October 23, 2000

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Nov. 5 Lesson

Transformation by grace changes perspectives ___Romans 12:1-8 ___1Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. 2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of the your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will. ___3For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. 4Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let his use it in proportion to his faith. 7If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; 8if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.

___By Carol Younger
___"Before and after" pictures are effective. Writers who want their audiences to try something new attach such photos to their words as proof that change will produce dramatic results. In these remaining chapters of Romans, Paul uses a "before and after" approach to picture what faithful living looks like in our world. Prior to this passage, he sketched an image of those who let the world shape their lives. He now contrasts that view with a picture of those who undergo God's transformation. Such change produces dramatic results.
___As God's family of faith, we need to keep our spiritual picture albums open, recalling the stories of our lives from time to time, and recognizing how faith transforms us. When we look at our "before and after" shots, we see how God works through ordinary individuals to create a people who are able to give themselves for God's extraordinary good.
___Transformed lives change communities
___If you had asked a 6-year-old Bobby Parker what he would be when he grew up, "a Baptist college president" would not have been his final answer. In fact, such a possibility was unimaginable to the youth who had a challenging home life and could not speak plainly. But as he grew, he encountered what Paul might term "mercies of God" in the form of people who transformed his life.
___Instinctively, the gifts he received became the gifts he gave others. His lifelong appreciation for teaching began when he entered a new school to repeat first grade and met a teacher who took time and effort to help him speak slowly. His determination to be a source of encouragement for young people began when his football coach said to him what no one else had ever said, "Bobby, you can become anything you want."
___Through educational experiences at a variety of Texas Baptist colleges, Parker caught a vision of how an academic environment in which faculty and students lived their faith in and out of the classroom could transform young lives. Eventually, after years as a teacher and administrator, he accepted the presidency of Mary Hardin-Baylor College in 1971. He was reluctant to take the position. "I worried more about having to make speeches than I did about the job itself," he said. "But God had worked so many miracles in my life, I knew God could work one more."
___The grace that Parker had received through attentive teachers, encouraging Christians and communities that modeled koinonia became the grace that structured the vision and service of his life. For 20 years, Parker led the school, which became the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor under his tenure. The institution that was in crisis when he began became a healthy university, poised to reach toward the excellence it enjoys today.
___Parker's spiritual transformation fueled his passion to create a community that would offer others the opportunity for transformation also. Recognizing their students as vital members of the body of Christ who deserve personal attention and nurture is part of his legacy and remains central to the purpose of UMHB.
___"By the mercies of God ... do not be conformed"
___In the first three chapters of Romans, Paul sketches a "before" picture of humanity--life lived without a vision for God. He shows a world in need of redemption. Chapters 4-8 introduce the transformation process: Through Christ's saving grace, God creates the possibility of new life. "Therefore," Paul appeals in 12:1, give your very selves to this transforming God--do not hold back. Chapters 12-16 focus on how this salvation looks in everyday life.
___Paul reminds us that grace is the key to both why we give our lives to God and how we do so. When we begin to understand the mercy of God that has been at work in us not because of our merits, but because of God's love, our lives change forever. How do we thank One who gives us life itself? Left on our own, we do not respond to such grace well. All of us are capable of loving others with mixed motives. We know the sin of the elder brother whose hard work for the father merely distorted the closer relationship his father desired to have with him. It is only "by the mercies of God" that we learn the daily discipline of giving our lives to God. Every experience of grace teaches us how to see differently and instructs us on how to live in gratitude.
___"Present your bodies as a living sacrifice" leaves no loopholes for compartmentalizing our faith. Grace affects every area of our lives. We live our faith in the office, the playground and at the kitchen sink. The daily call to this kind of faithful lifestyle makes it necessary for faithfulness to be a response to grace, rather than an attempt to fulfill law. As Baptist theologian Dale Moody said, "Grace is more compelling than law for living sacrifices." Grace empowers, overwhelms and forgives. Law leaves us empty when we fail. When God announced the new covenant with Israel, he declared that it would be written on their hearts, rather than stone. God envisioned a discipleship that involved inner transformation.
___"... but be transformed"
___"Do not be conformed by this world" is not an easy word to integrate into our lives. Our world praises conformity, and respectable people enjoy earning such praise. But the roots of our faith lead us to deeper understandings and values than we find in our culture. Because of their faith, our religious ancestors, the Anabaptists, would not conform to the religious establishment of 16th century England, and we are grateful.
