Sermon by Pastor Brent Kompelien

March 26, 2023

INTRO

1. How exciting to have everyone in one service! I’m excited for Vision Sunday! If you are new, I’m Pastor Brent. Good to be with you! I want to get started this morning with a story.

2. In Sydney, Australia, in 1930, Arthur Stace was part of the illiterate lower class, living on the streets, abusing alcohol, and completely lost. One Sunday, he stumbled into a church on Broadway Street near the center of Sydney, and God did something miraculous. He saved Arthur and completely turned his life around. Arthur was a transformed man, he gave up alcohol, started following Jesus, and he felt compelled to tell others about his faith. For the next 30 years, almost every day until his death in 1967, he spread his now-famous one-word message across Sydney, writing the word “eternity” in chalk on footpaths and sidewalks all over the city. (SLIDE 2) Here is a man who could hardly write his own name, but by some miracle, he could write the word “eternity” in a beautiful, smooth copperplate script.

1. Some estimate that Arthur wrote the word “eternity” more than half-a-million times on the sidewalks and streets of Sydney over the course of three decades. He became known in Sydney as “Mr. Eternity.”

2. His impact in this increasingly godless city was to plant a seed of something bigger, some longing deep in the hearts of people, some questioning of whether there is a greater purpose or a spiritual reality beyond the flat secular culture of the city.

3. The memory of Mr. Eternity lived on for more than two generations, so much so that on January 1, 2000, to mark the dawning of the new millennium, (SLIDE 3) the city of Sydney had the word “eternity” emblazoned on the iconic Sydney Harbor Bridge to match the hand-written script of Arthur Stace, Mr. Eternity. It was seen on television and viewed by over 2 billion people across the world.

4. Here is a city that probably believes more in “oblivion” than “eternity”, and yet even in a post-Christian secular culture like Sydney we see the words of Solomon from Ecclesiastes 3:11 ring true, “God has set eternity in the human heart.”

3. C.S. Lewis often wrote about the human capacity for what he called “an inconsolable longing” for something bigger or something eternal. (SLIDE 4)

1. In his spiritual autobiography entitled The Pilgrim’s Regress, Lewis describes this longing as “that unnamable something, desire for which pierces us like a rapier at the smell of a bonfire, the sound of wild ducks flying overhead, the morning cobwebs in late summer, or the noise of falling waves.”

2. Lewis writes that such yearnings point to something bigger; they point to God himself. Apart from Christ, they are merely “good images of what we really desire; but they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not yet found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have not yet visited.”

4. You see, human beings are afflicted with what the writer of Hebrews calls in Hebrews 11:16 a “longing for a better country—a heavenly one.” What are hearts are longing for is the Kingdom of God, and Jesus Christ as the everlasting King!

1. And this world is searching, people are hungry, and so many are lost and hurting.

2. It is the church, the Body of Christ, that exists as a signpost and a foretaste of the Kingdom of God. Through the proclamation of the gospel, through our bearing with one another in love, through our training in righteousness, through our compassionate care for those who are lost and hurting…we are demonstrating in living reality the deeper longings of the human heart that are only met in Jesus Christ.

5. We’ve been walking through this series in March called “Disciple-by-Doing” where we are exploring what it looks like to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

1. Today, we are going to focus on this word “with all our strength.” The Hebrew word for “strength” in Deuteronomy 6 is very unique. It means something like “umph” or “gumption” or “you whole self.” It has a very physical meaning, like applying all your bodily strength or your effort or the pattern of your life.

2. That’s why our theme today is “repatterning our lives”. The Greatest Commandment to love God supremely and love others sacrificially is only achieved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit of God in our lives as we are transformed into the likeness of Christ. This is a renovation of our heart and a repatterning of every part of our lives so that we glorify God as our all-in-all and witness to his coming Kingdom.

ORG SENT — We are going to look at a passage today that explains the goal of transformational disciple making. We will learn the difference between biblical sanctification and the way the world tries to mold us in its image. And then we will apply this for our Disciple-by-Doing ministry vision here at our church.

