Touré Roberts - The Non Conformist

Who I wanted to turn to is Romans chapter 12. We’re going to look at the first couple of verses. It’s not an unfamiliar passage of Scripture, and I came to this passage because, as I was really praying about what the word is for this community in this season. I know someone’s like, «Woo! God is here! He’s here! He’s here! He’s here! He’s here!» We can just bask in it, right? Let’s continue to bask in it. So, what kind of motivated this passage—I wasn’t praying like, «God, what is the word? What’s the word for the season?» What I was sensing, what I was believing, is for us to not conform, to not conform. Of course, that passage popped up in my mind: do not conform. The idea was to not be caught up. I don’t trust the things that may be leading culture. You ain’t ready! Maybe it’s because I’m a little suspicious, but I can’t entrust my destiny. I can’t entrust my paradigm. I can’t entrust my view of life into the hands of that which is here one day and gone the next. I can’t entrust my thoughts to that which is so unstable and so motivated by love for God’s people. I said, «God, there’s a word about being independent, ” and this idea that I qualified as a second by this notion of the non-conformist. Maybe I’ll write about it, but being a non-conformist—this scripture breaks it down. The writer says, „I beseech you.“ That word „beseech“ literally means to call near. So it’s almost like he’s saying, „Come here, let me tell you something.“ I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. Let me tell you what that means real quick: he’s saying, „I beseech you—obviously, come here. Let me tell you something really, really important. By the mercies of God, by the grace of God, as long as I’m praying for you, I’m calling you near by God’s mercy that I need you to do this. I need you to present your bodies a living sacrifice.“ Now, this is not so much about your body as it is about you becoming a lay-down lover of God and one who will set your priorities; one who will humble himself or herself before the Lord and really live. And it says a living sacrifice, meaning that you’re going to live a lifestyle of perpetually getting on your knees and honoring Him and living life. Watch this: one thing I’ve learned—the higher up you get, the more committed you have to be to lowering yourself. Now, I don’t mean lowering yourself by thinking less of yourself because that is ignorant and ungodly, but I mean lowering yourself, understanding that there’s something higher than you. You know, I love my Jewish brothers because they wear this thing on their head called a kippah, right? The kippah literally is a reminder that God is higher than they; they put it on the highest point of their head, meaning that God is even bigger than my intellect. That’s so cool! You ought to get a kippah—whatever it takes to keep you low, right? And again, this lowliness that I’m talking about is not self-degradation; it is not that at all. It’s saying, „I know I’m all that, and because I know I’m all that, I need to keep myself under control, and I need to keep myself under the one who’s higher than me.“ Are you hearing me? One of the things I’ve learned is that when you lower yourself, when you humble yourself, He lifts you up. That’s the word: humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, and in due time, He will lift you up. He says He resists the proud, but He gives more grace to the humble. So, this is about worship as a lifestyle—a living sacrifice. I worship you as a lifestyle. I don’t just go and do what I want to do; I take a moment, and I take a knee, and I say, „God, are you cool with this? Hello, somebody?“ As a lifestyle—not just for the big things, but for everyday life. I love the Lord’s Prayer, the model prayer of Jesus: „Pray like this: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.“ Right? „Lead me not into temptation, ” in other words, „lead me by Your Spirit, ” and then He gets to a few other things, and He says, „For Yours is the kingdom and the glory and the power forever and ever and ever. Amen.“ And so, you might be thinking, „I can’t be all into God; what about me?“ But you don’t realize that God is into you. So being into God is being into you because God is for you, and His plans have to do with you. Hello, somebody! So you’re not cheating yourself by prioritizing God; you’re actually prioritizing yourself when you prioritize God. So this, you know, you can make it about your body, but it’s really not about your body; it’s about your sacrifice. It’s about your worship, and this is a precursor to this idea of not conforming. So it says, „I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God.“