Renewing the Christian Mind

Renewing the Christian Mind

A sermon by Pastor Todd D. Baucum

Preached Sunday, May 19, 2013

Romans 12:1-2 (ESV) 

    “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind..” 

1.      The Encouraging Appeal.

Chapter 12 is  set apart from the previous section, where Paul has affirmed our justification by Christ’s death and resurrection, and his righteousness applied to our deficit.    It is established that our standing before God is based on God’s prior electing grace and mercy on undeserving sinners.   He has expounded at length of the mystery of the Gospel -that sinners who deserve wrath and judgment are recipients of the manifold riches of God’s grace.   

Now he takes this to the practical application of this truth.    Truth is in order to goodness.   Theory comes before application.   Thinking comes before action.  

Notice however, how Paul makes his appeal for the Christians at Rome to live a sacrificial life of radical obedience to Christ.    He says, in the Greek – (l iterally),  “I am along with you calling you to live in light of this extravagant Mercy of God”.   He is not pontificating from his seat of authority and saying “you ingrates shape up or ship out”.    He counts himself as one whom taking the call of obedience along side of fellow believers.  Paul is always the humble Apostle, understanding that he is the chief of sinners.    What is the appeal?    The allusion is to the OT sacrificial system.   Now Christ has fulfilled the law, there is no need for any further sacrifice.   Our obedience is not filling up anything that is lacking in our account.   That is not the purpose of obedience.  We don’t need to win favor with God, if Christ is our savior.    The reason for obedience is gratitude.   Thomas Watson, the Puritan divine said,  “Gratitude is the rent we owe to God.”    God redeems us fully, gloriously rescues us from bondage to sin.   Our response is therefore to show mercy, show love and that love is revealed by a desire to please, - in a word, to obey him.

John 14:15 (ESV)  "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 

In the Old Testament, the worshipper would bring in an animal, a goat or a ox, for example.  It was unblemished, the best of the pick.  It was costly, and the animal would be sacrificed and its life taken.   The picture was to show the high price of perfection – of obedience – which we can never rise to – so something has to pay the price.    In Christ, we have a perfect, unblemished Lamb of God – who paid the price for our imperfect obedience.  Yet, Paul is saying under God’s grace – in the new covenant – we have a spiritual altar that requires a sacrifice of love and gratitude.   We give our whole selves, our bodies and our souls – with a dedication of living  and daily obedience.    There is no altar in our church.   We miss out on the biblical sense of daily obedience when we resort to outward religious activity and ceremony.    Biblical worship is about daily obedience.    It is about living daily in the awesome realization of what God has done for you.    Any other kind of worship is a mockery and religious show.    Worship has to connect to life.    

“…offer yourselves as a living sacrifice…which is your spiritual (logical) worship.”

2.      Our Rational Response to Mercy.

Spiritual worship is Rational Worship, in that it begins with thinking and reasoning rightly about God.   The word Paul uses is “logical”.   Because of God’s mercy the logical response is one of worship, which is literally giving ourselves wholeheartedly, body and soul to Christ on a daily basis.    It is logical because it requires us to think upon the mercy and goodness of God.  Christianity is a rational faith.  It may at time require a trust that goes beyond sensory explanation, but it never, ever requires what some call blind faith – or just irrational leap.   The Danish philosopher Kierkegaard and the early Church Father, Tertullian both said “faith is believing what is absurd”.  

It is true that the world thinks the message of the Gospel -  of our redemption by the folly of the Cross of Christ – as just plain absurdity.    The Greeks in Athens – at the Areopagus, thought Paul was smoking something strange – and could not hold to the reality of a resurrection.     They were all about trying to transcend this bodily earthy life.   Christ is all about trying to put reality into this life.    Paul’s main emphasis in the rest of Romans is chiefly about – how the Gospel transforms all of life.   In the rest of this chapter it is about the transformation of our relationships at church.   In Chapter 13 about our relationships with the civil government.   It will continue to be fleshed out, how the transformed life of a redeemed person – changes the way they think and from there it changes everything.   

