Renew Your Mind

Welcome to the Lookout Weekly Podcast.

Church of the Lookout is in Boulder, Colorado, and our vision is Jesus abiding in his presence, growing in his family, and living on his mission to transform the world with awe-inspiring love.

Visit us online at theLookout.church.

Luke's got an amazing word.

So let's welcome him in pre-service prayer.

We were getting a lot of stuff about the message this morning being really awesome for us.

So I'm excited to hear what he has to say.

Okay.

No pressure.

Good morning, everyone.

If you remember nothing else, remember that we have shower heads in the back.

What a message.

Welcome to church.

You need to take a shower.

You smell no.

No, pick up a shower head.

A lot of awesome things.

I know it's this last kind of month we've it's it's been a little um we've had a lot of different things going on, a lot of guest speakers.

I haven't been up here in in over a month.

Part of the reason we did that, uh I do that is first of all to introduce you to other voices that that I think we think are important uh for you to hear from.

And then also I've been able to use this time not only for a little vacation, but prepping for this fall.

We have a lot of stuff coming this fall, and I'm excited about it, and I hope that you are too.

And um, and so this morning before we jump in the word, I just want to acknowledge this week is a big week uh because uh our students will be going back, many students are going back to school this next week.

Um, and also uh teachers, um, if you're in the education system, uh teachers or or those that are that work in the schools or even home educators, you are gearing up to start.

Summer is over, and nobody is excited about that.

But um, we we do want to acknowledge this transition.

We want to acknowledge this transition.

So, two things.

First of all, if you are a student in the room, either going back into uh probably our elementary school kids are downstairs, uh, but if you're going to middle school, high school, college um uh this this fall, I just want you to stand up across the room.

Anyone going back to school?

All the youth probably just left the room.

It's probably Trinity Haven over here.

Braden, Brayden, Braden?

Okay, all right, we we got a few.

We're taking them, all right?

If you're around these guys, lay hands on them.

We want to bless them because our students are not just going to learn new things.

God is sowing them and their presence into their schools to be a light, to be a light that their lives would shine like stars in the universe.

So just join me.

I'm gonna pray for them.

If you're around them, lend your faith.

Let's bless these guys.

God, I thank you for our students.

I thank you for the ones going into high school, going into college.

I thank you for the the kids in the back that we're praying for.

And God, we we bless them.

We thank you, Father, that as they go back and they return to their school, they're returning to the field that you have sent them to.

It's not just a random school.

You have determined in this point of time that their presence matters in their school.

So we thank you that they would go in the confidence of the Lord, renewed in their thinking, to know that they are sons and daughters of God, and they are going in to dismantle the works of darkness.

And yes, let them be have, let them uh uh learn with bright minds and open up their eyes and open up their ears to grow in intelligence and wisdom and knowledge.

We thank you for favor this school year, God.

Would you go before them?

Would you surround them and go behind them in the name of Jesus?

We pray.

Amen.

Come on, give it up for our students today.

Our students today, and then also now I want to take a moment, pray for educators or anybody that works in the school system.

If you work with students, could you also stand, please?

Could you also stand?

Anyone, any student?

Any teachers?

Emily Lee.

Emily Lee.

Tiffany?

Where's Emily?

Is she not here?

She's straight in the back.

Oh, here we go.

Here we go, right back here.

So we got Emily, we got Tiffany, Theresa, we have Stacy over here.

Okay.

Same thing, guys.

If you're around them, just lay your hands on them.

This is this is good work too.

So, Father, we bless our teachers.

We bless those who are working in the school system.

We thank you, Father, that you have uh given them the um the heart and the capacity to be able to impart wisdom and knowledge and to create an environment that cares for students.

We thank you for the adults, Lord God, who are holding a space for students in our region.

And uh and their work matters, their work is full of value.

And uh and we bless them as their church family.

We bless your work that is holy unto the Lord, it is sacred unto God, and we thank you for favor and even stories and testimonies of conversations with co-workers and students as they uh as they engage this year and as they are faithful with their work.

