All In! (Part 2 of 2)

Music playing... People enjoy standing out in a crowd, but many of us feel awkward drawing attention to ourselves. We would rather blend in. Christians, however, are actually expected to stand out, to be distinct from the world. And today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg explains why and how we are to be different. This is part two of a message titled All In, or in the opening verses of Romans chapter 12.

We're thinking about what it means to be all in. All in for God and the call that goes out here at the beginning of Romans 12 might be summarized just as that in itself. And he is urging his readers to make sure that their lives are offered to God as a living sacrifice, which he says is spiritual worship. What Paul does is pick up on the Old Testament picture of sacrifice. And as you know from your studies in the Bible, there are many pictures of sacrifice in the Old Testament.

But two in particular stand out. The sacrifice that was propitiatory for the appeasement of the wrath of God by the setting aside of a sacrifice and the shedding of blood. And then subsequent to that, a sacrifice that was dedicatory in thanksgiving to God for the acceptance of the sacrifice of propitiation. And the sacrifice, unlike a sacrifice that died, is to be a living sacrifice. It is not to be momentary bursts of enthusiasm, followed by long periods of chronic inertia, but rather it is to be a lasting sacrifice. And he says this sacrifice makes sense. It is rational, it is logical, and the word that is used here in Greek is just that. So then what does it mean to be those who are offering their lives in terms of spiritual worship?

Well, let me quote to you from the late professor John Murray. He says this, We are not spiritual in the biblical sense, except as the use of our bodies is characterized by conscious, intelligent, consecrated devotion to the service of God. So the idea of I'm a spiritual person, but it doesn't really affect my body or it doesn't affect what I do with my hands or my feet.

You can't get there from an orthodox understanding of the New Testament. Gnosticism and early heresies sought to contrive that notion and offer it to people. And it remains very attractive even today, somehow or another, to separate what I am in terms of the attitudes of my mind and the actions of my limbs from that spiritual part of me. No, in actual fact, says Paul, it is by our bodies that we relate to one another and it is in the use of our bodies that we express this truth. Now we quoted from J.B. Phillips paraphrase and let me give to you the second verse, at least part of it from Phillips. He goes on to say, Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold, but submit to God as he remolds your mind from within so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good.

So first of all, don't and then do. Don't allow yourself simply to be squeezed in by the contemporary thinking of your time. And what Paul is doing is once again reinforcing truth that he has already taught. I'm quoting now from Romans Chapter 8 and this is what he says, For those who live according to the flesh, the non-Christian, set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law.

Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Then he says, clearing up for all time the idea that is prevalent as you move around church circles, well, I was just in the flesh and now I'm moving over into the Spirit as if it's a kind of 110, 220 AC, DC existence.

He says, that's not what I'm talking about at all. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you, and if anyone does not have the Spirit of God dwelling in him, then he or she does not belong to God. So the distinction that he's making is the radical distinction that he now says is to mark the child of God. So in other words, Christianity is a mind-altering reality.

It changes the way a man or a woman thinks. That's why you will remember again from C. S. Lewis. He says, on one occasion I believe in Christianity as I believe in the rising of the sun, not simply because I can see it, but because by it I can see everything else. So that our understanding of the grace and mercy of God in verse 1 reveals itself then in this expression in verse 2. And what Paul says, Peter also says, this is 1 Peter 1 13, he says to the scattered Christians of his day, therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

And here we go. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all that you do. Now you see, this is of course the radical distinction that runs through the very heart of Paul's theology. And in chapter 1 of Romans, he has laid out this great exchange that has taken place as we in our unrighteousness have turned our backs on God. And this is what he says, chapter 1, speaking of God, his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse, for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, now here we go, listen to this phraseology, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Futility in thinking and the darkening of the human heart. Having quoted one Scottish theologian, let me quote another one to you. This is MacLeod now, human thought processes, human presuppositions and assumptions, and human logic are hostile to God. The distortion of sin, the anti-God bias has come in at the level of understanding and intellect.

By nature, we think crookedly, we think in an ungodly way. Now if you think about this in relationship to some of the folks that you enjoy reading, although it may be painful for you to read, I read Christopher Hitchens all the time, I have been fascinated by his robust atheism, but ultimately the Bible adjudicates on Hitchens and on all the others and explains that sin has left no part of the human faculty untouched, and therefore at the level of the intellect, at the level of human understanding, man thinks wrongly about God and thinks wrongly about himself until God shines into the darkness of that futile thinking, the light of the glory of his gospel. Third Scottish theologian, Milne, there is no road from man's intellectual and moral perception to a genuine knowledge of God.

