The Transformed Mind of and the Central Challenge of Our Time

Well, good morning. Thank you.

Thank you so much. I am just thrilled to be here in Raleigh-Durham and especially thrilled to be here at the Summit Church. I've heard so much about this church for so long. I love your pastor and have known him as a dear friend. I'm just so thankful for what the Lord's doing in this church and in you.

What a great privilege it has been this weekend for me to get to spend the time with you here. I want to invite you to turn in Scripture to the book of Romans in chapter 12. You know, there's a great blessing in being able to preach to the same people, the same church, week by week. You begin a conversation that you never end. You just come in and you preach the text. The Word of God breaks forth. And then you come back the next time and do it again. And it's as if every time the pastor of a church ends a sermon, he says, amen till next time.

And then we pick right up and move on. It's a different kind of challenge to arrive as a speaker. The preaching of the Word is the same responsibility, but the context is a bit different. And so I'm coming in knowing that lots of people before me have taught so faithfully and well, and after me will come your pastor and others who will teach you so well. And I'm interrupting a conversation today. So why would I do that? Well, I was invited to.

That's a good reason. And I was thrilled to be here for the Gospel at Work Conference and to be a part of that as well. And I'm especially honored to have the opportunity to preach this morning.

But I think every once in a while we need to interrupt a conversation when we know we've got a problem. And we've got a problem in the church right now, and I think I'm going to put it this way. We have too many Christians who are roadkill in the worldview highway.

Too many Christians who don't know how to think as Christians and don't actually take the responsibility to think about how to think as Christians. And we're going to see what God would have us to think about that when we look to Romans chapter 12 verses one and two. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

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. One of the things we often as Christians do when we read a Scripture is we read a Scripture and we say that makes perfect sense to us. And what we really ought to think is this only makes sense to us.

This doesn't make sense to other people. This only makes sense to us. And it only makes sense to us because we are the blood-bought church of the Lord Jesus Christ. We don't belong to ourselves, we belong to Christ. This makes sense because we know the Bible is the Word of God. This makes sense because we know that we don't think as the world thinks, but rather as God would have us to think. We as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ know that our responsibility is to be disciples of the mind in order that we will be disciples in life. Now this is one of those passages that should just leap out at us and say this doesn't make any sense except under very certain particular conditions. What doesn't make sense?

Well, there's a verb compound, a word compound we should say, rather a verbal compound in here that just doesn't make sense. Paul writes and he says, I appeal to you therefore brothers by the mercies of God to present your bodies as what? As a living sacrifice. Now if that makes sense to you, you need to take a pause for a moment and remember what sacrifice was all about in the Old Testament. It was not about a sacrifice in which the animal left living. It was not a living sacrifice. It was a sacrifice of death.

Let's remind ourselves of what that was doing in the Old Testament. The sacrificial system was there to show two things, as Scripture makes clear. First of all, the costliness of sin. I mean the deadly cost of sin, the reality of sin is made abundantly clear by the sacrificial system.

Where does sin lead? The penalty of sin is death. But there was a second aspect and that was God's provision for our atonement. And we recognize that no one was saved by the sacrifice of an animal.

Not one person was saved. Not one sinner was redeemed by the sacrifice of an animal. But by the sacrifice of the animal, by its shed blood, God's wrath was held back for a time until that time was full. And in the fullness of time, God sent His Son, born of a virgin, even Jesus Christ our Lord, to live a sinless life and to die on Calvary's cross, to die as our substitute in our place, to die in our place, paying the full penalty of our sin and achieving the full satisfaction of the wrath of God. The wrath of God towards sinners who are in Christ is no longer held back on a delay.

It is satisfied in full. And that was the last sacrifice of death. Sacrifice of no animal bought our salvation, but the sacrifice of Christ paid in full.

You know the song. Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain.

He washed it white as snow. We sing that song because we rejoice in the gospel. And that and that alone makes this compound make sense, living sacrifice.