My first church experience was an environment that was very ant-intellectual -  many would highlight that the first disciples were uneducated.  That intellectual questions and pursuits were a waste of time.  All one needed was faith and obedience to God’s Word.  

I would then read passages like,  Isaiah 1:18 (ESV) 

    "Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:

    though your sins are like scarlet,

        they shall be as white as snow;

    though they are red like crimson,

        they shall become like wool.

And all through the book of Acts, Paul reasoned out the message of the Gospel in his outreach to both Jews and Greeks.  

Of course, Paul was exceptional – but then most of the NT was written by him. 

3.      The Renewing of our Minds.

Whether one is influenced by the anti-intellectual elements of fundamentalism or the average Christian experience in the church – which is the influence of the world’s thinking – both lead to minds that are not renewed by the Holy Spirit applying God’s eternal truth to your thinking.

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind..” 

Our minds need to be reformatted, like the software in a computer - our old ways of thinking were dominated by sin and therefore are distorted.    This renewal of the mind is life – long.   It does not happen overnight. It is also related to transformed living in direct proportion to the time we spend in having our minds renewed by biblical truth.  

Consider the new evidence – by US census – growing number of NONES -  no religious affiliation.      Belief – or non belief – is reflected in our current moral laxity.  Fifty years ago, only 3 percent of the population would check no religious affiliation, in the recent census the number has jumped to 20 percent who have no religious affiliation of any kind.      

The more trash we take into our minds, from what we read, study, or by entertainment – the more trash will come from our decisions and actions.   Jesus said,  “as a man thinks, so is he”.   Corruption of life comes from the heart – mind. 

We need a transformed way of living that takes Christian truth and displays it before a world that is increasingly becoming illogical, mean, and ugly.   The Christian world view offers the only true esthetics, standard of beauty that brings truth and meaning to the world.  We live in a world, that promotes pornography and a counterfeit beauty -  half-truths wrapped in academic respectability as knowledge.  

Philip. 4:8 (ESV) 

    Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. 

How can one know what the Good is – what God’s will is , without any way of discerning it in a world of competing claims of truth?   What has influenced your mind – just by doing the simple math of what you take into your mind?   Do not our lives bear the result?     Remember, how Paul began.   I beseech you brothers and sisters – I come along side you – with the same need.    By God’s grace and help let us have our minds renewed and our lives transformed as we think – mediate and reflect on the mercy of God – who did what was beyond logic to save sinners like me. 

On Alister McGrath's "Heresy"

I've been reading McGrath's book - Heresy: A History of Defending the Truth, which contains a forward by Rick Warren -not a big selling point to me, but the book is still a benefit for those concerned about doctrinal standards.   To my readers, it is important to note that there are two basic types of heresies.  One is a heresy of a secondary level, that is to say, it does not touch upon a core identity of Christian doctrine. (I will see Wesleyans in heaven, even though I think their view of sanctification to be semi-Pelagian).  However, there is another kind, which is first level heresy, or we may say "damnable heresy", in the sense it falls outside acceptable boundaries and undercuts Christian belief.     With this nuance, I will share some good quotes by McGrath, which by the way, is a top notch Anglican scholar and apologist.  

"The essential feature of heresy is that it is not unbelief in the strict sense of the term, but a form of that faith that is held ultimately to be subversive or destructive, and thus indirectly leads to such unbelief.  Unbelief is the outcome, but not the form, of heresy." pg. 33. 