There's a sentence for all you apologists. There is no road from man's intellectual and moral perception to a knowledge of God. The only way to knowledge of God is for God to freely place himself within the realm of our perception and to renew our fallen understanding. Hence, if we are to know God and of any adequate basis for our Christian understanding and experience, revelation is indispensable.

And it is that which lies at the very heart of Paul's theological treatise all the way through the book of Romans. And so he says, I don't want you to go back to the kind of thinking that characterized you when your minds were hostile to God. Don't allow all of that hostility, he says, to squeeze you. Don't capitulate to that. Don't play footsie with that. Don't try to make yourself look smart by just simply kowtowing to all of that hostile thinking.

Be prepared, be robust, be willing to be all in, be willing to be thought foolish. For the things of God are actually foolishness to those who are perishing. And the message of the cross is regarded as absolutely ridiculous. Therefore, he says, do not allow the world around you just to captivate and squeeze you in that way. But instead, be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that the process of God at work within the child of God is always to conform us to the image of his son. He has predestined us, Romans 8, to be conformed to the image of his son. That is his eternal purpose. He is in the process of transforming us, 2 Corinthians 3, into the image of his son. That is, if you like, his existential purpose. And one day he will make us just like his son.

That is, if you like, his eschatological purpose. And in that process, to that end, our minds are absolutely critical. That's why it is a privilege for you folks to be in an institution like this. That is why it is an immense privilege for you to be the recipients of this kind of framework in which to think these things out. And that's why it's a privilege for me to come and address you and to say to you, did you not focus on that line as we sang that second song, ponder anew?

Well, ponder, he says, ponder. Be transformed as a result of pondering, of thinking the work of the Spirit of God through the truth of the word of God to bring us to a knowledge of these things. So that when we think and we think about the values of the kingdom, we realize that Jesus, when he comes proclaiming the kingdom of God, turns human values upside down. He says, I know you think you're smart, but if you want to enter the kingdom of God, you must become as a little child. As some of you want to push yourself to the front. If you want to be first, he says, then be the servant of all. If you want to save your life, lose it. If you lose your life for my sake, you will find it.

It would be better, he says, to go into heaven missing one of your hands or one of your eyes than to go into hell with both because you did not abide by the values of the kingdom. Now you say, well, okay, that's fine. But we have to go back out into the realm of our immediate environment here and beyond that. Okay, so let me give you a few things to think about for your homework. If this was a class, then we could talk about it later on. We could have a Q&A, but it isn't, so I don't have to worry about it and neither do you.

And there will be no test on the end, at least not for me. So if I'm going to be transformed in the renewing of my mind, then I have to have a Christian perspective on the issues of, let's say, ecology. There's got to be a Christian way to figure this out in relationship to the doctrine of creation. I'm going to have to have a perspective then on the whole notion of philanthropy.

Because if you think about 21st century America, it's largely categorized by the preoccupation with the ecology that is represented by Al Gore and the philanthropy that is represented by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Well, the Christian has to think about what this means. What does it mean to use money? What does it mean to deal with this world in which God has set us? What does it mean that our world is disintegrating and yet there's going to be a new heaven and a new earth? We have to think these things out. What are we going to do as we think about social and economic theory transformed by the renewing of my mind? The Christian has something to say about the issues of greed, about the issues of injustice, about the issues of hypocrisy, about the issues of lostness. Now, you see, one of the benefits of living a little longer than you've lived is that you realize that everything is actually fairly cyclical.

Not everything, because from eternity, eternity is actually linear. But, you know, things go around and around, don't they? Because I was looking at all these people, all these people really concerned about, you know, about the issue on their iPhones and their laptops. And, you know, it just struck me as what a wonderful world in which we live. And here we are and all these dear people are upset and they're lost. And because they feel like they're just another brick in the wall.

They're just another cog in the machinery, whatever it might be. And then I said to myself, but, you know, there's nothing really changed. I was around in the 60s. We were doing the same thing in the 60s.

We were into the whole alienation thing. I wonder, are any of you going to see Paul Simon out here in Santa Barbara? Not a living soul.

Isn't that amazing? That the most significant lyricist, arguably, of the second half of the 20th century is singing in your town and none of you even know and you're not even going. But that's all right. You're not just as smart a group as I thought you were. But when you rediscover Paul Simon, you will discover that he was writing the same songs in the 60s. Kathy, I'm lost, I said, though I knew she was sleeping.

I'm empty and aching and I don't know why. Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike. They've all gone to look for America. They're trying to make sense of the whole thing. What do you say to these people? What do you say to my generation, the baby boomers, when you meet us? Miserable old customers, many of us. What are they marked by?