It makes sense only if one is a purchased, redeemed sinner who now belongs to Christ, such that even though there is now no sacrifice of death, there's still a sacrifice because our discipleship is now pictured as being dead in a sense and alive in another. We are dead to ourselves. We are dead to our own self-sovereignty. We're dead to our pathetic effort at self-determination. We are dead to trying to be our own Lord and Master. We are dead in trying to be our own lawgiver and our own judge.

We are dead to trying to be our own facilitator and resourcer. We're dead to all of that because it died at the cross. But we live. We live as unto Christ, the one who said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, the one who gave unto us eternal life and now owns our life, is Lord of our life, is the sovereign of our life, is the light of our life. He now is our life to the extent that we are a living sacrifice to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ is to be one who is to all intents and purposes dead and yet alive.

And who would trade that? But it sounds weird. Living sacrifice would make no sense if you walked up to someone from the Old Testament and said, hey, Elijah, I'm a living sacrifice.

He would say, you're a nut. Why? Because it takes the cross for that to make sense. But that's the whole point, isn't it? The cross makes the world's wisdom look unwise, sheer foolishness, and makes the gospel and the gospel alone look wise. For God has taken the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, Paul writes to the Corinthians. That's what's going on here, because there is nothing more disruptive to the world than a living sacrifice showing up.

There is nothing that brings more frustration to the world than having a disciple of the Lord Jesus show up as a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, thinking like a Christian, acting like a Christian, worshiping like a Christian, dating like a Christian, you know, in job like a Christian, parenting like a Christian, loving like a Christian, driving like a Christian. There is nothing that more confuses the world than having someone sit down and say, oh, by the way, I'm dead. Don't worry.

I'm alive. It shows up. But you'll notice here it makes sense only under these conditions.

What are those conditions? Well, let's look back, because Paul actually gives us the context. Look back at Romans chapter 11, the last few verses, beginning in verse 33, oh, the depth of the riches and the knowledge, the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past, finding out, it says here, His inscrutable ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord?

Who has been His counselor? Or who has given a gift to Him that He might be repaid? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever.

Amen. I'm not particularly musically talented. I love music. I love listening to music.

I'm a bit dated. I like a lot of contemporary music. I love singing, as we got to sing this morning, but I like a lot of really old music, too. I like people whose names are Handel and Bach and things like that.

There aren't many of us left, but we still love those guys. If I had been one of those guys, I think I would have wanted, I just wonder, why was this verse not put to music? I mean, I love the Hallelujah chorus. I resound it. But why not this?

Look at this. Look at Romans chapter 11, verse 36. For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen. Okay, I want a big choir for that.

Orchestration, pipe organ, you know, angels descending. Just listen to that verse. It's the most comprehensive verse you can imagine in the Bible, for from Him and to Him and through Him and to Him are all things. And it begins, this doxology that begins in verse 33, begins with a testimony to the knowledge of God, His omniscience. Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out. And then He asks a question asking in the Old Testament, for who has known the mind of the Lord?

Who has been His counselor? In other words, God's a source of all knowledge. God's a source of all wisdom. All of our attempts at human wisdom are just pitiable.

They're pathetic. He's all wise. But He's not only all wise, He's all powerful.

It was first given to Him that it might be repaid. And this omnipotence is made so clear in this thunderous passage, for from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever.

Amen. He is the only explanation for the existence of anything. It is His creative power that holds all things together, even now. And His lordship, His sovereignty will be made clear in that in the end of the day, it is all going to be as He decrees. From Him, through Him, to Him, all things. To Him be glory forever.

Amen. In other words, our knowledge that our identity in Christ is to be a living sacrifice, a living sacrifice makes sense when we know that God is the all-knowing and all-powerful one. He is the Lord of all. He is the Lord of us.

He's the Lord of every atom and molecule of the universe. But that's not all because as the Apostle Paul makes this great transition in the book of Romans, and that's what's happening here. In the book of Romans, he's been arguing about the gospel.

He's been teaching the gospel, laying the gospel out in Holy Spirit-inspired clarity and perfection. And he begins as he writes to the Romans, writing, I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God to salvation to all who believe, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile in Romans chapter 1 verse 16. And then in the very next verse, he gets to the fact that the just shall live by his faith. So justification by faith is the great theme here.

