in pasttimes.
The main emphasis in repentanceand renewal of the mind is the
future.
We focus on what we can do todaythat's different than yesterday,
(38:13):
and what we can do tomorrowthat's different than today.
That's the renewal of the mind.
Now, here's the most importantpart of this verse.
So that by testing you maydiscern, so that by testing you
may discern.
Now, the ESV Bible is one of thefew translations which uses a
(38:36):
phrase quite like this.
Let's look at the, uh, the Greekword here.
So that you may prove.
Okay, that's it.
In King James it says, so thatyou may prove.
That's what King James says.
(38:57):
The word is dokimazo.
Documadzo.
Let's listen to, let's listen tothat word.
Strong's G, 1381.
Documadzo.
Documadzo.
Documadzo.
Documadzo.
(39:19):
Okay.
Alright, so, be transformed bythe renewing of your mind.
Why?
How?
So that you may prove.
Documadzo.
Alright, now.
What Documadzo is.
(39:39):
is the ESV version, the EnglishStandard Version, translates it
as, as being two things, twothings in one.
It's testing and thendiscerning.
There's an experimentaldimension to this.
It's like a scientific approachto discerning and discovering
(40:01):
what the will of God is.
We don't have a lot of moment bymoment guidance from God in
terms of how to get through eachmoment of each day.
So what we have to do is we haveto read as much as we can, and
try to get the theoretical ideasby looking at the way people of
(40:26):
faith acted in the past.
We read that in the pages of theletters, the epistles of the New
Testament.
We, we read about the ancient,uh, people of faith in the Old
Testament and what they wentthrough historically.
And we can glean a lot ofinformation there about how to
(40:46):
discern.
the will of God and how to thinkabout things, you know, how to,
how to, to grow and to, and tocapture kind of the mind and
heart of God, how to have thedisposition and character of
Jesus as we follow his example.
But Daki Madzo has the idea of,of testing.
(41:10):
Actually experimenting and thenas a result of experimenting to
discern.
We experiment, we put, we put,uh, ourselves and our
situations.
and our theories, and ourattempts at action.
We put all those to the test,and then we discern from those
(41:32):
experiences what was pleasing toGod and what wasn't.
What was a productive way tolive and what wasn't.
What had good fruitage and whatdid not.
Now, it's often going to be thecase that what the Lord's will
was, it produced hardship.
(41:52):
What the Lord's will actuallywas created a conflict, created
a decision that we had to make.
In other words, we're not, we'renot experimenting to find the
easiest path.
We're not experimenting to findthe, the most popular path.
(42:13):
We're experimenting to find whatwould be pleasing to God.
And we have to do that, well itsays in one verse, Work out your
own salvation with fear andtrembling.
Work out your own salvation withfear and trembling.
There are times when it'sfrightful to, to try to figure
(42:34):
out, well, what should I dohere?
What should I do here?Dokimazomeans to, let's look at some
more definitions about it.
I'm gonna click on Strong's 1381and I'm gonna go down to the
(42:55):
Blue Letter Bible's Summary ofhow it's used in the Bible.
To test, examine, prove,scrutinize.
And it says to see whether athing is genuine or not.
And it refers back in the use ofthe word, the development of the
(43:16):
word in Greek over time.
It actually was used to putmetals to the test.
This is an interesting thingthat is a theme that you'll see
in the Bible as you study it,and we won't go into it in great
depth in this study.
They used to have a black stonein the, in the center of each
(43:37):
town in these Middle Easterntowns in Israel and, and, and,
uh, Arabia.
And, um, a lot of trading wasgoing on.
This was the crossroads of theworld.
And coins were coming from allover the place, and every coin,
as you might surmise, um, is, isa, is a, uh, mixture of a
precious metal.
(43:57):
With some alloy, and the alloymakes it harder.
Gold, the pure gold is verysoft.
And so to make it a little moretough, durable, they would put,
uh, an alloy in the gold.
But the more alloy they added tothe gold, uh, the less value it
had because it was, it was, um,mixed with tin or antimony or
(44:20):
some other, uh, metal.
So they would put a black stonein the center of town with a, a
stripe.
of pure gold drawn on it, andthen people would go and they'd
take the coin that they broughtfrom the land that they came
from and they would mark thatnext to the stripe, as close to
(44:41):
the stripe as they could get it,so that the people that they
were trying to buy from couldsee how close in color their
coin was to the pure goldstripe.
And so, Dokimazo is the processof discerning.
You put the, you, you scratchthe, the questionable coin
(45:03):
against, right next to the gold,the pure gold, which of course
is a picture of divinequalities, divine wisdom and
justice.
And, um, you, you, you stripeyour, your coin that you're
offering next to it, and thenyou can see how pure it is.
(45:23):
You can discern.
So there's two parts toDakimazo.
You, you do the test, and thenyou look.
You look to see what, how closein color those two coins are.
That's what we're talking about.
And then the second definition,uh, that's used in the Bible to,
(45:44):
uh, when this word occurs, andit occurs a lot, is to recognize
as genuine after examination.
So you approve it.
So you have the ability to notonly test something and question
things, But also to have theability, have the confidence
(46:08):
that comes from learning andfrom experience to settle on a
decision about what, what thatquality really is.
You discern something, youactually make a decision about
what's good, you actuallyapprove it, if it's something
(46:31):
that you can approve.
If you can approve it, you havea duty.
Under the rubric and the thoughtbehind Akamatsu, you have a
responsibility to learn how tosay yes.
You have a responsibility tosay, okay, that's as close as I
can get here to the goldstandard.
(46:51):
And so, a Christian learns notjust to question everything.
And test everything, becausethat's part of Dakimanzo.
We have to test everything.
But we also have to learn toapprove some things.
We have to learn to approve thegood part of things.
