Romans 12: 1b
Christian Non-Conformity

I. NOTICE, WHAT IS THE THING WHICH WE ARE NOT TO BE CONFORMED TO. 

1. It is usually translated as "this present world."  And by that thought, it picks up on the idea that the world is often used in the New Testament in a pejorative sense.  But here, as in many of the places in the New Testament it is translated, the actual words used in the Greek are "this present age." 

And that phrase "this present age," is exactly synonymous with the pejorative use of "world" in the New Testament.  In this sense it refers to the realm of fallen creation and all of its ways and views about things. 

"Do not be conformed unto this present age!" 

I am not convinced that the view about sanctification which tells Christians that they can achieve a "Spirit filledness," where "doing what comes naturally" is righteousness and the prompting of the Holy Spirit.  It seems to me that this verse here before us is one of hundreds of texts in the New Testament against such a teaching.  If you do not exercise discipline, you are apt to more or less slip into conformity with "this present age." 

Probably, all of us here who are Christians, are non-conformists in some respects and conformists in others.  God grant that we would see our conformity and move toward a greater and more true non-conformity (in the right things that really count in the sight of God). 

II. NOW, IF THIS IS SO, IT BEHOOVES US TO CONSIDER, WHAT IS NONCONFORMITY?

1. Non-conformity is what is incumbent upon every Christian who claims the Lord as his Savior.  It is basic to our self image, as Christians.  In this sense, we are like fish out of water in the world where we live: -- water being the present age.  And looking at it through another metaphor, we are called to go against the flow, and to swim against the current; to go upstream when all those who represent the present age are comfortably floating down stream. 

J.B. Phillips, in his paraphrase of the New Testament translates this verse as: "Do not let the world press you into its' mold."  In one line, that is what Christian non-conformity is. 

Let's stop right here and have every one of us list (in our minds) three significant ways in which we are not, on that average, like our peers.  Can you think of them? -- 1, 2, 3?  Have you got them?  That is certainly one of the good byproducts of living in a post-Christian age, where your peers are markedly different from how a Christian ought to behave.  But don't let that give you too much of a lift, so as to make you comfortable.  Let us go on and discover more and more appropriate non-conformity.  "Be not conformed unto this present world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." 

2. Notice too, that this non-conformity is a part of what it means in v.1, where it says to "present your bodies a living sacrifice."  This sweeps away all the romantic notions that one might have that would turn "sacrificing ourselves" into some ethereal notion not, in the least tied to something even remotely practical.  It sees this sort of sacrifice as a God pleasing act of devotion. 

Do you live a life that is given to God as "a living sacrifice?"  Then you are a non-conformist and, hopefully, you are becoming more of one as the days and years go by.

Do you want to give yourself as "a living sacrifice to God?"  Well, one of the ways that you may do it is to "be not conformed unto this present world." 

3. Now don't confuse this with cultural, matrimonial, interpersonal, or social non-conformity.  Often Christians have unwittingly done so.  There are sects of Christians who wear 200 year old styles of clothing and think that they are not conforming, by doing so.  The Amish in PA. and OH. think that non-conformity is not having rubber tires on their buggies; or that non-conformity is placing a telephone booth at the edge of their property, instead of in their house, and the like.  That is certainly a kind of non-conformity but not the non-conformity as Paul meant it. 

In fact, I would urge you as educated, thinking people, to sniff at the latest fads that come along and absolutely refuse to jump on every social bandwagon that comes down the pike.  Be your own person!  Scorn mod vacations, cute furniture, stupid, impractical clothing styles -- but none of these things is an issue of morality as much as an issue of good character and uncommon, common sense.  How often, the American people, for example, are swayed en mass by trivial -- and often -- disastrously incorrect -- political ideas.  Be your own person!  And be a non-conformist in the name of the Lord! 

4. Now, non-conformity to the present age covers several areas.  I have time only to list them and not to say much about them.  On the one hand, it is surely moral.  We are to set different moral standards for ourselves than the present age sets.  It is tragic that as we see our prevailing society begin to increasingly reject Christian morality, we see this affecting Christians also.  In this it is evident that aa hight portion of the Christian community is now following, rather than leading' as it one did in the early stages of Western civilization. 

But the Christian must hold the line on Biblical morality: "Don't let the world press you into it mold," is the word.  And never before, for more than a hundred years, is the teaching so important as it is now!  There are some of you who are here at the university in your first year or second year, and the world is determined to force you into its mold. Resist!  "Don't let the world press you into its mold!"  The meaning of life is another thing.  It is a hundred things to a hundred different persons on the street, but for us it is to "glorify God and to enjoy him forever."  Is your view about life really any different than those unsaved people with whom you rub shoulders every day?  How would you say that it is different?  Hopefully, by God's grace it will improve.  Pray to that end! 

Relationship of time to eternity. 

God has put eternity in the Christian mind and he continually goes back to the fact that this is the main agenda for him and not the present life.  Heaven and the resurrectio of the dead is not just a good thing to be thinking about as one is in great danger or when death threatens him due to great age or serious sickness. 

The present life is far less than like an hour compared to a thousand years.  Would anyone who believed that -- given the choice between the investing the whole of his efforts into one hour of a thousand years -- would such a one be credited with any sense at all if he chose the hour and not the hours upon hours without end, that go to make up a thousand years? 

So too, we are presently engaged for a brief moment that is a preparation -- not for a thousand years, but for an uncountable eternity of blessedness. 

Then too, is our value system. 

To be non-conforming is to have a different value system.  And we must "not let the world press us into its mold."  Residents of this present age are like window shoppers a the mall who are looking at the goodies in the window, only a prankster has gotten into the window after hours and moved all the price tags around so that the cheap things are priced as things of great value and the valuable things are priced as being dirt cheap. 

5. Here is one other thing that strikes me on the matter of non-conformity.  And it is, it seems to me, most important.  But it is not merely another area in which we are to be non-conformist.  Instead, it qualifies the concept of non-conformity and our expectations of one another. 

Many of the areas I have spoken about this morning are gray areas, where Christians disagree as to what is inappropriate conformity and what is appropriate conformity.  Paul said something about another issue -- meat sacrificed to idols -- and said that "one man eats vegetables (he is so scrupulous) and the other eats meat to the glory of God."  So too, it is with non-conformity.  We see things differently and need to give each other a certain amount of freedom to expand our own ideas of non-conformity by the grace of God. 

We should adopt a stance of self examination, rather than of mutual examination in these things.  Be just the opposite of the Pharisees of yesterday (and today) and be 10 times as hard on yourself as you are on the other person in the matter of nonconformity and you will have the right balance about the right thing to do.  (The Pharisees were hard on themselves but were ten times as hard on everybody else.) 

I do not presume to tell you what kinds of cars to drive or what kind of a house to live in or how much of your life should be taken up with vacations and entertainment and about what possessions you may amass, or how much of your life is taken up with idle entertainment.  But I think you and I should look at these things for ourselves and for those who are under our parenthood.  And we should do so with the mentality of not letting the world press us into its mold.  And even more so, that we make room in our lives for things that specifically glorify God and enhance our Christian life and our sojourn here as Children of God in a foreign land. 

Let us at least be harder on us than we are on our fellow Christians in these sorts of things.  Let us be not conformed unto this present age and do what is that good and acceptable will of God, that really counts for God and his kingdom.  Let us not be conformed unto this present age but transformed by the renewing of our minds.  Let us give a little slack to our fellow adult Christian, and to prayer over our children, that they will grow up in homes that are sterling examples of the way people live who are godly children of Abraham.  Let us "be no conformed unto this present age, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds that we may (evidence) what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.