Open with me to Romans 12:1-2. We are going to jump into the middle of Paul’s letter to the Romans, right at the major pivot-point of the whole book. If you’re familiar with Romans, Paul spent the first 11 chapters explaining the mercy of God for sinners through the atoning death of Jesus as the free gift of salvation. Now he says, “How should we respond?”

Let’s read our text. READ Romans 12:1-2.

MAIN 1 — Conform vs. Transform (Rom. 12:1-2). (SLIDE 5a)

1. Remember, this is pivot-point of the book of Romans. That’s why Paul starts with “therefore” and he says “in view of God’s mercy”. He is saying essentially, “In light of the gospel, what do we do now?”

1. His goal is to help us see that we are saved by the mercy of God in Christ’s atoning death, but we also see God’s mercy in the Spirit’s work in us as we blood-bought sinners grow in Christ-likeness! We see God’s mercy calling us to a whole-life discipleship!

2. This is Paul’s point: (SLIDE 5b) Christ gave his whole self as a sacrifice for us in his substitutionary death; therefore we should give our whole selves as living sacrifices to Him in an act of true and proper worship.

3. This is what these words “true and proper worship” (NIV) or “spiritual worship” (ESV) means. The Greek words could be literally translated as “rational service”. It means “worship that makes sense logically”

4. In other words — In view of God’s mercy, offering your entire self to God logically follows or makes sense once we grasp the fullness of Christ’s sacrifice for us! As the classic hymn says, “Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe.”

2. Look at verse 2: What does this true and proper “whole-life” worship look like? READ v. 2

1. There are two key words that are contrasted: (SLIDE 5c)

1. Conform = bend into a pattern or mold. (SLIDE 5d)

1. ILLUST — I enjoy woodworking. I haven’t been able to do as much of it as I would like, but I am fascinated by how you can make wood into almost any shape. One technique is steaming wood to bend into a shape with a mold. This is how you get beautiful curves and unique shapes with wood. This is similar to what Paul means by “conform to a pattern.”

2. Transform = change in fundamental character or condition. (SLIDE 5e)

1. ILLUST — When you bend wood into a shape, it is still wood! But the word transform here is literally the word “metamorphosis.” Last summer my kids found a monarch egg and they raised it from caterpillar to butterfly in a jar in our house. Scientists have discovered that caterpillars literally turn into juice inside a chrysalis. It gets reconstituted as a butterfly!

1. So the goal of Christian sanctification is not merely a few superficial tweaks to your life; it is the miraculous process of being reconstituted as a new creation; today in your inner being as you are born again through faith in Christ, tomorrow in your resurrection body in the new heavens and new earth!

2. Today, Paul says that the goal of discipleship is the “renewing of our mind”. What does it mean to have a fundamental change through the renewal of our minds?

1. ILLUST — I found a concept I think is helpful. About 100 years ago, a Hungarian-British chemist and philosopher named Michael Polanyi developed concepts he called “focal knowledge” and “tacit knowledge”. He was trying to figure out how we come to know things at a deeper level.

1. Focal knowledge = something you need to focus on. Eg: Piano.

2. Tacit knowledge = second nature, becomes a part of you. Rewires you.

2. A few summers ago, one of my kids asked, “Dad, how do you ride a bike?” I just said, “I don’t know, I just do it.” Of course, there is strategy, but riding a bike becomes a knowledge you “indwell” or becomes “second nature.”

3. Baseball: Hitting at the professional level must be second-nature. The average MLB player has over 1500 at-bats in the minor leagues before making to the majors. That doesn’t count little league, high school, and college!

4. This is the goal with following Jesus. This is ultimately the goal with things like daily scripture reading, prayer, and other spiritual practices, or even regular things like how you treat others in your family or your workplace: That you are literally repatterning your life so that Christ-likeness is second-nature, and so that when life throws you a curveball, you can hit it!