(47:13):
And that might mean that we'llhave to say, yeah, but, you
know, there might be somereservations.
There might be some issues.
There might be a, well, I likethat idea.
I like that approach, but can'twe change it in this way to try
to help these people who mightbe hurt by this plan you've got?
Whatever it is, whatever we'retrying to discern to try to get
along with, uh, and, and, andmake good things happen in, in
(47:35):
serving God.
There's also, there's a need toquestion and there's also a
need.
to, um, find what we can agreewith and agree with it.
So that's the, that's the growthprocess for Christians to become
positive people, not only justnegative critical people.
(48:00):
Okay, now we're almost donewith, with Romans 12.
2.
So that by testing you maydiscern what is the will of God
and what does it say?
What is good and acceptableGod's will is good things,
acceptable things, and perfectthings.
(48:24):
Do you see the difference?
Sometimes God's will isacceptable things.
It's good enough.
And sometimes God's will isperfect things.
We have to learn to decide whenwe need to press for and insist
upon what's perfect.
In terms of what, how that worksin our individual lives, and in
(48:48):
our churches, and in ourmarriages, and in our dealings
with our children, there's goingto be lots of times when we've
got to settle for what'sacceptable.
In order to have peace, in orderto have positive, constructive
relationships, and make, andwork together as a team.
(49:08):
And then there's other timeswhen we have to say, that's too
far away from perfect.
You know, um, I probably am anam more of a perfectionist than
most people, and I've been thatway in my creative life, in my
work life.
(49:30):
Um, I've been that way as afather.
I've been too much of, I was toomuch of a perfectionist at times
when I was dealing with my kidswhen they were little.
God deals with baby Christians,middle-aged Christians and old
Christians.
And I think in pretty much everycase, he's focused primarily on
(49:51):
what's acceptable.
what's good enough.
Good and acceptable is all he'strying for when he's when he's
working with imperfect peoplebecause God knows I know that I
know that it's popular tobelieve that God is a
(50:12):
perfectionist and he can't evenlook at us because we're so
imperfect.
I don't think that that thatopinion holds up.
When you, when you walk with Godand when you see what the Bible
says about all of the manythings that God has done and
dealt with in His children, Heforgives again and again.
(50:36):
That's, that's doing what's,making do with what's
acceptable.
Okay, well, I wanted to go intosome more work on, uh, documadso
in the other scriptures, but wehave, we are out of time.
I've overshot this, my timeslot.
So, uh, the next episode I'mgoing to, um, go back into the
(51:01):
first chapter of Romans with youand look at how Paul uses the
same word documadso.
Uh, in terms of how God dealswith the unbelieving world, and
then we'll go and we'll look atuh, Doc Amazo in the life of
believers, um, discernment.
We'll add to this, uh, themethat we've started on here and
(51:23):
we'll continue over the next,uh, episode or two.
And these are going to be, Ithink, kind of frequent and, uh,
unedited, mostly, episodes thatI'm just going to crank out and,
um, let you, um, um, andhopefully they'll be useful.
Hopefully they'll be somethinguseful.
And I hope that you are, uh, candiscover from this.
(51:45):
Your own power of, uh, studyingthe Bible, uh, with these, uh,
amazing tools.
You don't have to have a Biblescholar, uh, underlining things.
You can have the Bible itselfexplaining itself to you.
Uh, and, uh, with that, um, Ihope that everyone who in their
(52:07):
Life experience has, has, um,presented themselves to God as a
follower of Jesus that youcontinue to do so and do not
lose heart.
And if you have not recognizedthe opportunity in that
invitation that we have inRomans 12, 1 and 2, consider it.
(52:29):
There's more to following Jesusthan believing that He is your
Savior.
There's an opportunity that maycrystallize in your own heart to
present your bodies and yourminds to Him, which is a
reasonable and logical form ofworship, life worship.
(52:54):
Thanks for listening.
This has been We Are Near, apodcast that's focused on the
common denominators of Christianlife and faith at this late
hour.
Almost the very end of theChristian era.
We are very close to the end ofthe Christian era.
(53:16):
And it's time not for Christiansto try to conquer the world and
circle the wagons and think thatGod is going to destroy
everybody who isn't Christian.
But rather, it's time forChristians to focus more
carefully than ever before ontheir own hearts, their own
growth, their own obedience.
(53:37):
And when their obedience iscomplete, and only then, will
they have an opportunity toshepherd and guide the nations.
Towards their growth and theirobedience, which will happen in
the next age, as I understandthe Bible.
So, thank you for tuning in, andlet's pray for the kingdom to
come.
(53:57):
It is near.
And we, as Christians, are nearto the goal.
Welcome to We Are Near.
This is Episode 2, and for thenext several episodes I'd like
to do a series on what it meansto be a Christian and how
Christians grow.
And I want to start with Romans12.
And we're going to look at threeaspects of the message in Romans
(00:27):
12.
The themes of renewal,transformation, and discernment.
Being a Christian is a mentalthing primarily.
Obviously, we do things, we act,we live lives in a human body,
but what's happening, the realheavy lifting that's happening
(00:48):
in the life of a Christian ishappening in the mind.
It's a transformation of themind, the heart, the character.
It's learning to have mentaldiscipline, to grow and mature.
We drink milk, and then we eatsome pre digested food, and
eventually we learn to handlegrown up foods.
(01:10):
We learn to like broccoli.
We learn to eat salads.
Hard to chew things like steak.
Those are things that we do asChristians as we're growing.
But the focus of Romans 12 isgoing to be renewal,
transformation.
(01:30):
What are we transforming from?
And then We want to look at theconcept of discernment, which is
a theme in Paul's writings thatwe're going to look at tonight.
So let's look at Romans 12, andI'm going to use, um, the Blue
Letter Bible, and I have it onmy second camera, so that you
can see, you can read it alongwith me, and, uh, I hope this
(01:52):
will be big enough for you tosee.