"[Heresy] smuggles rival accounts of reality into the household of faith.  It is a Trojan horse, a means of establishing (whether by accident or design) an alternative belief system within its host.  Heresy appears to be Christian, yet it is actually an enemy of faith that sows the seed of faith's destruction."  pg. 34


More than once, I have heard a reference to doctrinal purists as being "heresy sniffers", as if they are blood hounds out to track down any and all heretics to purify the church.  Perhaps that is a danger, but little is said in our current tolerable age to point out the dangers of heterodoxy.  Orthodoxy, rightly understood, is a place to live and enjoy the truth of God's grace as a distinct community with clear boundaries.  Once this is tossed out as irrelevant, then unbelief breeds like mold in a damp swamp.  

Focus of the Day

Scripture Verse: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.” (Philippians 4:8).

 "Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind." C.S. Lewis

The Hermeneutic of the Gospel

I am suggesting that the only answer, the only hermeneutic of the gospel, is a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it. I am, of course, not denying the importance of the many activities by which we seek to challenge public life with the gospel– evangelistic campaigns, distribution of Bibles and Christian literature, conferences, and even books such as this one. But I am saying that these are all secondary, and that they have power to accomplish their purpose only as they are rooted in and lead back to a believing community.”

Lesslie Newbegin "The Gospel in a Pluralistic Culture" 

This is a key component to an effective witness in our culture today.   We need the church living in an authentic manner so the world can look and see where the Gospel is making a transforming difference in the lives of those who confess its truthfulness.    One of my favorite sections of this book.  

On Becoming A Church Critic

The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis

“Surely you know that if a man can’t be cured of churchgoing, the next best thing is to send him all over the neighborhood looking for the church that ‘suits’ him until he becomes a taster or connoisseur of churches…The search for a ‘suitable’ church makes the man a critic where the Enemy wants him to be a pupil.  What He wants of the layman in church is an attitude which may, indeed, be critical in the sense of rejecting what is false or unhelpful, but which is wholly uncritical in the sense that it does not appraise-does not waste time in thinking about what it rejects, but lays itself open in uncommenting, humble receptivity to any nourishment that is going.  (You see how groveling, how unspiritual, how irredeemably vulgar He is!)  This attitude, especially during sermons, creates the condition (most hostile to our whole policy) in which platitudes can become really audible to a human soul.  There is hardly any sermon, or any book, which may not be dangerous to us if it is received in this temper.  So pray bestir yourself and send this fool the round of the neighboring churches as soon as possible.”   (chapter 16)

Popologetics: Popular Culture in Christian Perspective (P&R, 2012)

Ted Turnau

A book review by Todd D. Baucum

It was with eager delight that I read on the back cover endorsements by men who were noted commentators and cultural critics engaged in “discerning the signs of the times” with the truth of the Christian message.  This book is rightly touted a primer on doing apologetics in the context of popular media and is not a work of popular apologetics designed at the entry level.   That is not to say this book should not be read by all Christians interested in how our music, art, films and new technology are conveying alternate worldviews, but the reader should be armed with a background in the history of debates concerning Christian engagement in culture (and current ones too).   Ted Turnau, a teaching fellow at the International Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto, and a professor at Charles University in Prague, is coming at this debate with a decisive angle of full engagement and immersion in a host of various subcultures of our Western society.  

There is much about this book that is commendable and interesting.   One mark of a good book is the engagement of thought on various ideas, and Turnau takes the reader through careful reflection at the intersection of sociology, philosophy, and theology.   Years of teaching and dialogue on these issues come clearly through on each page.   The footnotes show careful scholarship and interaction with whom he disagrees.   It is evident that Turnau takes a much more positive attitude towards pop culture than most writers, giving his critique on many Reformed thinkers on cultural apologetics.

First, consider his ambitious agenda which is covered in three main parts in the book.   The first four chapters lay out the groundwork of a “theology of Popular culture”, where he defines key concepts such as “popular culture” and “world-view”, which the reader will find immensely helpful in knowing from what platform the author argues.   For Turnau, popular culture, “made up of cultural works whose media, genres, or venues tend to be widespread and widely received in our everyday world,” is the main conveyer of worldviews today.  Drawing in some part from James Sire’s seminal understanding of worldview, Turnau looks at what makes up a worldview from the roots of presuppositions, the trunk of a world-story and the branches of a life philosophy that gives fruit to beliefs and behaviors.    I thought this tree analogy very creative and instructive.  The teacher in Turnau is keen on keeping his readers on track as he progresses with his arguments.   So, while I found the metaphor a good one, the distinctions between presuppositions, culture and meta-narratives I thought to be at times unguarded.  