Well, this is what the New York Times said they're marked by. As of the first of January this year, boomers hit another milestone of self-absorption. And what are we doing?

Living longer, working longer, nursing some disappointment at how my life has turned out. The self-aware or self-absorbed feel less self-fulfilled and thus are wracked with self-pity. Have a good day. But this is the world to which we go. And it's not difficult to see the accuracy of that assessment. Oh, it's an overstatement, there is no question. But the elements of it are there.

Is there a way then for somebody who is all in for God, a young person who's committed to these things, to tackle these challenges? January the 1st in the NYT and in the WSJ Wall Street Journal, they carried a review of the book by Dreyfus and Kelly that those of you who are in that little house up there, the philosophy department ought to know. But I'm not going to embarrass you by asking you how many of you have read All Things Shining by Dreyfus and Kelly. Because I've already embarrassed you asking about Paul Simon.

And so far your score is not very good. But in that book, which I purchased as a result of the Wall Street's review of it in the New York Times, Dreyfus and Kelly have written a book in which they are pointing out that there is a complete collapse of meaning in the 21st century and therefore individuals are going to have to create their own meaning. Because we can't construct meaning for ourselves from the ground up, they then say there is in our world a pervasive sadness that modern life is marked by feelings of indecision and by anxiety. They then go on to say, as philosophy professors at Harvard and Stanford, that nobody actually believes anymore in the notion of eternal truth. Therefore it is incumbent upon everyone to create their own understanding of the truth. And the subtitle of their book is, Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in Life. Now there is great benefit in reading the Western classics. But it's a striking notion, isn't it?

That you wake up in the morning and you're feeling really depressed. So your roommate says, well why don't we just read a chapter out of Moby Dick? And the whole of life will open up before us. What a remarkable idea.

Well there will be no downside to it perhaps. But what they are actually arguing for is to find moments of transcendent whooshness. Transcendent whooshness.

I leave you to read the book yourself. But they said, when you find these shining moments, don't expect them to cohere into any kind of picture that makes sense. They're all simply atomized encounters.

And the best you can do is to catch as many of them as you can as you're going through. Well to the extent that that is in any sense a representation of the world into which you're about to go as graduates. Don't you think that it's going to make a difference for you to be all in for God? And when people say to you, why do you think differently? You're going to tell them because of the grace of God, because of the mercy of God, because of the love of God, because of the character of God, and because the Bible is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path, because I believe in its sufficiency, because I believe in the one to whom it introduces me, namely the Lord Jesus Christ, and that it is in him that life unfolds for me. You see, we're not going out to offer to our friends and neighbors a philosophy to adopt, or a series of external regulations to adhere to, but rather to say to our friends and neighbors, the God who made the world and everything in it doesn't live in temples built by hands.

And right through the whole dialogue that ensues in Acts chapter 17. Then says Paul, if we are prepared to think in this way, then we will discover that God's will is best, and we will commit ourselves to doing God's will. I began yesterday by saying to you that I didn't come here to tell you something that you don't know, but to remind you of what you must never forget. Can I ask you, are you all in?

Are you all in? Remember, is it Brutus to Cassius or Cassius to Brutus? He says, there is a tide in the affairs of man, which taken at the flood leads on to greatness. And I've discovered that there are moments in my life, that there are times, there are occasions, and these couple of days may just have been in the providence of God one of those moments, one of those times for you. If it has been, then I invite you now to bow with me and we'll pray. And we'll ask God to write these two verses in our minds and on our hearts, so that we might be all in for Him. Alistair Begg warning us not to conform to the ways of this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. You're listening to Alistair's message, All In on Truth for Life.

Alistair, we'll be right back in just a minute to close with prayer. If you've been enjoying the Lessons For Life series, I want to remind you, you can own all 38 sermons Alistair taught to college students. There are messages on topics like friendship, humility, temptation, purity, and more. It comes on a USB drive titled Lessons For Life, and you can purchase it for just $5 in our online store. Look for it on the mobile app and at truthforlife.org slash store. And don't forget about the book we've selected to supplement the Lessons For Life series. It's titled Surviving Religion 101. This is a book that was written for college students who will quickly find their faith put to the test on a college campus. If you're in college, Surviving Religion 101 will give you confidence to answer some of the tough questions you'll be facing from unbelievers. The book is yours when you donate to Truth for Life today. Simply click the image you see in the app or visit us online at truthforlife.org slash donate. Now here's Alistair with a closing prayer. I'm Bob Lapine. Do you ever feel like the world is just spinning, aimlessly spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning, sliding, spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning. Where the Learning is for Living.