And I'm going to show how to usethe Blue Letter Bible to Do your
own Bible study.
There are so many toolsavailable here that are really
helpful in understanding thepassage.
I'm going to start by readingall of Romans 12, and then I'm
(02:13):
going to go back and do a deepdive into verses 1 2.
And we're going to use the ESVtranslation.
By the way, that's right uphere.
The ESV is the English StandardVersion, and you can tap and
change to multiple otherdifferent translations.
And I'm going to stay with ESV.
You can organize it by verse orby paragraph.
(02:35):
If you prefer to read it inparagraph form, it does that.
And then the verse numbersappear.
And the verse numbers arehypertext linked.
So you can go to the tools byclicking on the verse numbers.
Or you can go back to the verse,and then you have a little
button for the tools.
(02:56):
And the tools, uh, include anumber of things.
They include the Greek text.
They, uh, order the Greek textas you choose.
And I'm going to keep it inreverse.
In line order, which means it isin the order of the English
words, the way we would say itin English.
(03:18):
Therefore, I urge you, brethren,by the mercies of God, to
present your bodies a living andholy sacrifice, acceptable to
God, which is your spiritualservice of worship.
That's verse one.
And notice that in each of thoseverses, underneath each English
word is, uh, the actual Greekword.
(03:38):
As it appears in the text.
And then that same wordtransliterated into English
letters.
Another thing that's neat aboutit is it has the Strong's
numbers.
These, the G stands for Greek.
And then this is the order thatProfessor Strong used.
So that, um, you can find thedefinition as he, um, defined
(04:02):
it.
How it's used or where it's usedin the Bible.
And then the Englishtransliteration of how it's said
in that situation.
This is the button here to closeout of the, all of the, um,
tools.
Close, and now we have theverses.
I'm going to read the wholechapter.
(04:24):
I appeal to you, therefore,brothers.
And by the way, we can roll overthis little function button, and
it'll say brothers and sisters.
That's a helpful thing to, toknow.
That the Bible does not have aGreek word that means Um, when
it says the word brothers, itdoes not mean, in most cases, it
does not mean um, males.
(04:46):
It means brothers and sisters.
It means siblings.
Okay?
So I appeal to you therefore,siblings, by the mercies of God,
to present your bodies as aliving sacrifice, holy and
acceptable to God, which is yourspiritual worship.
Do not be conformed to thisworld.
(05:07):
But be transformed by therenewal of your mind, that by
testing you may discern what isthe will of God, what is good
and acceptable and perfect.
So that's the living sacrificethat he calls each Christian to
engage in.
Notice that we're alreadyChristians, we're already
(05:30):
brothers.
When we are asked to take anadditional step, doing something
that we perhaps hadn't thoughtto do before this point.
Perhaps we started out assomeone who believed in Jesus as
our Savior, but we didn'tunderstand and it did not occur
to us to engage in a Spiritualworship, a spiritual, uh,
(05:56):
sacrifice, so to speak, thatinvolved presenting our bodies
and making our bodies and mindsavailable to Jesus as a way of
showing gratitude, appreciation,and a desire to serve.
The goals and the plans and thepriorities of the Heavenly
(06:16):
Father.
Now it says, Do not be conformedto this world, but be
transformed by the renewal ofyour mind.
And there's that idea ofrenewal, which we will come back
to.
That by testing you may discern.
There's the discernment concept.
And we're going to spend a lotof time on that tonight.
(06:38):
What is the will of God?
What is good and acceptable andperfect?
For by the grace given to me, Isay to everyone among you not to
think of himself more highlythan he ought to think, but to
think with sober judgment, eachaccording to the measure of
faith that God has assigned.
(07:01):
For as in one body we have manymembers, and the members do not
all have the same function,Obviously, you know, arms,
fingers, hands, eyes, ears,feet, hearts, stomachs.
All of these different membersor parts of our body have
different functions.
(07:21):
So we, though many, are one bodyin Christ and individually
members one of another.
And so therefore, even if ourrole is that of a fingernail or
a piece of hair, it's animportant part of the entire
body and should be valued assuch.
(07:43):
Verse 6, Having gifts thatdiffer according to the grace
given to us, let us use them.
If prophecy, in proportion toour faith.
If service, in our serving.
The one who teaches, in histeaching.
The one who exhorts, in hisexhortation.
(08:03):
The one who contributes, ingenerosity.
The one who leads, with zeal.
The one who does acts of mercy,with cheerfulness.
So each of the members of thebody have different things that
they can do.
When they present their bodiesand make themselves available to
God, each one should discoverwhat their gift is, what they
(08:25):
can do, and then they should doit with all their heart.
That's the message of thosefirst eight verses.
Verse nine.
"Let love be genuine." The,there's a subheading, it's not
part of the Bible, but it's,it's added by the translator,
and I think it's, in this case,it's a good summary point for
the rest of the chapter (08:46):
the marks of a true Christian.
These are qualities that weshould see in ourselves, growing
as time goes on.
And sometimes our, our growthwill be less impressive than we
would like it to be.
Sometimes we'll feel like we'rebacksliding.
(09:07):
Uh, sometimes our motivationwill be lacking, and therefore
some of these qualities will notbe as apparent as they should
be.
But the goal of the Christian isto actually grow and change in
character, attitude, and youknow, basically thinking skills,
(09:28):
learning to think like Jesus andthe Heavenly Father.
So the first one of these marksof a true Christian, he says,
the very first one he leads withis.
Love.
Let love be genuine.
Abhor what is evil.
Hold fast to what is good.
(09:50):
Love one another with brotherlyaffection.
Outdo one another in showinghonor.
Do not be slothful in zeal.
Be fervent in spirit.
Serve the Lord.