Culture is neither in itself good or bad, it is neutral, but as a feature of the byproduct of fallen creatures it is bound up in sin.  All culture this side of Eden, is to be judged by the true standard of God’s word and is found wanting.   The ability not just to see the lens of culture, but to turn it inward is extremely important.  Turnau want us to engage in the cultural conveyers of our postmodern world with understanding, but the temptation would be to lose sight that all culture needs the correction of the Gospel.    It is true that because of a Christian view of creation, art and culture making are part of the Christian calling in life.  The Dutch Reformers were especially good at laying hold on this particular truth, even to the more recent work of H.R. Rookmaaker, whose essays on art and Christianity laid down a robust Reformed theology of aesthetics that has yet to be improved.   One wonders why Turnau did not engage more with this work.  Turnau is also not as strong in the implication of sin in all its nature upon our world and culture.   On page 60, he seems to put more weight on the effects of sin in our human relationships and in the culture, rather than our relationship with God.   The consequences of this ontological shattering of the image of God, are indeed social and psychological, but they are primarily spiritual in scope.  For purposes of apologetics, a world-view lens is a way to make sense of where people are: it is diagnostic and descriptive.    Understanding a person’s worldview or a song, or a film is not simply however for our classification, so as to label things as “existentialist or nihilist”, but to help those lost in the darkness of manipulation to see the light of God’s truth in Jesus Christ.   Much of popular media and arts are aimed not at illumination but at manipulation.  

Over and over, Turnau seeks to hold on the value of propositional truth with the need to see truth as more complex, reflecting the exuberant contours of the human heart.   This is an admirable goal, but the reader is left at times with the impression that the new hermeneutics of narrative thinkers, like Paul Ricoeur, quoted six times in footnotes by Turnau would imply more than just a corrective balance to Enlightenment rationalism.   One wonders where this would lead, if not rooted in the objective reality of God’s truth.

In the second section, Turnau offers what he considers a better and more positive posture towards popular culture and critiques what seems to be the mainstream disdain among Reformed thinkers regarding pop culture.   Putting the likes of Ken Myers, Neil Postman and Doug Wilson together, he critiques their elitist approach to pop culture.  Myers and Wilson write along similar topics, such as the recovery of the good, the beautiful and the true in a declining Western culture.   Wilson writes to reclaim a “catholic” comprehensive view of the arts in a Christian culture, but one could argue he seems more Anabaptist in approach.   Myers sees much in pop culture that reveals its loss of beauty and truth rather than as a bridge to engage in the culture, a lament of our times, if you will.  Turnau makes the case that these negative approaches to pop culture tend towards elitism or “moralistic criticism” (borrowed from social critic Romanowski).   The arguments were engaging and thought provoking, but not persuasive.   High culture, if to use his phrase was always meant to be aimed at the masses, especially after the Renaissance and the Reformation.   Mozart wrote music for the common people to enjoy.  Handel, Bach and Beethoven were composers for the people to both enjoy the gift of music and to express praise to God.  They brought music out from the court (among the aristocracy) and into the concert halls and the churches to be enjoyed by workers, merchants and all fellow citizens of God’s kingdom.   Turnau would do well to remember Rookmacher’s caution to keep a “prophetic pessimism” towards culture for indeed culture making slips ever so easily into idol making.   Solomon’s temple was built with the help of pagan craftsmen, but the builders of the temple were clear about where culture influences stopped and obedience to God’s word began.   This is not to say that this book shows the pitfalls of both total engagement and the temptation to retreat to higher ground.   He just sees more danger of those who are on the cultural retreat side of things.  One keeps, or should keep, remembering that the great classical works, and books of Dostoevsky and the music of Handel were “popular” both in appeal and in consumption, but the culture in which such works prospered no longer holds sway on us in the West anymore.    