That's the great summary of the gospel that the Holy Spirit inspires Paul to write about. And we are demonstrated, we are shown, we are convinced by the power of the Word of God that what it means to believe in Christ was even shown to us in the Old Testament. In Romans chapter 4, the Apostle Paul will hold up the example of Abraham and he'll take us back to the Old Testament where it was said of Abraham, he believed and it was accounted unto him as righteousness. Abraham believed that God would provide a Messiah even before, even when Abraham never got to see it. Abraham died never having seen it, but he still believed. And in Romans, we are given that example.

In Hebrews, he comes up again in Hebrews chapter 11 and we are told that he believed in God and he left Ur of the Chaldees in order to follow because he believed, because he was seeking a city that has foundations whose maker and builder is God. And then in Romans chapter 3, we're told that the gospel, that picture of the gospel whereby God provides His Son, He demands a sacrifice and He provides the sacrifice. That's an amazing truth of the gospel. God in His holiness, in His justice, in His righteousness demands a sacrifice for sin and then He turns around and provides what He demands. Therefore, Paul writes He is both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

That ought to get you excited. And then he follows through explaining all these great aspects and dimensions of the gospel we need to know and then he's turning to a practical application in chapter 12. The remainder of the book of Romans is going to be the practical application of the gospel he's been explaining and explicating and the transition comes right here and the transition comes in the form of this doxology. And then comes that verse we know as Romans chapter 12 verse 1 and there's an important word there that jumps out at us, I appeal to you therefore. In other words, it points back to everything that's been said in order to say what follows makes sense because it follows. On the basis of who God is, on the basis of what God has done for us and you'll notice He says, by the mercies of God.

What does that mean? It means in light of the fact that we are a blood-bought people. In light of the fact that we who deserve no mercy have found full mercy and forgiveness of sins and the gift of eternal life in Christ. In light of the mercies of God, it simply follows that we be living sacrifices. Such a key insight because it clarifies instantly our status as a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're the people, if we are truly following Christ, who have surrendered our self-sovereignty. We're the people who have forfeited our self-determination.

We have resigned from being our own therapist, our own judge, our own lawgiver, our own policeman, our own self-esteem encourager. We've resigned all of that because we don't belong to ourselves, we belong to Christ as if we are merely the living dead. Dead to ourselves and alive to Him.

That's incredibly powerful, but how does that work? That's how we end up in verse 2. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you might discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

It's an amazing passage. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. You know, I think it says something about us that sometimes we need the negative command before we get the positive command.

And that's a very important point of our humanity. Evidently sometimes we need the no before we get the yes. Have you ever taught a teenager to drive? There are a lot of no's before you simply don't do that before you ever get to this. You give a lot more attention to the brake than you do to the accelerator, right? And even though you want your parenting to be primarily positive, it just doesn't work out that way, right? When you see the two-year-old with the screwdriver headed for the electrical outlet, that's not a time for a lot of positive teaching about electricity.

You don't do that, right? And it's not just kids. It's all of us. When God finally gave to my wife and I a child, the promise of a child, and we had longed for years to have a child and prayed for a child and yearned for a child, and then there came that glorious day when Mary was with the child. And then we had the months of waiting for this child that we'd been waiting for for years. And so we did the things that new parents do, young new parents. We did the crib thing. We did the, you know, we did the design the nursery. I should say my wife did that. I did the go with her to make these things happen. I had no idea as a young husband and father to be how complicated this process evidently is. I didn't know how many decisions had to be made. And we kind of stretched them out so that they were made all at the right time in the right sequence.

They had delayed gratification. Everything's going to be ready when the baby comes. The crib was a big deal. And so her job was to choose the crib. She chose with exquisite care, a crib that looked exactly the right way, a crib that had all the right safety features. I have a feeling the crib that I was put in was the crib that all my cousins had been in, which was the crib that all my aunts and uncles had been put in. I mean, it was a crib.

