Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
— Romans 12:2, ESV

One of my favorite fictional characters is Jason Bourne, created by author Robert Ludlum and featured in a number of popular movies starring Matt Damon.  These include The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum.  I hear more sequels are to follow, including Bourne with a Silver Spoon, Bourne to be Wild, and the long awaited Christian version, Bourne Again.  

In the actual novels and movies, Jason Bourne is a government assassin, part of an elite team of  hitmen.  They are recruited as young soldiers for a program known as Treadstone.  It is basically brainwashing, a rewiring of the young men’s minds with a program to make them kill on demand.  Bourne executed several orders before flinching, when a child being held in the next victim’s arms quickened his conscience.  It is at this time that Bourne breaks loose from Treadstone’s grip, prompting yet another potential sequel, Bourne Free.  

Our lives are not as dramatic as Jason Bourne’s, but we are all playing the same dangerous game.  Our old enemies, the world and the flesh and the devil, are out to control our minds.  God grants grace to be set free when control is yielded to the Almighty.  Proof of who is in control lies in the way we choose to live our lives.  

The world wants to control your mind.

The stark warning that starts this Scripture says, “Do not be conformed to this world.”  The Greek word for “conformed” begat our English word, schematic, which describes how something (or someone) is circuited or wired.  “World” is not the common New Testament word cosmos, but rather aion, best translated as age or era.  

Just like Treadstone wired Jason Bourne’s mind to carry out killings, so this present world, or the spirit of the age, wants to control our minds and contaminate our thinking so as to kill our witness, kill off authentic worship, and kill the mindset required to live a God-centered life and lead other people to Christ.  If “this world” can control our minds, get us to “be conformed,” our witness will be neutralized, our worship will be worldly and ineffective, and lost people will remain lost.  

Hence this practical warning to professing Christians.  Just what are the warning signs?  How do we know if our minds have been tapped and we are becoming “conformed to this world?”  

“This world” aims for happiness, God requires holiness.  It is wonderful when the two can coincide, but often they do not.  A choice is required.  The mind must be controlled, either by the spirit of the age, or the Spirit of God.  If you should find yourself excusing sin or otherwise thinking and acting contrary to the word of God, you are being “conformed to this world.”  

“This world” aims straight for the heart, God starts with the mind.  After all, the priority of controlling attitudes that lead to actions is what this particular verse is all about.  Paul would advise us to take Jeremiah’s advice (ref. Jeremiah 17:9) and don’t follow your heart!  If you should find yourself doing what feels good, over and above doing what is right in God’s sight, you are being “conformed to this world.”  

“This world” aims for instant gratification, God shoots for eternity.  Whenever I examine the sins I have committed in my life, almost all of them were born out of impatience.  I wanted the imperfect now, rather than waiting in faith on the perfect to come.  I wanted something to enrich my life now, rather than considering the impact on the kingdom of God or the eternal worth of a soul.  If you should find yourself unwilling to wait, without the peace of God, particularly in issues of money, sex, or power, you are being “conformed to this world.”  

Remember, this is a warning for Christians (ref. Romans 12:1, for “brothers” and sisters in Christ).  “This world,” with its associates, the flesh and the devil, already owns all the unbelievers, and they are going down with the ship.  God’s people must rise above, rescuing others along the way.  Failure, like King David’s, is consequential.  Success, like Jesus in the wilderness, yields fields white unto harvest.  The secret to spiritual success is as simple as this single verse of Scripture.  

God wants to transform your mind.

The exploits of Jason Bourne are fictional.  The experience of being born again (ref. John 3:3, 3:7; 1 Peter 1:3, 1:23) is actual, and eternal.  Only those who have a born again identity can be children of God, and only the children of God can overcome this present world and be effective in the world for the world to come (ref. 1 John 5:4).  

According to our verse, living a serious, joyful, and faithful Christian life is based on three things: transformation, regeneration, and meditation.  When one is truly “transformed” by the “renewal” of spiritual regeneration, then God can control the meditations of their “mind.”  Godly thoughts translate into godly attitudes, and godly attitudes result in godly actions.

“Transformed” is the verbal form of the noun metamorphosis, and it means to be completely and continually changed.  It is more than the caterpillar becoming the butterfly.  It is the lost sinner becoming a saved Christian who is constantly changing to be more like Christ.  

The change is empowered by “renewal” (a word used only here an in Titus 3:5), that genuinely born again experience that Christians keep on experiencing.  The old is made new, and the new improves.  Justification always results in sanctification and only the sanctified can expect to be glorified.  True salvation can always stand up to “testing” and is always able to “discern … the will of God.”  

This born again mentality begins in “your mind” and is soon transferred through the heart and to the will.  The change of mind (repentance) results in a new heart (faith) that surrenders the will to God (obedience).  Thus the Christian life, the born again identity and mentality, requires two things that lost people do not want: thinking and change.

What do you want?

I learned two great theological lessons from the late comedian Jerry Clower.  One is, “If you can’t thank God for it, don’t do it.”  The other, related to today’s text, is “You can become a Christian and still do anything you want to, but God will change your want to’s.”  These are not perfect maxims, but they are pretty accurate.

What do you want?  This is a simple but penetrating question that calls for “testing” and “discern[ment].”  Do you want your way and your will all or most of the time, in order to be happy, feel good, and get instant gratification?  Or, do you truly desire “the will of God, that which is good and acceptable and perfect?”

To live the life which proves to be right with God, you have to submit to those two dreaded things, thinking and changing.  You must use your brain and you must embrace the born again identity.  You must surrender to the life of transformation, reformation, meditation in order to discover and do God’s will.  

In conclusion, take a few cues from Jason Bourne.  Break free.  Seek the truth.  Live a better life.  

Break free.  Bourne broke free when he realized what he was doing was wrong and turned away.  The spiritual word for this is repentance.  In scripture terms it is repentance as well, conjoined with faith, in the perfect person and finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.  This will give you the born again identity.

Seek the truth.  After Bourne’s change he diligently sought the truth.  He had to go against the system.  He had to get the facts, embrace them, accept them.  So the born again identity will lead you on a lifelong search for truth, and the answers you seek are found in God’s word, the Bible.  “Your word is truth,” prayed the Lord Jesus Christ to the Father for His followers (ref. John 17:17).  

Live a better life.  I did not say live an easy life.  Bourne’s was anything but easy.  It was costly, difficult, a long swim upstream.  So it is for those with the born again identity.  You give your life to the Lord.  You bear the cross and follow Jesus.  You swim against the sinful currents of culture.  But the born again life is the only life to live, and the only life that will last for all eternity.

You know what the world wants.  You know what God wants.  So, what do you want?