In Part Three, Turnau outlines a constructive strategy for engaging pop culture for Christians.    Most Christians today find themselves in a new world called Twitterverse, and a growing venue of cultural expressions.   There are very few wise guides out there to help believers navigate this new territory.  The value of this book is that it begins that engagement with some thought provoking challenges.   This is the important note that is sounded in the author’s appeal for answering the call for believers to take the Gospel into this fast paced realm of our society.  Let’s just do it with Gospel discernment.    

God’s Weekly Gift

In the Old Testament, violating the Sabbath day was a capital offense.  Evidently, God took honoring His day very seriously.  Aren’t we glad to be under grace and to know that Law has been satisfied by the offering of Christ’s righteousness for us sinners?  I know I am.  But, we also recognize that the “Big Ten” still apply to us.  The Ten Commandments reflect God’s unchanging moral character and still shape the heart and intention of those under grace in the new covenant.   It means God still takes his “Day” seriously.  The reason is because the people he bought at a price have been given a great gift.  The Lord’s Day is a gift and a welcome respite in a crazy world and the insane schedule many of us are oppressed by.   Missing it and neglecting it is in effect killing us.  Consider the following quote from a retired Presbyterian missionary in his book,  The Day God Made (in our library).

“No nation has been permanently blessed and prospered that has disregarded the Fourth Commandment.  In 1944 Prof. John Murray of Westminster Seminary preached a sermon, later judged one of the best preached that year, entitled ‘God and the War’.  His text was: ‘When thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness’ (Isa. 26:9b[KJV]).  Murray said that, evil as the Hitler regime was, the war was also a judgment on the Allied powers, America included.  He cited some of the sins for which America was being judged, among them the neglect of the Sabbath Day.  Then the preacher made the amazing statement, ‘One well-kept Sabbath would end this war.’ 

What can one person, one family, one church do? We can begin with the law of love and spare the Sabbath or the Lord’s Day for other people so that they may have the freedom to enjoy this gift of God.  If they do not make use of the Day as God intended, that is upon their own consciences, but if you or I take from them the precious privilege of meditating upon God and resting in His good providence on that Day, we shall answer for that to Him who is the Lord of the Sabbath.”    (The Day God Made, by Glen Knecht, pg. 57-58).

Our motivation now for worship under Christ’s gracious rule, is both love and gratitude.  It is these two pulses of the heart that drive us from the worldly propensity to feel that we know best in how to tend to our restless and spent spirits.   Love for God, who has given us redemption and yearns to give us more grace is the drive to want to worship Him.  Gratitude for the mercy and forgiveness that is never deserved drives us to embark on the happy labor of attending a structured design of gathered individuals into a single voice of praise in the glorious concert of biblical worship.   This once a week discipline, that regulates our hearts in a world of time wasting chaos, is the chief and paramount event that sets us apart as a redeemed community, of which outside of it, as our confession states, “is no ordinary possibility of salvation” (WC,Ch. 25:2).  No pious “I’ve got Jesus in my heart” religion that doesn’t square with the regular living and confessing the faith of Jesus in public worship is optional.   In the now 30 % of the American population that are regular church goers, our participation in the Lord’s day, as design of creation and a gift of redemption is indeed a counter cultural protest in our destruction bent world.   And you thought, I imagine, that going to church was just for traditional middle-class humdrums, which one could take or leave.  Think again.  Nothing like worship will cure the heart, give witness to the world and bring stability to your living.  I don’t know if honoring the Lord’s Day will bring an end to the war in Afghanistan, but it will bring an end to the war in your heart and grant peace in our life.   Why refuse the gift?   In heaven’s name, why?