But no, that's not the way you do it anymore. This was a big operation. My job was to put it together. I had to exercise dominion over the crib. And so I was eager to do this. I'm going to show my first great fatherly act is now dominion over the crib. And so I put this crib together. I want you to know I did it according to the rules.

My first instinct is to do it. And then if something really horrible takes place, read the directions. But in this case, in this case, I read the directions because my baby is going to be in that crib.

So I was very careful. All the nuts were seated exactly as they should be seated. Every screw was set exactly as it should be set.

All the safety features were in place and everything worked. And I stood back and I just admired this completion, this wonderful completed project that's just the dominion exercise. There it is. And my wife goes, how are you going to get it in the nursery? I put it together in the family room.

And that turned out actually to be a problem because I then had to reverse dominion and do it all over again, having been well trained in how to do this. And it would have been very helpful if there had been as instruction number one, do not put this together in the room it's not supposed to be in. The do not sometimes is even more important than the do. Or at least it's necessary for us to understand why the do is going to be important. And here in Romans chapter 12 verse 2 the first thing we read is do not be conformed to this world.

Why do we need to know that? It's because you don't have to do anything to be conformed to the world. Being conformed to the world is just the way we are. This is such a revolutionary, remarkable standout in glaring neon kind of instruction because it tells us don't do what you've already done, what comes naturally to you.

Don't do that. And it's because all you have to do to be conformed to the world is be born and operate in the world. That's all it takes. One of the things we need to keep ever in mind as Christians, as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ is that the world around us is a cultural system. It's a civilization. It's a society. It's a cultural system that is filled with language and meaning and traditions and habits and intuitions and neighbors and little league teams and schools and education and it's filled with ideas and media and cultural content and Hollywood and all of that is there and all of that's there all the time. We are constantly breathing all the air of this culture. We are swimming in the water of this culture. We know ourselves as who we are because we are comfortable in this culture. Its language makes sense to us. Its symbols make sense to us. Its messaging, we're just like a sponge just taking it all in.

And the way it works is this. In a fallen world with every culture fallen, every culture in its own way stamps those who are in that culture with a certain way of thinking, even with a certain set of emotional responses, even with a certain set of moral intuitions. The world simply transfers that as naturally as the nutrients in the mother is transferred into the womb, to the baby. It is transferred through the culture to us. You don't have to work at being acculturated. You don't have to work at being conformed to the world. That's just the default of humanity. It's Genesis 3, writ large, we are conformed to the world. It takes a remarkable act of supernatural power for any human being in a fallen world not to be conformed to the world. It takes an explanation that can only come from the God who is all-wise and all-powerful and merciful to us in Christ. You know, this is a real problem because even some of the messaging that comes to us from our culture, some of the messaging that comes to us from Hollywood and from the psychological and psychiatric and therapeutic community and comes to us through our neighbors and Oprah and everybody else, is the human beings are basically good. And we should be surprised when human beings do something that is wrong. When the Bible tells us we are fallen humanity, we sin in our mind before we sin in the body.

And the only reason we don't sin more is because of the restraining power of the grace of God in us individually and in our society. Let me ask you who are parents. You have a child. Did you ever have to sit that child down and teach that child how to disobey?

You know, has a father ever had to sit his son down and say, listen, I am tired of this halfway disobedience. I don't want any more of this disobedience with a smile. I want the chin jutting out. I want the fist in my face.

I want the full thing because I'm not raising a halfway rebel. You didn't have to do that. That's what is called a two-year-old.

You didn't have to teach him how to do that. You woke up, and there he was in the crib. And you say, that kid's a sinner. Well, that kid was a sinner from the moment he was conceived. And we were all that two-year-old, and by the grace of God, we are all that two-year-old. But Paul comes along, inspired by the Holy Spirit, writes, do not be conformed to this world.

That's the default position. That's simply what's going to happen. But be transformed by the renewal of your mind. What it says here is that what's required of us is to think differently than the world thinks. And let's think about that for a moment. I think most Christians know we're supposed to think differently than the world thinks. But here's how I think most Christians think about that. I think most Christians think they were supposed to not think like the world thinks on certain selected hot-button issues, right? There's some big issues out there.