So we bless them in Jesus' name as their church family.

Amen.

Amen.

Come on, give it up for our teachers.

We love you guys, we love you guys.

And uh and this morning we're gonna open up to the word.

If you have your Bibles, you can open up to Romans chapter 12.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

We're gonna start there.

And uh, you know, as as we're starting the journey into the fall, uh a little bit of what I want to share today is it's kind of a it's it hopefully you'll see it as a through line.

It's gonna be a theme that just continues through the fall.

I'm gonna share a little bit about um a few of the teaching themes that we'll we're gonna be coming into as a church body that as the elders we just believe are gonna be important for us.

Um but as you open to Romans chapter 12, I just want to pray over the word over our time here together.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

Also, I'm gonna um we're gonna hold our brothers and sisters in Maui uh together for a moment.

So, God, as as we uh share this space as a people, God, this collective of believers at the lookout, uh we thank you for your presence with us, God, and and we do take a moment to um to hold before you in your presence all of our all of the people in Maui, God, that have just witnessed incredible devastation.

The the worst, some of the worst in in Hawaii's history.

And God, I know that seems so far for me.

I have sometimes I have to fight.

I confess I have to fight to connect my heart to these levels of devastation, other parts of the world.

But God, as as ones who have seen what wildfires can do on our own region, God, uh we we we lift them up, Lord Jesus, and we just pray for the mercy of God.

We pray for the grace and the comfort, the Holy Spirit, we pray for provision, God, that the supplies would come in as they need them, Lord God, that you would support their needs and for the deep grief and loss, Lord God.

Would you reveal yourself as their healers, their comforter?

Would you strengthen the church in Maui, God, to be your hands and feet, Lord God, to rise up in this occasion.

We bless them, Jesus.

And together, God, as we open up your word, we thank you that your words are the only words that can actually transform us from the inside out.

Like we need to be transformed.

So we don't come to your scriptures today as if we're reading a newspaper or scrolling endlessly on Instagram.

We come to your word with a sense of reverence and humility.

And we confess that we need your word as we need bread.

Nourish us, Lord God, with your thoughts.

Let your scriptures come alive in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Romans chapter twelve.

Let's read this together.

Says this, therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.

This is your true and proper worship.

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing, and perfect will.

And everybody said, Amen to that.

This is the as you know, this is these are the words of Paul.

This is a letter that Paul wrote to the church in Rome.

And he had set up the entire first part of his letter in Romans, and and many call Romans the magnus opus of Paul's writings because of the way he clearly and precisely lays out the significance of the work of Jesus and what has changed and what has been satisfied in the law and the move to a new life in the Spirit, a new life of grace.

And uh and he kind of transitions at this point in time to urge, to appeal to the Romans in the way that they think, and the way that they see themselves, and and this this these two verses are jam-packed, completely jam-packed, um, with uh with the truth of the gospel.

And I believe an invitation for us here uh today.

And you know, it's been pointed out that in our world today, um, I heard somebody say this as a little more of a paraphrase that one of the the greatest threat in our world is not necessarily another people group or a nation-state, although nations are still at war, as we see in Ukraine and Russia.

But but today, unlike even a hundred years ago, today, our greatest threat is not necessarily the threat of barbarians coming over the hill and attacking us.

But our greatest threat will be the ideologies or empires of the mind or the isms of our day that captivate the thinking of people and in the end lead to destruction.

One of the greatest threats that we have are not necessarily people or people groups, it's ideologies that affect people all around the world.

Even Winston Churchill 100 years ago said this.

He said, the empires of the future will be the empires of the mind.

There's something that we as the body of Christ, I believe it's so important that we understand how we arrive to what we think about.

And more than ever, I believe our role in the body of Christ is to think about how we think.

When was the last time you thought about your thoughts?

And it's just like Josh was talking about during worship.