Rejoice in hope.
Be patient in tribulation.
Trouble.
Tribulation is a word thatrefers to what you do to, um,
(10:13):
wheat grain when you're turningit into flour.
You, you roll it and it crushesit.
And that's called tribulation inthe Latin language.
"Rejoice in hope.
Be patient in tribulation.
Be constant in prayer.
(10:34):
Contribute to the needs of thesaints.
And seek to show hospitality.
Bless those who persecute you.
Bless and do not curse them.
Rejoice with those who rejoice.""Weep with those who weep".
So we're talking here about thedevelopment of empathy.
(10:55):
Humility and empathy.
"Live in harmony with oneanother.
Do not be haughty, but associatewith the lowly".
There's humility again.
"Never be wise in your ownsight".
This is a learned skill that allof us can learn and most of us
have a tendency to as we getolder and, um, see how much the,
(11:18):
uh, weaknesses that we have andthe mistakes that we make
outweigh the good that we'reable to accomplish in most
cases.
"Repay no one evil for evil, butgive thought to do What is
honorable in the sight of all."I'm going to read that one
again.
"Repay no one evil for evil, butgive thought to do what is
(11:40):
honorable.
in the sight of all.
If possible, so far as itdepends on you, live peaceably
with all.
Beloved, never avengeyourselves, but leave it to the
wrath of God, for it is written,'vengeance is mine, I will
repay', says the Lord." And wecan be sure that if God is going
(12:03):
to handle the question ofvengeance, the question of
justice, meting out justice, wecan be sure that it's going to
be perfect.
It's going to be fair.
It's going to be instructive.
It's going to be corrective.
It's going to actually helpsomebody learn a lesson if they
(12:24):
found themselves corrected.
And it's going to berestorative.
God's justice is restorative.
Very rarely does God resort to,uh, actual, Destructive, uh,
intervention in a person's life.
To the contrary, it says inverse 20,"If your enemy is
(12:47):
hungry, feed him.
If he's thirsty, give himsomething to drink.
For by so doing, you will heapburning coals on his head." Now
this is talking about somebodywho is an enemy.
If your enemy's hungry, feedhim.
If he's thirsty, give himsomething to drink.
It's not saying that you'regoing to be doing vengeance.
(13:09):
What you're going to be doing isyou're going to be making him,
his head, his thought process,conscious of his own littleness,
of his own inadequacies.
If somebody who, uh, doesn't owehim anything, and who he has
actually wronged does him a goodturn, does him a favor, shows
(13:30):
grace toward him, the tendencyis going to be that that
person's heart will soften, andthat person's head will start to
change.
That's the, that is the winningway of love that Christians are
called to do.
And finally, verse 21, Do not beovercome by evil, but overcome
(13:51):
evil with good.
So we're not going to overcomeevil by going to war.
We're going to overcome evil bydoing good things for others and
for the very people who aretrying to do evil to us.
Okay, now I want to go back andreview a little bit in the first
(14:12):
two verses of the chapter.
To do that, let's start in verse1 and then spend most of the
time in verse 2.
Okay, so in verse one, uh, itsays,"Therefore I urge you,
brethren." And the word brethrenthat I talked about as being,
referring to both brothers andsisters.
(14:33):
The word is Adelphos.
It means men and women.
When Paul tells us to do anaction, he uses a verb,
peristemi, It means, uh, topresent.
And Paul, of course, wasschooled in the ancient Jewish
scriptures.
(14:54):
He was an expert in thescriptures of the Old Testament.
And when he uses the word"present", he's, he's pulling
from something that happened inthe book of Leviticus quite
often.
Um, animals were brought Bypeople, to the priests, and the
(15:14):
priests then presented thatanimal to God, to the altar that
God had told them to build.
They were offering a concretething, an animal, and we learn
from other of Paul's writings,and even in this verse, that
(15:35):
he's referring to what our mindsdo with our bodies.
We present the body, we make itavailable, we lay our hands on
it, and that blood is, uh, usedas, to symbolize the very life
itself, all of the hopes, aims,and blessings, and privileges.
(15:56):
of that animal.
The human being is what is meantby the animal.
The animal pictures thesacrifice of the priest or the,
or the sacrifice of the personwho brought it.
And, um, so by presenting, um,It's like, it's, it's basically
(16:18):
taking the animal, tying it inplace, restricting its liberty,
and saying, Okay, you, the, thehigh priest, who becomes a
picture, we are told, of Jesushimself, the high priest has the
ability to do with that animalas he chooses.
And all the animal can do ismake itself available and allow
(16:43):
itself to be tied, you know.
to in a place next to the altarwhere it can be dealt with by
the high priest.
That's what we do as Christians.
We make a decision to makeourselves available and
circumstances that are presidedover and arranged by, overruled
(17:06):
by God, invisible forces movethrough our lives and give us
opportunities.
And sometimes we don't alwayssee that happening.
Sometimes we wish we could domore and we can't.
Sometimes we have setbacks.
Sometimes we have to take asecond job and, and work harder.
(17:27):
Sometimes we have an illnessthat keeps us from doing what we
would like to be doing to serveGod.
Sometimes we, in the case ofPaul, he lost his vision.
Soon after he became aChristian, and he, he had to
labor very hard in order to tryto, um, read anything.
And he was a reader.
(17:48):
He was a studious man.
And here he was, he, his eyeswere weeping and he, and he
couldn't see very well.
And when he wrote his name, hecomments at the end of a couple
of the epistles how he had towrite his name in very large
letters because he couldn't seesmall letters on the page.
(18:08):
And when he read, it was mostlyhe had to have a servant.
You know, somebody read to him.
Somebody like Timothy orEpaphroditus or, um, you know.
He could speak.
But he, he couldn't, he couldn'tsee very well, but he presented
himself and he asked Godactually three times to have his
(18:32):
thorn in the flesh, he calledit, be removed.
