Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

The first fly said to the second fly, "Human beings are funny aren't they?" "Why do you say that," responded the second fly?" "Well," said the first, "they spend a pile of money building a beautiful ceiling, and then always walk on the floor."

From a fly's eye point of view you have to admit we make very little use of ceiling space.

Flies and people look at things from a totally different perspective.

This is true of different people as well.

We do not see any aspect of life from the same perspective as others do.

Take a football game for example.

Physically the man in the blimp over the stadium; the man on the sideline, the man up in the stands, and the man watching from television all see the game from a different perspective.

Emotionally men see the game differently depending upon which team they are for, and which one is winning.

Psychologically there are many perspectives among the spectators.

The father with a son in the game sees it differently than the brother who is forced to watch the game and miss a date just because his brother is in it.

The man with a bet on the game sees it differently than the man who had never been to a game and is trying to figure out what it is all about.

Some are saying I am so glad I am up here in the stands, and others are saying I wish I could get into the game.

This gives us an idea of how the same event can be seen from many different view points.

This should enable us to see that there is more than one perspective that can be legitimate and logical, normal and right.

You would not expect everyone in a game to feel the same about a touchdown.

You would understand perfectly when rooters for the other side did not join you in rejoicing over the touchdown of your team.

The very essence of common sense is to recognize that there is more than one perspective.

None are so blind as those who cannot see that there are others who see what they do not.

If you expect everyone to see life the same as you do, you will have more mysteries on your hands than you can handle.

You will be as mystified as the fly who can understand why people waste their ceiling space.

Durand, the Frenchman, was visiting London and he noticed names like Waterloo station, and Trafalgar square.

That is odd he thought and he said to his wife, "The English seem to have a mania for naming places after defeats."

What he was failing to realize was that though Waterloo and Trafalgar were great defeats for the French, they were great victories for the English.

His being blind to any but his own perspective made him wonder at a mystery that makes perfect sense to those with a broader perspective.

He thought the English were being strange, when the fact is, he was being strange.

When we do not recognize other perspective, we become totally self-centered, and limited in our grasp of reality.

It is like saying that because I do not like onions, it means they are no good for anybody.

This is what happens to those with a narrow perspective.

It happened to Mark Twain when he visited the studio of Whistler.

He started to touch a certain painting when Whistler cried out, "Oh don't touch that.

It isn't dry yet."

"I don't mind," said Twain, "I have my gloves on."

They were on two different channels, and Mark Twain missed Whistler's point altogether, for he say only the effect of touching the paint on his finger, while Whistler was concerned with the effect on his painting.

It is very rude not to see the perspective of another person.

The point of all this in relation to Paul's practical teaching to the Romans is that Paul is making it clear that if Christians want to know God's perfect will they have to add a new perspective to their view of life.

We must be aware of other perspectives which are representative of the world mind, and make sure our minds do not run in the same channel.

You body dedicated is essential, but not enough if your mind is still conformed to the world perspective.

It will not be able to see God's good and acceptable and perfect will because it is under the control of patterns established by the world.

In other words, it is possible to be a Christian, and still not see everything from a Christian perspective because of a mind enslaved to other perspectives.

Paul is saying that just as our bodies must be yielded to God by an act of the will, so our minds must be renewed, and our thinking must be transformed, if we are to be fully in God's will.

This is a process and not a once for all act.

It must be going on continuously if we are to be walking in the light, and always seeing from God's perspective.

The distinctively Christian mind can only be developed by the two fold process that Paul writes of here.

There is the negative process of being non-conformed to the world, and the positive process of being transformed by the renewing of our mind.

Lets look at each of them.

I. BE NOT CONFORMED.

Remember, Paul is writing to people already Christian, and he is telling them they have to stop conforming and be transformed in their minds.

This means that the work of becoming a Christian with a mind fully conformed to God's will is a process.

It is not something that happens at the new birth.

Babies are not full grown, and new born Christians are not what they are to become.

This is what growth and maturity is all about.

It is a process that goes on through life.

A traveler in London was describing his sight of a Quaker swimming in the Thames River.

When a friend asked him how he knew the man was a Quaker he replied, "Because he was swimming against the stream."

This ought to be a description of every mature Christian.

He should be one who is not being molded and directed by the flow of the world's thinking.

The Christian who only echoes the thinking of the world is like David trying to wear Saul's armor.

It is nothing but a burden that will make him bungle everything.

David had to forsake that armor, and put on the whole armor of God.

He had to be unconventional by using stones and a sling.

Saul is representative of the world and its wisdom.

David represents the believer who swims against the stream, and who launches out in a new direction leaning on God alone for victory.

The perfect will of God can never be identified with the thinking of the world.

It is not that the thinking of unsaved people is always wrong.

It is just that it is inadequate.

It falls short of what is Christian because it leaves God and His will out of the process and conclusion.

A Christian may arrive at the same conclusion, but if he is being distinctively the Christian, his reasons for arriving there will be different.

Paul says the mind must be renewed, and a Christians thinking must be transformed if he is to know the perfect will of God.

It follows then that a mind not renewed, but conformed to the world, can never see from a uniquely Christian perspective.

Christian thinking can never be identical with even the best of non-Christian wisdom.

The world mind specializes in half truths.

A half truth is the most effective kind of lie.

A tourist in Alabama saw a large sign on a gas station which said, "Mississippi state line two miles ahead-last chance for 98 cent gas."

He pulled in and filled his tank.

"By the way," he said as the attendant handed him his change, "How much is gas in Mississippi?"

He answered honestly, "It is 95 cents a gallon."

The sign did not say last chance for cheaper gas, for that would be an outright lie.

It served the same purpose, however by giving that false impression.

This is a common practice in advertising, and in politics.

The Christian is to go against this stream, even though he will be called a square for doing so.

In the book by Bergen and Evans, A Dictionary Of Contemporary American Usage we find this definition of a square.

"Square in American slang has generally meant fair, upright, honest, open, just, and so on.

The term seems to have originated from the carpenter's square-something that drew a hard and fast line, and made you go straight, had nothing crooked about it."

The word got twisted, however, first of all by convicts who used it as a description of an inmate who would not conform to the convict code.

It became popularized then to designate a goof who refused to be a complete conformist.

If, when you are in Rome you do not do as the Romans do, you are a square.

This is what the Christian is to be, a non-conformist.

He is to be one who does not fall into any ready made philosophy of the world.

He does not echo the wisdom of self-centered minds, and so he does not even conform to the non-conformist.

The Christian mind is to be in a category by itself.

It is far easier to separate from the world in practices than it is in thought.

We can abstain from worldly deeds, and still think like a worldly person thinks.

We are bombarded constantly with logic and reasoning from a purely secular perspective, and it is easy for us to fall right into the rut of the worldly mind.

We often struggle to choose between two secular views, and not even consider that there may be a third view that is truly Christian.

We need to be constantly asking ourselves how our thinking on any issue is uniquely Christian.

We need to ask, can a good pagan without Christ, and without revelation think the same as I do?

If so, what does Christianity have to say on the issue that is of any unique value?

The Christian is to be different, not just for the sake of being different, but in order to cast light on every subject from a biblical perspective.

It is not enough for a Christian to be right.