2. But we need to stop here to consider how this contrast of “conforming to the pattern of this world” versus being “transformed by the renewing of your mind” relates to our experience living in this world.

3. In order to understand this, I want to look at the biblical example of Daniel. The story of Daniel going to Babylon is surprisingly relevant to our experience today.

MAIN 2 — Example of Daniel (Daniel 1). (SLIDE 6a)

1. Go to Daniel 1. If you’re not familiar with this book, it takes place around the year 600 B.C. after the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar had attacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple and carried off God’s people as exiles to Babylon.

2. I want to read the opening chapter of the book of Daniel to show you what happened when Babylon conquered Jerusalem. In this chapter, Daniel shows us an example of faithfulness and integrity in the face of pressure to compromise. READ Daniel 1:1-21.

3. Notice a few important things:

1. Nebuchadnezzar was employing a new strategy for conquering nations. Unlike the previous empire of Assyria that sought to wipe out opposing nations and beat them into submission, the Babylonians would take over your nation and then commandeer your best and brightest to bring back to Babylon to be indoctrinated and brought into allegiance with the King. (SLIDE 6b) Then they would be sent back as regents on behalf of the Babylonian King, able to speak the local language and understand the local customs, but loyal to Babylon. It was a subversive bully tactic.

2. ILLUST — Even the city of Babylon itself was set up to impress you with its culture and its luxuries and its gods. During Daniel’s lifetime, King Nebuchadnezzar constructed a huge gate to enter the city right next to his own massive palace.

1. This gate was 50 feet high, and the original foundation went another 45 feet below ground. (SLIDE 7). It was discovered around 1900 and German archeologist Robert Koldewey led the excavations from 1904 to 1914.

2. The gate was brought to Berlin, Germany, and rebuilt at the Pergamon Museum in 1918. (SLIDE 8) I had the chance to visit this museum. It is stunning!

3. The gate was dedicated to the goddess Ishtar, who was the ancient Mesopotamian goddess of love, beauty, war, fertility, divine law, and political power.

4. Through the gate ran what was called “The Processional Way”, which was a street lined with walls decorated with 120 lions, bulls, dragons, and flowers on yellow and black glazed bricks, symbolizing the goddess Ishtar.

3. The goal is simple: When you were brought as a captive to this city, you would be wowed at the power and prowess of Babylon. You will know that you have been conquered. Magnificent structures like this demanded your allegiance to Babylon and its king.

4. This is what happened to Daniel and his friends. They were from the royal families and the nobility of Israel. They are brought to Babylon, taught the language and literature, given food from the King’s table, and given new names and identities that were meant to erase their Israelite culture and loyalty to the Living God.

1. (SLIDE 9a) Daniel’s name means “God is my judge”. Old Testament scholar Tremper Longman says that the theme of the book of Daniel is this: (SLIDE 9b) despite present appearances, God is in control. Daniel was a living witness to his name: God is judge, I will keep my integrity, I will be faithful, I will live for him.

5. KEY — (SLIDE 9c) In every way, Babylon was trying to bend Daniel and his friends into its shape. It was trying to change their way of thinking, indulge them with luxuries, and give them new names and new identities and new loyalties. It was “conforming them into the pattern of this world” as Paul said.

1. APPLY — Friends, this sounds a lot like our culture. I don’t think it is an accident that the moral compass of our society is being re-calibrated in schools and universities, through indulging in the comforts and luxuries of materialism, and through literally re-writing the identities of the best and brightest young people who are now changing their names and pronouns and claiming new loyalties and new definitions of what is “good”.

2. (SLIDE 9d) Every generation has its temptations to Babylon-like conformity. Every era is defined by its unique ways in which the deeper longings of the human heart for God and his kingdom are twisted and presented in the allure of idolatry and questioning, “Did God really say?”

3. There is actually pattern of Babylon across the Bible that comes to symbolize the rebellious nations and cultures of this world that are set against God and his people.