___Though he knew the personal danger of non-conformity, Martin Luther King Jr. continued to respond to his deeply spiritual conviction that all of God's children should be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their characters. By the mercies of God, we, too, can renew our minds and see with the eyes of faith in a world that sees differently.
___Years ago a university sociology class in Baltimore, Md., interviewed 200 students from a destitute part of their city. After collecting all the data they could about the family situations of these children and analyzing it, they concluded that all but a tiny minority would be failures by social standards. Twenty-five years later, another teacher at the school found this study and planned a follow-up. His students located 180 of the 200 previously interviewed. To their amazement, they found 176 of them could be termed successful--as doctors, lawyers, engineers and teachers. The students interviewed these adults, asking "What was the difference in your life? How did you make it out of such difficult circumstances?" In every case the reply came, "I had this teacher." In comparing notes they found that every one of the 200 attended the same neighborhood school and was influenced by the same person. The researchers then interviewed her to determine the secret of her success. "How did you succeed with so many? What did you do for them?"
___"I just loved each one of them," she said. By God's grace, people of faith see others with a transformed perspective.?
___Finding God's will
___Could it be that Christians often struggle with the question, "What is God's will in this situation?" without using the gifts God provides us to help discern that will? According to Paul, the will of God is discerned within the community of brothers and sisters who are living sacrifices and who live with a connection to God that helps them see and understand more clearly through the eyes of grace. Paul suggests that such discernment requires giving one's life to God daily, constantly renewing one's mind and being part of the faith community. We are part of the body of Christ, and other Christians are crucial in the discernment process.
___Imagine a person trying to decide whether it is God's will for her to buy another new pair of shoes for herself, while Buckner Orphan Care Inter-national is asking Christians to donate new shoes for children around the world who have none. Discerning God's will may be clearer than we realize if we become active members of the body of Christ, transformed by the renewing of our minds.
___Lives shaped by grace
___Paul continues the emphasis on community in verses 3-8.
___New life in Christ forms us into the body of Christ. We are "members one of another." When parents receive the gift of new life in a delivery room, their lives change forever. Carefree couples become dedicated parents. Their routines take a different shape to respond to the new gift they have received.
___In a similar way, transforming grace is a gift of new life that brings a different structure and routine to our days. Amazed by the new gift we have received, our structures and routines change to respond to this grace. Grace changes how we look at everything--from our calendars to our neighbors. Grace shapes the structure of our lives. We find ourselves part of a body designed to help others experience the transforming love of God.
___While we each have a place in the body of Christ, our gifts "differ according to the grace given to us." The different ways we experience grace also leads to the different ways we express that grace to others. Our Creator God who enjoys variety in every aspect of nature loves to see that variety in the talents of people as well. The list of gifts in verses 7-9 range from gifts of ministry to gifts of giving and being compassionate. They balance the need for words, deeds, leadership and support. Other passages in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 12:4-10, 28-30; Ephesians 4:11; 1 Peter 4:10-11) list other gifts as well.
___Being transformed, as Paul explains, means giving our whole selves to God in an ongoing way. The talents we have become offerings rather than points of pride. After experiencing grace, we are invited to live transformed lives. As we contrast this kind of life with one in which we conform to the world, may we find the grace to discern over and over the way that is "good and acceptable and perfect."
___Carol Younger is a freelance writer and a member of Lake Shore Baptist Church in Waco

For thought and discussion
___ Think about how you have experienced God's grace in your life. Without such experiences, what would your life be like? What people or events have been forms of God's mercy for you? How has this grace changed you?
___ How should people who have received God's mercy structure their lives? What matters become more important? What becomes less important?
___ What are specific ways Christians could give themselves to God in response to grace?
___ Why is grace a more compelling motivator for serving others than legalism?
___ J.B. Phillips translates Romans 12:2 in this way: "Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold, but let God remold your minds from within." In what ways do Christians feel pressure to conform to the world's values? How do we let God remold us?
___ Describe a time when an experience of God's grace changed the way you looked at a particular person or situation.
___ Describe a time when the body of Christ helped you discern God's will or discern the ways God wants us to live. Describe a time when you were part of helping someone else discern what God may have wanted that person to do.
___ What variety of gifts do you find in your faith community? How have these gifts changed as your church has matured?

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