Just to recap, our spiritual recalibration is a lot like a normal, physical recalibration when it comes to resetting precision instruments like in the manufacturing field. If these precision products are not made to absolute standards, chaos ensues–something life-threatening, like a car, for example, that does not have certain calibrations just right, could be dangerous.
And as OC mentioned a couple of weeks ago, there are times in his electronic engineering field when things need to be recalibrated all the time, or else it’s a mess.
For us personally, we have spiritual calibrations that have to be set to a certain standard, and if we don’t reset it from time to time, it could be dangerous for us as well. So we have to constantly check our calibrations, and when it’s off, we have to change our hearts and minds back to God’s set standard. And so in our first sermon, we talked about what that standard is. It is God’s unchanging Word, which is God’s unchanging Truth.
The second sermon was about how, where, and why we get off track of that standard.
And so today, I know I’m going to repeat myself a lot from the past two sermons, but we are going to focus on the importance of and how to get back to that standard.
So if you have your Bibles, we’re going to look at three sets of scripture today, the same two passages that we looked at before and almost the same passage we looked at last week. What do I mean by that? Last week we looked at Romans 11, and we’ll do that again today, but with a different set of verses. So if you have a bookmark, you can turn with me first to Psalm 19:7-13, and then we’ll go straight to Romans and read Romans 11:22-24, and after that, we’ll go to Romans 12:1-2.
As you’re turning there, you’ll remember last week, I gave the illustration of being guided by maps or a GPS and yet we can get off course even when we have a map or GPS; and you’ll remember that I used an episode of Home Improvement as an illustration. I found a couple more examples of maps that go along with that. Both of these are from Steven Mills.
He said:
In the Kingdom of Ice is journalist Hampton Sides’ compelling account of the failed nineteenth-century polar expedition of the USS Jeannette, captained by Lieutenant George De Long. It serves as a cautionary tale about the hazards of misorientation—not because of a faulty compass but because of a mistaken map. De Long’s entire expedition rested on a picture of the (unknown) North Pole laid out in the (ultimately deluded) maps of Dr. August Heinrich Petermann. Petermann’s maps suggested a “thermometric gateway” through the ice that opened onto a vast “polar sea” on the top of the world—a fair-weather passage beyond all the ice. De Long’s entire expedition was staked on these maps. But it turned out he was heading to a world that didn’t exist. As perilous ice quickly surrounded the ship, Sides recounts, the team had to “shed its organizing ideas, in all their unfounded romance, and to replace them with a reckoning of the way the Arctic truly is.” Our culture often sells us faulty, fantastical maps of “the good life” that paint alluring pictures that draw us toward them. All too often we stake the expedition of our lives on them, setting sail toward them with every sheet hoisted. And we do so without thinking about it because these maps work on our imagination, not our intellect. It’s not until we’re shipwrecked that we realize we trusted faulty maps.
So we have to be careful not to use faulty maps. You’ll see how that goes along with Romans 12.
Also, remember when I gave the Home Improvement illustration where Tim looked at the map and said, “We’re only a couple of inches off?” Here’s something else Steven Mills said:
When I was flying in Kenya we would recalibrate the compass in the GPS of our aircraft once per month. Every airport has what is called the compass rose which has markings for north, south, east, and west. To calibrate the compass, you would maneuver the plane along the line for north and adjust your compass for north and do the same thing for south, east and west. This process would be repeated a couple of times for greater accuracy. The compass needed to be recalibrated regularly because the stress of flying and hard landings, of which I had my share, can jar the compass causing the reading to be slightly off. If the compass is off one half of one degree you will be off course 45 feet for every mile you fly. Between Kuwait and Dubai you would miss the airport by 4 miles and on a flight from Kuwait to Washington DC you would be off about 56 miles.
So it doesn’t take much for us to get off course, in the natural sense and in the spiritual sense. We think we have the right map, but it’s the wrong one. Or, we have the right map but we think we’re only off by a little bit so it’s no big deal–we’re in the right vicinity, but instead, we’re way off course, and we get further off the further we travel. And the same goes for our spiritual journey as well.
So let’s take a look at our scripture verse this morning. As I said, we’re going to read Psalm 19:7-13 first and then we’ll go straight to Romans 11.
It says:
7 The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.
8 The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes.
9 The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. The decrees of the Lord are firm,
and all of them are righteous.