And I think most people who readand reread what Paul writes kind
of come to the conclusion thatit must have been something
about his vision that was asuper problem for him, a big, a
big issue.
But all of us, at one time oranother, almost all of us, I
(18:52):
should say, We have these timeswhen we are presenting
ourselves, but we don't feellike we get to see much action.
We're like, we're like afootball or basketball player
who sits on the bench sometimes.
But we are part of the team, andwe need to keep our head in the
(19:13):
game.
And we need to keep learningabout the, uh, opportunities and
the needs and the, the skillsand the, and, and what's
important.
The New Testament places a greatdeal of emphasis on growth and
maturity and, um, we'll talkabout that a little bit more as
(19:35):
we, um, as we consider this,these, these verses.
Now, I want you to notice theword living.
It says, present your bodies aliving sacrifice.
A living sacrifice.
The sacrifice that Christiansare called to make is not self
(19:58):
destructive.
We are not asked to go to hell.
kill ourselves.
We're not asked to do, to laydown, you know, in some kind of
dramatic way that callsattention to ourselves, that
forces people to commit violenceagainst us.
Early in the church, there werea lot of people who thought that
(20:19):
if they wanted to follow Jesusand, and have Uh, and make a
sacrifice for him, theyliterally would go up to people
and ask them to kill them.
They actually would ask, theywould commit suicide, they would
turn their own suicide into ahomicide essentially.
They would make people, theywould hand people a weapon or
(20:42):
demand that they be killed onthe street right then as a, as
some sort of sick means of, ofshowing that they were really
devoted to Jesus.
This is not what Christians arecalled to do.
Not at all.
In fact, it was a sign of theperversion and the destruction
(21:05):
of real faith that was happeningin the early church already in
those days when this startedhappening.
It was really not very longafter the apostles died that
this sort of madness startedspreading.
Yes, the church has always hadmartyrs.
And, what does the word martyrmean?
(21:25):
It means to be a witness.
And it came to mean to bewilling to die, or actually to
die.
And there have been plenty oftrue, faithful Christians who
have given life itself, uh,rather than to have their
freedom of speech, um, good,wholesome speech.
(21:48):
want to emphasize, to have theirfreedom of, of, of speaking
calmly, kindly, but truly, tohave that be prevented.
Uh, the, the apostles, James andPeter, um, were commanded by
the, um, Jewish authorities notto speak about what they
(22:12):
believed about Jesus.
And they said, well, you tellus, should we obey God or man?
Um, they actually.
were, were pretty kind and nottoo terribly flamboyant in the
way they stood up for theirrights.
(22:34):
But they did stand up for thoserights, and they were willing to
go to prison as a result.
And, um, in the case of James,he died in prison.
In the case of Peter, he wasdelivered and released from
prison.
Uh, the point is, the sacrificewas done by the priest, and the
(22:57):
Making of oneself available wasdone by the person who was
pictured by the animal in thebook of Leviticus.
Okay, and it says it's not onlya living sacrifice, it is holy.
What does holy mean?
The, the, um, the Greek word is,is, uh, agios, or hagios.
(23:22):
Some people say it meansdifferent.
Let's look at what it says in,uh, Strong's.
Go ahead, we'll click on theletter, and it says, um, from
the word hagos, Which means anawful thing.
Strong's, what Strong says, hesays it's from Agos which, which
(23:44):
means an awful thing and itmeans sacred.
Physically pure, morallyblameless, religious.
Ceremonially clean andconsecrated or dedicated.
And it's translated Wheneveryou're in Strong's definition,
uh, there's a colon and a dashtowards the end of it, and after
(24:07):
the colon and the dash is theway it's actually translated in
the King James Bible.
So, uh, it's translated holy, ormost holy, or holy one, or holy
thing, or saint.
Those are the ways in which thishagios word is, uh, is used.
(24:28):
That's the Strong's definition.
How is the, what's the biblicalusage?
It's very simple.
A most holy thing, a saint.
Now, this is interesting.
Every Christian is a saint.
You know, we tend to, we tend touse the word saint to describe
somebody who is like reallyspecially pious.
(24:50):
Somebody who just never seems tolose their temper.
Someone who is, uh, you know,just really admirable in every
way.
That's not the way the NewTestament uses the word.
Uh, the New Testament describesanyone who has answered the call
(25:12):
to become a Christian and whohas done this thing, Romans 12,
1 and 2 thing.
They become saints.
That's what makes them a saint.
And all of the New Testament iswritten to them.
When Paul writes to Ephesians,he says, to the saints who are
at Ephesus.
(25:33):
It's a great honor and a greatprivilege to be in this
category.
There's no denominational tiehere.
There's no set of beliefs thatare required to become a saint.
You have to commit yourselfcompletely, present your body
completely to Jesus to let Himtake you and use you in His
(26:00):
service.
Um.
If he's willing.
That's all it takes to become asaint.
Holy and acceptable to God,which is your spiritual worship.
And by the way, worship Let'sjust think about that for a
moment.
Everybody talks about worship.
(26:20):
Here it is in Romans 12 1.
It's, it's part of what we'recalled to do as Christians, and
what does it mean?
I don't think it has anything atall to do with singing or even
going to church.
It's talking about how we liveour lives.
Presenting our bodies as aliving sacrifice is our worship.
(26:45):
Okay, Romans 12 2.
Do not be conformed to thisworld.
All right, let's note this.
The Greek word here is age, notworld, but age.
And so the big issue forChristians is to start
understanding that there aretime periods in God's dealings
(27:08):
with the human race, timeperiods.
And the Christian is to learnnot to be conformed to this time
period, this age.
We need to not Act and not thinklike the people around us in
this age.
(27:28):
Why?