And when those issues are debated, we think, okay, I can't think that way because I'm a Christian, because God has revealed the truth in God's Word. This says this. I believe this. That's different than what the world says. I can't go with what the world says there. But then we don't think about all the rest of the stuff the world has pressed into our thinking and into our moral intuitions and into the picture we have in our mind and into the impressions we walk around with. And so all of a sudden we have a list of things we disagree with the world about while thinking we agree on everything else.

Here's the bottom line. We don't agree with the world on anything. Now, it's not to say we don't have overlapping areas of agreement. It's just that we don't even agree for the same reasons.

We don't look at things the same way. We certainly agree that two plus two equals four, but we actually don't even think of that in exactly the same way, or we shouldn't. We should be thankful that the world, the fallen world knows two plus two equals four, but all they know is two plus two equals four. We know two plus two equals four because God is the Creator of the universe, has created order in the universe in which He has created a stability and an order and a structure in the universe such that there is a mathematical wonder to the creation He did, not just because there would be some kind of mathematical puzzle that could puzzle human beings as to why it's there, but rather it has to show His glory in the regularity of the universe.

Two plus two equals four, not because it's some naturalistic accident that two plus two seems to always equal four, but because God says my character is revealed in the fact that two plus two equals four. Now, when you begin thinking that way, you all of a sudden realize that where we agree with the world, we don't agree with the world the way the world even thinks we agree with them. And that's okay so long as we remember that we don't agree with the world for the same reasons that the world thinks we agree with them. And then when we disagree with the world, we don't disagree with the world because we think we're morally and intellectually superior because guess why? We're not. This is not Mensa.

All right? We did not enter into the kingdom by an IQ test. And the Apostle Paul, again, writing to the Corinthians is very clear about that the world is filled with very, very, very smart people. And they're doing what very, very, very smart people do. They're very, very intelligently rationalizing their sin, which is what we do and what we did, but for the grace and mercy of Christ in our lives.

Now, there's something else. In Romans chapter 1, Paul tells us that what the world is doing and by the way, this is not the world out there. This is what all of us in fallen humanity are in this conspiracy to do is to suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness. It's in Romans chapter 1. And so, in other words, even though there are things the world knows, it tells itself it doesn't know it. It denies what is put right there before them.

Paul writes, again, in Romans chapter 1, for even God's invisible attributes are clearly seen being revealed in the things that were made, but we won't see them. When we look at all that and you realize, well, if we're not to be conformed to the world, but we're to be renewed, we're to be transformed by the renewing of the mind, then there's an urgency in our responsibility to think as Christians. There is a dramatic, urgent emergency in the Christian church today because a failure to think like a Christian means, as the Bible makes abundantly clear, a failure to live like a Christian. And what's being demanded of us, as the Apostle Paul makes clear, is a discipleship and being a living sacrifice that shows up in the mind even before it shows up in the life because if it's not there in the mind, it won't be there in the life. You just think of all the issues that are out there that we have to deal with and you realize that if we only decide we're supposed to think as Christians when all of a sudden we get in one of those break glass in case of emergency moments, then we're in big trouble. One of the main responsibilities of the Christian church is to preach the Word of God such that the Word of God sinks into the minds of believers such that the Word of God, with the accompanying Holy Spirit, does that work in us, which only God can do, to transform our thinking, to rearrange the furniture of our mind, to shift our thinking such that even our intuitions and our impulses change. The world holds up a picture and says your emotional response to this picture is to be endless.

And only the Word of God can make the Christian look at that picture and see something other than what the world tells us we're supposed to see. A few years ago, actually just a couple years ago, I was writing a book on leadership. It was published just about a year ago with the title, The Conviction to Lead. And quite frankly, the world's got plenty of books on leadership, and I didn't intend to write another one. But I was encouraged by so many friends to write it, and I got frustrated looking at the books out there on leadership. And sometimes that's why you write books because you get mad at everybody else who wrote one before you.

And I'm exaggerating that. There's something to be learned from all those books. But I thought there was something huge missing.