4. And yet Babylon will not win. Even though Babylon continues to seduce the nations even today, the book of Revelation ends with the climactic judgment of Babylon and the vindication of God’s faithful people. Revelation 18 and 19 says, (SLIDE 10) “Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!…Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to God, for true and just are his judgments. He has condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adulteries. He has avenged on her the blood of his servants….Hallelujah! For the Lord God Almighty reigns.”

5. In other words, the sick and twisted seductions of our own culture will not win the day…they will be destroyed, not by any earthly nation or political power, but by the return of the rider on the white horse who is called Faithful and True, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords!

6. (SLIDE 11a) The story of Daniel pre-figures this reality. Daniel and his friends remain faithful to God. They resist being tempted by Babylon and they stand firm on their devotion to God.

1. And Daniel’s faithfulness resulted in even the King of Babylon recognizing that Daniel and his friends had 10 times more wise than all his indoctrinated subjects! They became living witnesses to the Living God!

7. Let me connect this back to Romans 12. (SLIDE 11b) We must open our eyes to the stark reality of living in this world:

1. Babylon wants to bend you into its shape. (SLIDE 11c)

2. The gospel will transform you into the likeness of Christ. (SLIDE 11d)

4. But like Daniel, we find ourselves as resident exiles, which is exactly what Peter calls the church scattered across Asia Minor in the 1st century. In 1st Peter, he writes that we are exiles “chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ.”

1. A lot of churches will pick one of two option: 1) Blend in by creating as little distance between us and the culture as possible, becoming “relevant” yet potentially losing our distinctiveness as God’s holy set-apart people. 2) Avoid contact with the culture as much as possible and risk losing our distinctiveness as salt and light in the world.

5. But there’s a better way. And it is what we’re calling Disciple-by-Doing. It is a way of being missionaries in our own culture, signposts to a different kingdom. (SLIDE 12) Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was faithful to Christ while under Nazi rule in Germany, said that the church is “a place in the world where the reign of Jesus Christ over the whole world is to be demonstrated and proclaimed.”

1. It is a hands-on, living demonstration of the Lordship of Jesus, enacting the truths of scripture, and inviting people to taste and see that the Lord is good. (SLIDE 13a)

2. It is ultimately a formational discipleship…renewing us, changing us at a deeper level as the Spirit of God works in us through the integration of everyday life into the life of faith.

6. ILLUST — I’m working with a scholar named Kevin Vanhoozer to put this kind of vision into practice. He says in a book he wrote called Faith Speaking Understanding that effective disciple-making in today’s world requires that we (SLIDE 13b) “stage parables of the kingdom in particular places.”

1. In other words, we need to re-capture people’s imagination and tap into the deeper longing for something eternal by not only telling them the truth of Christ and his kingdom, but by helping people feel the weightiness of the truth about Christ and his kingdom. It is a matter of taking doctrine and embedding it in everyday life.

2. We are trying this through our kids garden project, through other pilot projects, through offering training classes in discipleship, and through the practical steps of developing our 10 acre property and making plans for a facility where we can “stage parables of the kingdom” so that the truths of God come alive and people’s hearts are opened to the gospel.

7. This is my heart for this: (cast vision: when someone comes to our property).

8. We want people to know deeply God’s beauty, truth, and goodness.

9. We will see these things lived out through a hands-on, interactive, integrated, purposeful demonstration of a foretaste of the Kingdom, so that Christ might be glorified in all things and so that those who don’t know Jesus would be able to taste and see that the Lord is good.

10. And then we will take this to our households, to our workplaces, to our friends and family. As a church we can be a training center to walk in faithfulness, then take those lessons and that model of Disciple-by-Doing to every sphere of life in which God has placed us as his ambassador. (SLIDE 14, blank)

11. I’ll conclude with saying it this way: May we write the word “eternity” in a thousand places and in a thousand ways, calling people to reckon with the deep longing in their hearts for Christ and his kingdom, pointing them to the cross, and inviting them to full surrender to the only Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.