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Now a Living Sacrifice • Jun 01st 1969

Be Transformed Part 1: Consecration, Renewal, and the Perfect Will of God

Fellowship Organic Church The Epistles

What does it truly mean to be transformed by the renewing of your mind?

In this foundational message, Gene Edwards brings together Romans 12 and 2 Corinthians 3 to reveal the biblical pathway of transformation: consecration, renewal, and corporate building.

The Christian life does not stop at salvation. Romans unfolds a progression:

  • Lost in sin (Romans 1–3)
  • Redeemed by grace (Romans 4–5)
  • Struggling in the flesh (Romans 6)
  • Defeated in the soul (Romans 7)
  • Living by the Spirit (Romans 8)

Then comes Romans 12.

“I beseech you…present your bodies a living sacrifice.”

Transformation begins with consecration.

Before renewal can happen, the believer must offer himself wholly to the Lord — not merely for what God will do for him, but for what God will do in him.

Then comes the command:
“Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Transformation is not self-improvement.
It is not moral refinement.
It is not religious discipline.

It is the Spirit transforming us as we behold Christ.

2 Corinthians 3:18 tells us we are transformed from glory to glory as we behold the Lord. The believer is like a mirror — reflecting Christ as he turns toward Him. But this transformation requires two things:

  1. Beholding Christ
  2. The consuming of the outward man

As Paul explains in 2 Corinthians 4, the outward man perishes so that the inward man may be renewed day by day. God uses circumstances, trials, and inward dealings to “whittle away” what is not Christ.

The result?

Christ formed in us.
Christ expressed through us.
Christ glorified.

But Romans 12 does not stop at individual transformation.

The perfect will of God is revealed in verse 5:

“So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.”

The goal of consecration and transformation is not private spirituality — it is the church.

This message explains:

  • The difference between formed, conformed, and transformed
  • Why consecration precedes transformation
  • What “be not conformed to this world” truly means
  • Why transformation cannot happen without offering your body
  • How God’s eternal purpose is corporate, not individual

If you desire the perfect will of God, this teaching will challenge you to move beyond seeking personal guidance and instead enter into God’s building work among His people.

Be transformed — not for self-improvement — but for the building of the Body of Christ.

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Would you begin by reading it to us real loudly and clearly? This is 2 Corinthians 3:18:

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, by the Spirit of the Lord.

Alright, now then, if you have a pen, take that verse to Scripture; there are two changes that should be made in it. 2 Corinthians 3:18, the word “beholding in a mirror”, the word “in” is not there, and if you mark it out, you come up with a very unusual-looking verse. The other word is the word “changed” in 2 Corinthians 3:18, it is exactly, identically, the same word used in Romans 12:2, which says, “and be not conformed to this world but be ye transformed”, so change the word from “changed” to “transformed” and then you end up with a verse that says –

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, by the Spirit of the Lord.

Alright, who had the next verse? Galatians 4:19 – My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you…

…until Christ be formed in you. Brother Paul was speaking to a church that had gone through a great deal of trouble…it was churches…the churches in the Galatian area, and he has spent a great deal of time there with them, but some brothers…we assume they were brothers from the church in Jerusalem…came up there and began to tell them they needed to be baptized, they had to do things a certain way, and gave them a lot of terms and things and they began to adopt them, and Paul said, ‘I travail as a mother until Christ is formed in you.’

Okay, the next one, Romans 8:29 – For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Alright, that he was the firstborn of many brethren…to be conformed to the image of the Son. Conformed to the image of his Son. So we’ve got transformed, formed, conformed, and each one of them has a little bit of a different aspect.

Was there another verse? Alright, Philippians 3:10 – that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death…

Alright, we’re going to come back to all of these verses a little bit later. Let me share with you now Romans 12:1-2, which you’re so familiar with.

I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

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