It's just missing. And that is, as a student of leadership, when I would look out at the world, I would say even in the secular world, there's a distinction between leadership for the sake of leadership and leadership that is driven by conviction. I mean, that's true even in the political world. Just to be blunt, there are people who wanted to be president of the United States, and there are men who wanted to change the world, and the way to do it was to become president of the United States.

Those are two different things. I mean, there's a big difference between politicians of convention and politicians of conviction. You look back to the, say, the 1980s and the world in both the United States and Great Britain and elsewhere was transformed by leadership of conviction that came out of nowhere. And you look at the church and you realize, well, even in the secular world, people can tell the difference between leadership of office, leadership of function on the one hand, and leadership of conviction. Then what about the church?

Look with me to Hebrews chapter 11. Why did I title this book The Conviction to Lead? It's because what is revealed in Hebrews chapter 11, now faith, verse 1, is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Convictions are beliefs. Every conviction is a belief, but not all beliefs are convictions. Beliefs are things we believe to be true. We hold beliefs, and we have an entire catalog of beliefs, and as we grow and as we learn, we change our beliefs. We grow in our beliefs. We mature in our beliefs. We even add to our beliefs. But beliefs are things that we hold to. Convictions are things that hold us. They are beliefs that are so basic, we don't know who we are without these things being absolutely true. And the gospel becomes a web of conviction that is so basic to us, we don't know how to breathe without the gospel.

We don't know how to operate. We don't know how to do anything without the gospel. The gospel becomes so basic to us. It's not a belief, it's a conviction. And there in the book of Hebrews, the Holy Spirit inspired that writer to say, that's what faith looks like. The faith that saves is a faith that doesn't reside merely in beliefs, but in convictions.

They are the essence of things unseen, the assurance of things hoped for. Well, the Christian life, as it turns out, is either going to be based in convictions or the Christian isn't going to show up as a conviction, as a convictional Christian. A Christian actually isn't even going to show up as a Christian. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Just think of the issues that are out there. You just take, well, just consider the times we're living in. Human beings throughout history have experienced worldview shifts, changes in thinking, moral changes and shifts, but you're not exaggerating when you think that our times are unique. As a matter of fact, even secular analysts of such things will point out that we have never as humanity lived in a time of such rapid change as we are now. Moral change, moral revolutions generally took centuries to take place, and now we are experiencing one of the most incredible, one of the most broad in effect, one of the most comprehensive moral revolutions human beings have ever experienced, and it is happening in the space of less than a generation. Just to give an example, twenty years ago not one nation on earth had legal same-sex marriage, not one. And now it's the new moral mandate.

It's the world's wisdom turned on its head, and the world evidently can do that. But it requires that Christians refuse to be conformed to the world and with courage say, as a living sacrifice, I can't think that way. I can't just set up morality as a human social construct that can be changed at will. And furthermore, I resign from thinking that I know what's best for humanity because I don't.

But I trust that the Creator, Redeemer does. Now there's a lot involved in this, and of course it's not just the issue of the sexual revolution taking place around us. It's not just the issue of same-sex marriage. If we all of a sudden decide to show up as Christians on the issue of same-sex marriage, then we're going to be shown as the people that all of a sudden show up on the issue of same-sex marriage.

That's not going to work. We've got to be Christian in how we think about everything every day. We've got to be Christians from Genesis to Revelation. We've got to be Christians from breakfast to going to bed at night. We've got to be Christians in how we think in school, in business, in politics, in economics, in culture, in entertainment, in sports. We've got to be Christian.

Oh, I guess that's timely, isn't it? We've got to be Christians in how we think about all these things because we can't, as a living sacrifice, decide I'm going to be a living sacrifice when it comes to sexual morality, not when it comes to my political life, not when it comes to paying my taxes, not when it comes to my understanding of what it means to be a parent, not when it comes to understanding what it means to be a consumer of economic goods and material goods or one who is going to enjoy the entertainment of the world. It's a comprehensive responsibility, but after all being a living sacrifice sounds like it's a pretty comprehensive status. The real issue for us is whether or not we're going to obey what is commanded here.