Because the people in this ageare focused on the needs and the
pursuits and the priorities ofthis age.
They're focused on earningmoney.
They're focused on, you know,uh, their lifestyle and their
possessions and, and, um, theirrelationships and their
politics.
(27:49):
Those are all the things thatpeople are focused on in this
age.
Don't be conformed to the thingsof this age.
I want to look at the tools hereso that we can see this.
Uh, reverse inline, which putsit right here.
And do not be conformed to thisaeon.
(28:09):
The Greek word is aeon, and inthis case it's aeoni.
It's Strong's number 165.
Let's look at it, look at itreal quick.
Um, the word is aeon.
It sounds like this.
Strong's G, 165.
I own.
I own.
Obviously, I didn't say itright.
(28:30):
I own.
From the same as Uh, Strong'snumber 104, which means properly
an age, by extension perpetuity.
He says that often times theymean the world to come, or what
I would say, the way I would sayit is, when the Bible talks
(28:52):
about the world to come, itusually means the age to come.
Because the world stays thesame, the planet stays the same,
the age that we're living inchanges.
And so the Messianic period,which will be in the future,
will be the future age for thehuman race.
(29:13):
And it's translated manydifferent ways.
Age, course, eternal, forever,ever, etc.
Now let's look at, uh, Thayer's.
Thayer's says, When, theetymology goes back to the idea
of breath or breathing.
And it's tended, and so it comesto denote anything that causes
life or vital force.
(29:34):
That's an interesting idea.
Then it says, the age, in the,um, Latin use of it, was, uh, a
human lifetime.
So, uh.
And Homer used the word to implylife itself.
In the Bible, it's prettyprecise.
It's pretty precise.
It's not as, it's not, doesn'thave all the poetic meanings
(29:57):
that, uh, you know, Plato or, orSocrates might have used.
He quotes Jude 125.
There's a phrase that means, tothe age of the ages.
It's, it's saying that there'smultiple ages and they all, uh,
if you stretch them on out,it's, it's, it's, it might as
(30:17):
well be to the human way ofThey're imagining and thinking
it might as well be forever, butit isn't.
It isn't forever.
I mean, now that we've, now thatwe've discovered that the
universe is 13.
7 billion years old, we knowthat long periods of time can be
(30:38):
contemplated for the materialcreation of God.
And we are living at, um, animportant juncture in the, the,
uh, future, um, dealings of Godwith planet Earth.
And that's what my otherpodcast, It Is Near, is focused
on.
It's focused on prophecy andages and time and so forth.
(30:59):
But I just wanted to show youthat in this verse, in Romans 12
2, when we talk about do not beconformed to this world, to this
age, we're saying that the dutyof a Christian Is to be focused
on, focused on the things thatare going to happen when God
(31:21):
takes control of planet Earth.
We need to start living now theway we would like to live or we
will need to live when God isfully in charge and the human
beings are obedient to God.
That's what we want to do.
We want to set an example now ofhow it is to live.
(31:46):
in harmony with God as allpeople one day will.
Remember the Lord's Prayer.
What did Jesus say?
He said when they asked Him topray, He said, say it like this
Our Father, who art in heaven,hallowed be thy name, thy
kingdom come, thy will be doneon earth as it is now in heaven.
(32:15):
So there's a future age.
When things will be done onearth as they are already being
done, you know, where there's noimperfection in, in the heavenly
realms, in the realms we cannotsee beyond, beyond the planet
that we live on.
Um, okay, now it says, don't beconformed to this age, but be
(32:41):
transformed.
Okay, here's that idea oftransformation.
What does it mean to betransformed?
It means to be changed.
We're talking about something,uh, that is existing only in the
mind.
That's what the phrase says, betransformed by the renewal of
your mind.
(33:02):
You remember when, uh, Jesus hadthe conversation with the Jewish
Pharisee, Nicodemus?
Nicodemus was so afraid of,about losing his reputation by
talking to Jesus that he came tohim by night and they talked.
He told him that he should be,he needs to be thinking in terms
of being born.
(33:22):
Or begotten is the actual wordhe used, which is the word they
use to describe the inseminationof a new, a new baby, before
it's even born.
The, uh, it's first begotten.
He says it needs to be begottenby that spark of life, the same
(33:45):
kind of spark of life thatbrings a human embryo into
existence in the womb of awoman.
The same idea.
is what he's talking about whenhe says that a human being is,
um, begotten from above.
The word he uses in, in John,the third chapter is anothen,
(34:05):
which means from above.
And so, that's a, that's a newthing.
It's a, it's a renewal of life.
And for a human being who has,you know, grown up and is, uh, A
teenager or an adult, and theyare thinking about important
(34:28):
issues, and they decide to be,that there's an opportunity,
they hear, they hear a message,they read things in the Bible,
things happen in their life, andthey come to believe that it's
true.
A new spark of life is possiblewithin you.
That's what he's talking abouthere.
(34:50):
Don't be conformed to this worldbut be transformed by the
renewal of your mind.
What happens when your mind isrenewed?
Well, the first thing thathappens is that you repent of
things.
You change your mind.
Repent means change the mind.
Metanoia is the Greek word andit means to Changed the mind,
(35:12):
changed the thinking, changedthe attitude, changed the
intention, changed the will,changed the point of reference.
He's saying what happens is anew way of thinking, a new
approach to life.
That's what a Christianexperiences.
(35:34):
And, um, I should, what I shouldmake, what I should emphasize, I
suppose, is that it should beobvious that not every person
who calls themselves a Christianor who goes through even a
conversion of some sort, noteverybody in, is in this
category of what we're talkingabout here.
(35:56):
Jesus, when he addresses hisfollowers, he talked to, he
spoke of them and to them as alittle flock.
He didn't, he didn't expect, hedidn't seem to envision that he
was here to start some sort ofmovement that was going to sweep
across the world and would oneday envelop everybody.