There's a there's actually a way of life, a way of living in the kingdom, where we don't just uh we we don't just go through the flow without thinking.

There's an invitation of life in the kingdom to check in what am I thinking about?

How is that in alignment with what God is thinking about, and how can I come into alignment with God's God's thoughts and not just whatever thoughts have shaped me at this present moment.

Are you guys with me?

So that's kind of the that's kind of the premise here.

So I just want to kind of walk through these first two verses.

We're gonna pick up about four or five phrases and we're gonna camp, all right?

And that's how we're gonna use our time this morning.

So as Paul is coming in before he he sets out some invitations, he urges his brothers and sisters, and in the NIV it says, in view of God's mercy, I want you to offer your bodies.

And so he starts off not talking to them about what he wants them to do.

He starts off inviting them into a new view of God.

Paul is calling our attention back to our vision.

And I know we say this all the time as a church, Jesus is our vision, and we're like, okay, I got that, got that, got that.

Paul, this matters a whole lot to Paul.

Nothing else quite matters until we understand that the entire Christian life is lived in view of God's mercy, that the mercy of God is our vision.

And so, just as a simplistic definition here, some of us we hear the words grace and mercy, and I know in church world we use those, we sing about those.

I think one of the easiest ways to remember what grace and mercy are grace is when God gives to us what we don't deserve.

Mercy is when God doesn't give to us what we do deserve.

Let me say that again.

Grace is when God gives to us what we don't deserve.

So favor and blessing when he bestows on us as a good father and he lavishes his life on us.

We didn't deserve it.

But he says, I want you to live, it's a free gift.

We come into salvation, it's the free gift, it's through faith, but it's it's by grace through faith that we come into the life of the kingdom.

It's not something we did to deserve it.

Nobody in this room figured it out.

All right?

You look around, that person looks, that person looks like they have their stuff together.

No, they don't.

Alright?

Neither do I.

We're all just level playing field.

We're all in desperate need of the grace of God.

And so faith awakens in our heart to say, God, I need your grace.

But mercy is also a gift.

Mercy is the gift where God withholds from us what we actually do deserve.

And the thing is, when we connect to our stories and we have a storyline that acknowledges that all of us have fallen short of the glory of God.

That's what Paul would say in other part of Romans, that sin has tainted and fractured all of us.

All of us knows what it looks like to miss a mark or to live in brokenness or live out of in darkness rather than in light.

And sin and death have their own consequences.

It has its own uh penalties to it.

But because of the mercy of God, because of his death on the cross, he took the pattern and the cycle of sin and death, and he says, no longer does that need to have a hold on you that what you deserve, I'm taking that into myself.

So I'm not going to give you what you do deserve, and that is the mercy of God.

And according to Paul, and if you read all of Romans 11, he goes more into the mercies of God, but according to Paul, you cannot live the Christian life if you don't actually have a view of God's mercy.

That mercy is a starting point that wakes up out of bed in the morning and says, God, you have been good to me.

The things that I do deserve, you've withheld from me and you've brought me into your life.

Thank you, God, that you are rich.

You are rich in mercy.

Mercy, mercy is the vision, the mercy of God.

We cannot actually live the Christian life without a constant view of God's mercy.

Parents know all about mercy.

How many times you just want to.

We're not talking about how many times you do.

I'm just saying how many times you want to.

With my kids, I love my kids.

I'm always shocked at the beauty and goodness of God inside of them.

I'm also equally shocked at how much they also need Jesus.

They need God's mercy.

Just like I need mercy, just like you need mercy.

Mercy actually produces gratefulness and humility.

That's why it's so important for us, which is why after this whole passage, Paul would then go into talking about the members of the body of Christ.

He said, Don't think of yourself more highly than you ought to.

Chill out.

Humble.

Stay humble.

It's the mercy of God.

You have no other right to stand where you are, to be a part of this amazing, eclectic, beautiful community outside of the mercy of God.

And other translations say, by the mercies of God, it's only through the mercy of God that we can even show up and offer ourselves to God and actually not die.