This isn't a suggestion. This isn't Paul's spiritual suggestion to spiritually minded people. This isn't some little pamphlet that was handed out at the church at Rome. This is the Word of God. This is for all Christians throughout all time until Jesus comes.

This is what we are supposed to look like. This is what we are to be, and we are not to be conformed to the world, but we are to be transformed by the renewing of our mind, and that's why we so desperately need to come together every single opportunity to hear the Word of God preached to us because we need it preached to us. We need it preached into us.

We need it preached such that it saturates our lives. That's why we have to be a scriptural people. That's why we need the fellowship of the saints. That's why we need to be around Christians who are fellow living sacrifices, who together are seeking not to be conformed to the world, but to be transformed by the renewing of the mind.

That's why we don't look to the world for its advice when it comes to the most basic and important issues of life. We look to each other, and we say, what would the Scripture require of us? How would the Holy Spirit lead us?

What should we do? I don't just belong to Christ. In Christ, I belong to you. We belong to each other. What are we going to do with this? I don't understand this kid. What are you going to do with her? What are you going to do with him?

Well, your first impulse should be to go to the church and say, hey, I need help. Some of you have been here before. Some of you were this before. All of us. I mean, how does this work?

Where do I go? If our first impulse is to go somewhere else, correct that right now. This is where we come together to say we're Christ's people.

We've got to figure this out. We have been given infinite resources, all that is required for us in Scripture. And when we have to go to outside authorities, we do so knowing, okay, when we hear them speak, we've got to think of what worldview they're speaking out of.

I can receive many things from them, but I can't receive it the way they're giving it to me. I've got to think it through from Christian convictions and Christian presuppositions and the authority of Scripture. By the way, not one of us is up to this.

We need each other for this. And we desperately need the infusion of God's Word so regularly because we need it to reside in us such that all the parts of our beliefs and our knowledge, they start to get tied and knitted together as only the Holy Spirit can do and which the Holy Spirit promises to do in us. A living sacrifice not conformed to the world but transformed by the renewing of the mind. There's a promise here proves or demonstrates what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. So much nonsense in the evangelical world about the will of God just horribly messed me up as a teenager. I picked up that the will of God was something you had to find. You need to find the will of God. I started looking for it everywhere. I mean, I just wanted to find it because I wanted to know, am I supposed to do this? Am I supposed to do that? Who am I supposed to marry?

What are the big decisions? I thought maybe if I found it, it would be like, you know, finding an old mason jar. If I just dig it up, open it up, there would be, this is who you're going to marry, this is what you're going to do, this is where you're going to go to college and all this.

I never found that mason jar. And then there are people that will act like it's a puzzle you have to put together like God's playing a little game with us saying, well, here's a piece, here's a piece, here's a piece, let's see if you can put this together, wise guy. It's completely missing from scripture. Scripture doesn't ever say, find the will of God. Scripture doesn't ever say figure out the will of God.

It says what? Do the will of God. You know how you do the will of God? Now.

Today. If we obey every day, then we will find ourselves proving, demonstrating the will of God. We will be led into all that God has for us, if not being conformed to the world, but being transformed by the renewing of our mind, guided by Scripture within the fellowship of the saints, we will be guided day by day, step by step, hour by hour, decision by decision, into where God wants us to be. And we're going to prove individually and corporately. We're going to demonstrate together what it means to do the will of God.

And you know what? When we do that, what does Paul say? He says the will of God is going to be demonstrated to be good and acceptable and perfect.

We wouldn't want it any other way. Just think of the prayer that preceded my message. Think of how the world would look at that picture and say, here's what you're supposed to feel.

Here's what you're supposed to think. And think of what the gospel says in response. My will is good and acceptable and perfect.

How do you know that? Because Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe. Sended left a crimson stain.

He washed it white as snow. Let's pray. Now Father, we are so thankful for all that you've given us in your Word. May it possess all of us, and may all of us be possessed of all of it. Father, we pray that your Holy Spirit right now is applying this Word to our hearts to conform us to the image of Christ.

In whose name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.