You know?
The idea of reaching the worldfor Christ, which is a very
(36:20):
serious objective of many of ourChristian brethren.
I think that when we lookcarefully at what the scriptures
say about our goals, our jo, ourour, our job, our our, uh,
challenges, our tasks that we'recalled to do, it's not to reach
(36:41):
everyone, it's to help thosewhom God has drawn, whom God has
called to have.
Um, help and, and direction andencouragement to move forward
with that call, that littlebreath of invitation that they
got from, you know, the thingsthat God did in their heart and
(37:05):
in their life.
To bring them to the point wherethey were prepared to present
themselves to Jesus and tofollow in His footsteps and to
do what He did as best we'reable.
As our minds are renewed, wefirst do that first thing which
I mentioned, repentance, whichdeals with the past, not by
(37:29):
changing it necessarily, Or evenundoing it, but by recognizing
that it was wrong.
That it was in violation of someprinciple.
And a, a decision to nowhenceforth to live in a
different direction, a differentway.
(37:49):
Yes, sometimes there are, thereare opportunities occasionally
for us to make restitution forsome specific wrongs that we
have committed in the, in pasttimes.
The main emphasis in repentanceand renewal of the mind is the
future.
We focus on what we can do todaythat's different than yesterday,
(38:13):
and what we can do tomorrowthat's different than today.
That's the renewal of the mind.
Now, here's the most importantpart of this verse.
So that by testing you maydiscern, so that by testing you
may discern.
Now, the ESV Bible is one of thefew translations which uses a
(38:36):
phrase quite like this.
Let's look at the, uh, the Greekword here.
So that you may prove.
Okay, that's it.
In King James it says, so thatyou may prove.
That's what King James says.
(38:57):
The word is dokimazo.
Documadzo.
Let's listen to, let's listen tothat word.
Strong's G, 1381.
Documadzo.
Documadzo.
Documadzo.
Documadzo.
(39:19):
Okay.
Alright, so, be transformed bythe renewing of your mind.
Why?
How?
So that you may prove.
Documadzo.
Alright, now.
What Documadzo is.
(39:39):
is the ESV version, the EnglishStandard Version, translates it
as, as being two things, twothings in one.
It's testing and thendiscerning.
There's an experimentaldimension to this.
It's like a scientific approachto discerning and discovering
(40:01):
what the will of God is.
We don't have a lot of moment bymoment guidance from God in
terms of how to get through eachmoment of each day.
So what we have to do is we haveto read as much as we can, and
try to get the theoretical ideasby looking at the way people of
(40:26):
faith acted in the past.
We read that in the pages of theletters, the epistles of the New
Testament.
We, we read about the ancient,uh, people of faith in the Old
Testament and what they wentthrough historically.
And we can glean a lot ofinformation there about how to
(40:46):
discern.
the will of God and how to thinkabout things, you know, how to,
how to, to grow and to, and tocapture kind of the mind and
heart of God, how to have thedisposition and character of
Jesus as we follow his example.
But Daki Madzo has the idea of,of testing.
(41:10):
Actually experimenting and thenas a result of experimenting to
discern.
We experiment, we put, we put,uh, ourselves and our
situations.
and our theories, and ourattempts at action.
We put all those to the test,and then we discern from those
(41:32):
experiences what was pleasing toGod and what wasn't.
What was a productive way tolive and what wasn't.
What had good fruitage and whatdid not.
Now, it's often going to be thecase that what the Lord's will
was, it produced hardship.
(41:52):
What the Lord's will actuallywas created a conflict, created
a decision that we had to make.
In other words, we're not, we'renot experimenting to find the
easiest path.
We're not experimenting to findthe, the most popular path.
(42:13):
We're experimenting to find whatwould be pleasing to God.
And we have to do that, well itsays in one verse, Work out your
own salvation with fear andtrembling.
Work out your own salvation withfear and trembling.
There are times when it'sfrightful to, to try to figure
(42:34):
out, well, what should I dohere?
What should I do here?Dokimazomeans to, let's look at some
more definitions about it.
I'm gonna click on Strong's 1381and I'm gonna go down to the
(42:55):
Blue Letter Bible's Summary ofhow it's used in the Bible.
To test, examine, prove,scrutinize.
And it says to see whether athing is genuine or not.
And it refers back in the use ofthe word, the development of the
(43:16):
word in Greek over time.
It actually was used to putmetals to the test.
This is an interesting thingthat is a theme that you'll see
in the Bible as you study it,and we won't go into it in great
depth in this study.
They used to have a black stonein the, in the center of each
(43:37):
town in these Middle Easterntowns in Israel and, and, and,
uh, Arabia.
And, um, a lot of trading wasgoing on.
This was the crossroads of theworld.
And coins were coming from allover the place, and every coin,
as you might surmise, um, is, isa, is a, uh, mixture of a
precious metal.
(43:57):
With some alloy, and the alloymakes it harder.
Gold, the pure gold is verysoft.
And so to make it a little moretough, durable, they would put,
uh, an alloy in the gold.
But the more alloy they added tothe gold, uh, the less value it
had because it was, it was, um,mixed with tin or antimony or
(44:20):
some other, uh, metal.
So they would put a black stonein the center of town with a, a
stripe.
of pure gold drawn on it, andthen people would go and they'd
take the coin that they broughtfrom the land that they came
from and they would mark thatnext to the stripe, as close to
(44:41):
the stripe as they could get it,so that the people that they
were trying to buy from couldsee how close in color their
coin was to the pure goldstripe.
And so, Dokimazo is the processof discerning.
You put the, you, you scratchthe, the questionable coin
(45:03):
against, right next to the gold,the pure gold, which of course
is a picture of divinequalities, divine wisdom and
justice.