10 They are more precious than gold, than pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb.
11 By them your servant is warned; in keeping them there is great reward.
12 But who can discern their own errors? Forgive my hidden faults.
13 Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then I will be blameless, innocent of great transgression.
So once again, here we get The Standard, the base, the foundation. It is The Word of God. And again, it’s not in any legalistic way. David is saying this out of experience. This is the Truth. This is his testimony as if he were in court on a witness stand. This is not his truth, your truth, or my truth, but the truth.
So let’s go straight to Romans 11: 22-24.
22 Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off. 23 And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. 24 After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!
You’ll notice that I talk a lot about grafting and what it means to be grafted and pruned in God and by God.
Let’s turn to the next chapter, and we’ll quickly read just the first two verses.
It reads: Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
So again, those verses talk about not only what true worship means–it’s not just singing and praising God and having a religious experience or “a transcendent moment,” as Ben Shapiro recently called it. But it’s offering up ourselves as a living sacrifice, turning from our sin and repenting. And that is also the true essence of recalibrating. Not conforming to the calibration of this world but to the conformity or standard of God.
You can see how that goes with the first illustration. Not only do we need to pay attention to the map, we need to have the right map to follow.
Going back to Romans 11 again, verse 22 says, “Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off.”
One of the examples I used a couple of weeks ago about being off calibration is how many Christians consider the kindness of God but not the sternness of God. There’s a popular belief now that God doesn’t send people to Hell. Why? Because of the kindness of God. Because Jesus’ sacrifice was once for all, there are those who believe all means all whether they repent or not.
But that’s not what the Bible tells us. The Bible tells us that we have to repent. We have to examine where we are in the present and take count of that in light of God’s mercy and his judgment.
Last week I read ten verses down from this: “For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.” Again, it sounds to some like he is going to have mercy on everyone, no matter what, but that’s not the case. His mercy extends to everyone who is condemned or bound in handcuffs if we so choose.
Again, verse 22 says that God will invoke his sternness to those who fell but kindness to those that continue in his kindness or grace. Otherwise, we, too, can be cut off and face his sternness or judgment.
David Guzik said, “Paul stresses the need to continue in His goodness; not in the sense of a salvation by works, but continuing in God’s grace and goodness to us – a relationship of continual abiding.”
Scottish Theologian John Murray said: “The conditional clause in this verse if you continue in His goodness, is a reminder that there is no security in the bond of the gospel apart from perseverance. There is no such thing as continuance in the favor of God in spite of apostasy [abandoning, rejecting a belief]; God’s saving embrace and endurance are correlative [in correlation].”
So, we can be cut off from God’s branch. We can be cut away from Him, and it’s not God’s fault, it’s ours. You could even say that we cut ourselves off from God’s branch.
Verse 23 says, “And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.”
This is God’s wonderful, amazing grace. God is the God of second, third, fourth 10th, a million chances, so long as we have breath.
As I was looking at a commentary on this, it had the Greek word for “able” at the end of verse 23, where it says, “God is able to graft them in.” What is striking about this Greek word is not that God can graft them in again or that he promises to graft them in again. It’s not so much about his wonderful grace but that the word ‘able’ is translated from dunatos, which means to “have power by virtue of inherent ability and resources.” It sounds kind of strange. I mean, what about God’s grace? And not only that, but it sounds kind of tame, but it means two things: first, that God is the only one who has this kind of power, and second, this type of power is something that we often take for granted. The word dunatos comes from the same root word that we get ‘dynamic’ and ‘dynamite’ from. And there are actually 210 uses of this word in the New Testament (the root word) and Vine’s Dictionary defines dunamai as:
“to be able, to have power,” whether by virtue of one’s own ability and resource… or through a state of mind, or through favorable circumstances… or by permission of law or custom… or simply “to be able, powerful.”
Why would Paul use this type of word for ‘able?’ I mean, wouldn’t he just use ‘able?’ Wouldn’t he just use ‘can’ or ‘promise?’
Precept Austin said: Paul’s argument is that if the hard thing, the thing contrary to nature, i.e. the grafting of wild branches into the cultivated olive, has been accomplished, one should not find it difficult to believe that God will restore the broken-off branches (Israel) of the cultivated olive to their former position. Since in tree culture this would be impossible because of the deadness of the branches after they were removed, Paul is indeed talking “contrary to nature.”
I hadn’t thought about it, but if you have a dead branch, it’s dead. You can try to graft it in, but it won’t survive.
