Surrender means Transforming
Part 2 - Normalize Holiness
This picks up from Romans 12:1-2 where we left yesterday. There are three commands (see yesterday), two of which we already reviewed. Here is the third:
3. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
When you repent, that is to “change your mind.” You decided differently in your actions regarding sin and temptation. But this is at a whole new level.
The world “transformed” is used 3 places in the NT: When Jesus was “transfigured” (Matt 17:2; Mark 9:2), here, and in 2 Corinthians 3:18. As many scholars have noted, this is “metamorphosis” - which is the wild process of how a caterpillar gets “transformed” into a butterfly.
Here’s a little parable:
Before coming to Jesus, there was a dying and dirty caterpillar. But the caterpillar was made alive and holy and pleasing to God. Now the caterpillar is crawling around looking at all the other dying and unholy caterpillars, very grateful to be alive, but also wondering if there is something more. When he conforms to the friends, family and society, he’s convicted and ashamed. But when he lives in repentance he’s still struggling and frustrated, wondering why he’s still trying to be different when it seems so futile.
But then comes a butterfly (like the apostle Paul or a preacher of the Word) who says, “you are born to be different. I know this, because I was once like you. Quit trying to fit in to world and the ways of the caterpillars. Those who think we’re just stuck and have to hold on until Jesus comes are not correct. You were rescued from death to life to be transformed. Spend some time in the “cocoon” of being with Jesus and His Word and watch His power change you. When you see what He can do with your surrender, you’ll be free and fulfilled.”
“What? We’re not the same! You can fly, and you have color. You don’t know what you’re talking about! This is all I have ever known!”
“And so it was for me. Come to the place of surrender, then come into the place of transformation and you too will be free. God has designed you to fly and flourish. Which means you’re going to be different. But it’s a good different- the best kind.”
“But can’t I go to seminary or some training and be a better caterpillar?”
“Sure, but why would you want to? There are a lot of caterpillars in the ministry who have been painted up with pretty colors and even some fake wings tied to their bellies to give them an air of importance and authority. They can preach and attract all sorts of caterpillars. But they’re still acting and thinking and eating and rolling around in the dirt like caterpillars. Looks rather silly. Seminary can be a very good thing – but it cannot transform you. Ministry does not transform you. You need to surrender and get close to Jesus. Only then will seminary prove of any value.”
“What about the risk? I have plans and dreams.”
“The risk!? What risk? Your plans and dreams are caterpillar dreams. Your feet have never left the ground! Do you really think you can do a better job at managing and controlling your life than your Creator? Do you really think you can manipulate the future to comply with your wishes? Don’t be so foolish!”
“Why do you think you’re so superior to everyone?”
“I’m just a former dead caterpillar that was raised to life and now have tasted the joy and the love of being transformed. I’m only here because of the grace of God. What I have tasted I want to share because I know the struggle and misery you’re in. Jesus has done a work in my life, and I want to share that with you. It’s not arrogance. Or superiority. It’s love. Jesus has made me different; I won’t deny that. And it is precisely because He has made me different, that I want you to enjoy the same fellowship!”
“But we all have to struggle until Jesus comes. It’s part of being under the curse of sin in this world.”
“Struggle you say? No one denies the struggle. But when you say ‘struggle,’ you’re using it as a synonym for ‘defeat.’ Flying is not easy, but it’s my nature. You can struggle to fly all you want, but you’ll never fly like a caterpillar. I struggle to fly, and I can because I’m a butterfly. But my struggle is victorious. Because of the power of God, I win.”
“But you can’t be free from temptation!”
“You’re full of euphemisms. You said, ‘temptation’ but I think you meant ‘sin.’ Of course, I still have temptation! Jesus had temptations all through His earthly ministry. ‘He was tempted in all points just as we are, but without sin.’”
“But He’s God! You can’t expect us to live that way!”
“But He’s man as well. And His Holy Spirit lives in me, transforming me. What agreement does the Holy Spirit have with sin? The whole point of the incarnation and resurrection in the flesh is to make us holy! Victory over willful sin is wonderful! Yes, I still get tempted, but when I remember who I was and the mess of the world, and the shame it would bring to Jesus ….no, I don’t go there. In that cocoon I made a big surrender to follow Jesus whatever the cost - and now all the temptations are smaller surrenders that I can make because of the love that He has shared with me. I’m telling you that transformation is possible in this life!”
“Well, who do you know who hasn’t sinned last week?”
“Jesus didn’t, nor has He ever. You can ask that question to all your caterpillars and justify that you have plenty of company. But when you look to Jesus, something miraculous happens. When you read the Scriptures about being holy and perfect as God is holy and perfect, your faith can be strengthened, and you can be freed from sin to fly. Why would God, who ‘is love’, give us commands that we cannot obey? This would not make Him loving; it would make Him terrible! But when He gives the command, He gives His Spirit to enable obedience. That is what transformation is all about! Yes, I used to struggle with and be defeated by sin, but He has taken out my heart of stone and put within me a heart of flesh and given me His Spirit! I’m standing in front of you as a formerly dying caterpillar who has been transformed! I’m free – and you can be too! This is what you really are designed for! Transformed, fruitful fellowship with God and all the saints!”
“But we can’t!”
“What do the scriptures say? Where has God said that you are stuck in sin and cannot be holy in faith and practice in the life? Where does the power of the resurrection not apply? What does it mean that ‘you shall call His name Jesus because He will save His people from their sin’? What does it mean that ‘he who is born of God does not sin’? You give me all your objections based on your own history of failures - and on the history of failures of all the other caterpillars! But you haven’t shown me how Jesus has failed or where the Scriptures concede that as normal or acceptable, ‘just because.’ I want you to grow in your faith – not by trying harder, or doing more, but by surrendering and believing that transformation is possible. Live in the land of caterpillars and you’ll have caterpillar faith. Look to Jesus and His Word - and you can have a transforming experience that will give you butterfly faith!”
And here is where I’ll close the parable. The arguments have gone on for years within the church about the nature of holiness in practice in a world of sin. But my challenge to you, dear reader, is to look to Jesus and see just how radical, just how thorough and just how miraculous His transforming power can be. You were born for holy communion with God. Don’t settle in the land of the grubs.