And, um, you, you, you stripeyour, your coin that you're
offering next to it, and thenyou can see how pure it is.
(45:23):
You can discern.
So there's two parts toDakimazo.
You, you do the test, and thenyou look.
You look to see what, how closein color those two coins are.
That's what we're talking about.
And then the second definition,uh, that's used in the Bible to,
(45:44):
uh, when this word occurs, andit occurs a lot, is to recognize
as genuine after examination.
So you approve it.
So you have the ability to notonly test something and question
things, But also to have theability, have the confidence
(46:08):
that comes from learning andfrom experience to settle on a
decision about what, what thatquality really is.
You discern something, youactually make a decision about
what's good, you actuallyapprove it, if it's something
(46:31):
that you can approve.
If you can approve it, you havea duty.
Under the rubric and the thoughtbehind Akamatsu, you have a
responsibility to learn how tosay yes.
You have a responsibility tosay, okay, that's as close as I
can get here to the goldstandard.
(46:51):
And so, a Christian learns notjust to question everything.
And test everything, becausethat's part of Dakimanzo.
We have to test everything.
But we also have to learn toapprove some things.
We have to learn to approve thegood part of things.
(47:13):
And that might mean that we'llhave to say, yeah, but, you
know, there might be somereservations.
There might be some issues.
There might be a, well, I likethat idea.
I like that approach, but can'twe change it in this way to try
to help these people who mightbe hurt by this plan you've got?
Whatever it is, whatever we'retrying to discern to try to get
along with, uh, and, and, andmake good things happen in, in
(47:35):
serving God.
There's also, there's a need toquestion and there's also a
need.
to, um, find what we can agreewith and agree with it.
So that's the, that's the growthprocess for Christians to become
positive people, not only justnegative critical people.
(48:00):
Okay, now we're almost donewith, with Romans 12.
2.
So that by testing you maydiscern what is the will of God
and what does it say?
What is good and acceptableGod's will is good things,
acceptable things, and perfectthings.
(48:24):
Do you see the difference?
Sometimes God's will isacceptable things.
It's good enough.
And sometimes God's will isperfect things.
We have to learn to decide whenwe need to press for and insist
upon what's perfect.
In terms of what, how that worksin our individual lives, and in
(48:48):
our churches, and in ourmarriages, and in our dealings
with our children, there's goingto be lots of times when we've
got to settle for what'sacceptable.
In order to have peace, in orderto have positive, constructive
relationships, and make, andwork together as a team.
(49:08):
And then there's other timeswhen we have to say, that's too
far away from perfect.
You know, um, I probably am anam more of a perfectionist than
most people, and I've been thatway in my creative life, in my
work life.
(49:30):
Um, I've been that way as afather.
I've been too much of, I was toomuch of a perfectionist at times
when I was dealing with my kidswhen they were little.
God deals with baby Christians,middle-aged Christians and old
Christians.
And I think in pretty much everycase, he's focused primarily on
(49:51):
what's acceptable.
what's good enough.
Good and acceptable is all he'strying for when he's when he's
working with imperfect peoplebecause God knows I know that I
know that it's popular tobelieve that God is a
(50:12):
perfectionist and he can't evenlook at us because we're so
imperfect.
I don't think that that thatopinion holds up.
When you, when you walk with Godand when you see what the Bible
says about all of the manythings that God has done and
dealt with in His children, Heforgives again and again.
(50:36):
That's, that's doing what's,making do with what's
acceptable.
Okay, well, I wanted to go intosome more work on, uh, documadso
in the other scriptures, but wehave, we are out of time.
I've overshot this, my timeslot.
So, uh, the next episode I'mgoing to, um, go back into the
(51:01):
first chapter of Romans with youand look at how Paul uses the
same word documadso.
Uh, in terms of how God dealswith the unbelieving world, and
then we'll go and we'll look atuh, Doc Amazo in the life of
believers, um, discernment.
We'll add to this, uh, themethat we've started on here and
(51:23):
we'll continue over the next,uh, episode or two.
And these are going to be, Ithink, kind of frequent and, uh,
unedited, mostly, episodes thatI'm just going to crank out and,
um, let you, um, um, andhopefully they'll be useful.
Hopefully they'll be somethinguseful.
And I hope that you are, uh, candiscover from this.
(51:45):
Your own power of, uh, studyingthe Bible, uh, with these, uh,
amazing tools.
You don't have to have a Biblescholar, uh, underlining things.
You can have the Bible itselfexplaining itself to you.
Uh, and, uh, with that, um, Ihope that everyone who in their
(52:07):
Life experience has, has, um,presented themselves to God as a
follower of Jesus that youcontinue to do so and do not
lose heart.
And if you have not recognizedthe opportunity in that
invitation that we have inRomans 12, 1 and 2, consider it.
(52:29):
There's more to following Jesusthan believing that He is your
Savior.
There's an opportunity that maycrystallize in your own heart to
present your bodies and yourminds to Him, which is a
reasonable and logical form ofworship, life worship.
(52:54):
Thanks for listening.
This has been We Are Near, apodcast that's focused on the
common denominators of Christianlife and faith at this late
hour.
Almost the very end of theChristian era.
We are very close to the end ofthe Christian era.
(53:16):
And it's time not for Christiansto try to conquer the world and
circle the wagons and think thatGod is going to destroy
everybody who isn't Christian.
But rather, it's time forChristians to focus more
carefully than ever before ontheir own hearts, their own
growth, their own obedience.
(53:37):
And when their obedience iscomplete, and only then, will
they have an opportunity toshepherd and guide the nations.
Towards their growth and theirobedience, which will happen in
the next age, as I understandthe Bible.
So, thank you for tuning in, andlet's pray for the kingdom to
come.
(53:57):
It is near.
And we, as Christians, are nearto the goal.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.