So how does that translate in our personal lives? Have you ever thought that you’ve gone too far? Have you ever thought that you could never be grafted back into God’s vine? Maybe you thought you’d gone too far? You’re dead. You’re going to be one of the branches that Jesus talks about in John 15, where he says,
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.”
No, by God’s great mercy, He has the dynamic power to graft us back in and make us healthy and alive. But as I said, we have to partner with God to keep ourselves alive, and that’s what the point of this sermon is. That was the point of what Jesus said in John 15. It’s not enough to just be grafted back in, we have to remain in Him, and that’s what it means to recalibrate to God’s standard, to be active in what we read in Romans 12 after being grafted back in.
Romans 12: once again says: Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Going back to the Greek again, when translators translate, I’m sure you know that they do their best to stay true to the original meaning but make it so that we can read it and understand it in not only our own language but also our own style of language.
If you were to analyze this literally, it would be much more commanding. It would say something more like: And [you are] to stop conforming yourselves to this age, but [are] to continue being transformed by the renewal of your mind, in order for you to be proving what [is] the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Paul is being very direct, isn’t he? You can just see him pointing his finger with this stern look on his face.
“You are to stop conforming yourselves to this age.”
How are we to conform back to the standard?
Step one: stop conforming to this age. Understand and recognize that we have a bad habit and a natural tendency to do so. Understand and recognize, “Oops, I slipped.” Or, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” Or if you’re Britney Spears, “Oops, I did it again.” Or if you’re Ronald Reagan, “Well, Nancy, I did it again.”
Those references were for the old and really old.
Here are a couple of other translations:
- Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold. (Phillips )
- And do not fashion yourselves after this world (EMTV)
- Stop being molded by the external and fleeting fashions of this age
It’s a command. It’s a command from Paul and it’s a command from God. And we should see it as being a bit harsher (in a good way), more disciplinary, and more strict than the way it reads in most of our translations.
Even the King James has it rather soft.
But Paul has his finger pointed straight at us and says, “And [you are] to stop.” Or if you want to get really literal, he just says, “And stop conforming yourselves.”
There is a very distinct separation that God wants. We are to stop, check the map, see where we’re off, put on the signal and turn around right here, right now and get back on the right route.
So we’re on route, but now what? Going back to the directness of Paul, he says that we “[are] to continue being transformed by the renewal of your mind.”
We are not to be like Tim Taylor and say, “I got it, I’m good. I know the way now,” because we’ll only get back off track again.
And there’s the temptation to do that.
But God says, “No.” He never says we are to stop looking at the map and checking our directions from time to time. We are to recalibrate ourselves in the same way that airplane pilots constantly recalibrated the airplane every so often.
That’s why we go to church. That’s why we have Bible studies. That’s why we have Christian radio and Christian television, and Christian books.
We should be constantly recalibrating back to the standard of God.
Going back to Precept Austin again, it says
God continually charges us in both the Old and New Testaments to not conform to the ways of this lost and hell-bent world…
- Ex 23:2 “You shall not follow a multitude in doing evil, nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after a multitude in order to pervert justice;”
- Deut 18:9 “When you enter the land which the LORD your God gives you, you shall not learn to imitate the detestable things of those nations.”
- John 15:19 “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”
It gives a few more verses and then it goes on to say: The eyes of the LORD are searching to and fro throughout the earth (2Chr 16:9) for men and women who will not be conformed but rather transformed by the Holy Spirit into the image of Jesus Christ. Beloved, there is no “middle ground”, no neutral territory – if you are a follower of Christ, you are either a conformer or a transformer! Your life is being changed either by pressure from without (conformation) or by power from within (transformation). As we yield in Romans 12:1 and meditate on His Word, God’s Spirit transforms us into “living sacrifices” with “renewed minds”, God saturated people who radiate His glory. May God be pleased to raise up a generation of transformers, not conformers, men and women whose lives are controlled by a Divine Power from within, not worldly pressure from without. Amen.
And as I close, I’ll read you one more quote from them. This is a little cautionary about going about this the wrong way. It says:
Beware of the subtle trap of seeking to avoid all manner of worldly behaviors and influences and yet failing to be [truly] transformed by the Spirit, for this is simply another form of legalism. To keep out the weeds of the world, seek continually to yield to and walk by the Spirit who produces the fruit that effectively strangles the weeds.
And lastly, to remind us all once again what Paul said to the Galatian church–I said this in another sermon just recently:
16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law [legalism]
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on First Baptist Church of Watkins Glen
Featured Image by Eirik Skarstein on Unsplash
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