We can actually live for God without being killed along the way.

So a proper view of mercy, what that does is the reason why we have to start in view of God's mercy, everything we do, it's in view of God's mercy.

A proper view of mercy, it produces a surrenderedness inside of us.

And the truth is, you are never more surrendered than when you're dead.

You are never more surrendered than when you're dead.

Which it makes sense that he would go into this next line where he said, in view of God's mercy, offer your bodies as living sacrifices.

Everybody says living sacrifice.

Paul would say this is holy and pleasing to God.

He said, This is actually your reasonable actor worship.

It's your proper worship.

He said, This is the only thing that makes sense.

If you actually see the mercy of God, the only thing that makes sense is that you live as a living sacrifice.

We know that's temple language.

So, like, you know, first century Jews, the, you know, the Hebrew people would know all about the temple language, about the sacrifices that God had required to atone for sin.

But again, God's mercy and the death of Jesus rendered this requirement unnecessary.

So Paul flips it on its head and he says, Listen, guys, you're no longer stuck in this endless cycle of trying to pay for your sins.

How many of us live trying to do penance every day for all of our brokenness and wrongdoing that we do?

Every time we we snapped at our uh you know, coworkers or spouse or kids or we did something that we knew fell short, and so we try to make up for it in our lives.

This is what Paul is saying.

Listen, there's no making up for that with God.

God's already forgiven your sins.

Thank you, Jesus.

But because he's forgiving your sins, uh he's paid for your sins, now your invitation is to make your whole life an offering as if you are the one that was sacrificed.

You are the one that was dead.

In other words, you are the original walking dead.

All right?

Not like zombie language, necessarily, but what Paul gets at, and this is a theme he writes about over and over, that when we we are crucified with Christ, so we're dead to flesh to our flesh and sin, but alive, fully alive to the desires of God.

So when when Paul talks about as a living sacrifice, as one who is living constantly on an altar before God, one who has been crucified with Christ, what gets crucified is our carnal desires that lead to destruction, our trust in our own thinking, our self-dependence, our independence.

But what happens as we as that gets killed off in Christ, as we reckon ourselves dead in the cross with Christ, what happens is a whole new life bursts forth.

And a whole new creation life bursts forth.

Desires, the desires of God reordered from the inside out.

And no, we're not just walking around as zombies, just kind of numb and passive and not feeling anything.

That's not what Paul's talking about.

He's talking about being awakened to a whole new set of desires we never even knew were there because that's how amazing and brilliant and beautiful life in Christ is.

There's things that He has prepared for you that you never thought were possible once the old man is dead and the new man comes into the being.

Are you guys with me?

So we're dead to sin, but fully alive in Christ.

So the Christian self-offering is about reckoning every part of yourself dead and then bursting into life.

Because when you're dead, you're unmoved by the insults of men and unmoved by the praise of men.

This is that's so good.

When you're dead, you're you're comp you're unmoved by the insults of men, and you're unmoved by the praise of men.

We need that so badly.

There's this beautiful story from the desert fathers in the fourth century, and um the Coptic Christians out of uh Egypt.

There's all these stories of the ones that went to go live out in the desert to escape the corruption of the city, and people would come out to them and just receive wisdom and and and uh impartation.

And there's this beautiful story, and it says, A brother came to Abba Macarius, the Egyptian, and said to him, Abba, give me a word that I might be saved.

And the old man said, Go to the cemetery and insult the dead.

The brother went there, insulted them, and threw stones at them.

Then he returned and told the old man about it.

The old man said to him, Didn't they say anything to you?

He replied, No.

The old man said, Go back tomorrow and praise them.

So the brother went away and praised them, calling them apostles, saints, and righteous men.

He returned to the old man and said, I have complimented them.

And the old man said to him, Did they not answer you?

And the brother said, No.

The old man said to him, You know how you insulted them and they did not reply, and how you praised them and they did not speak.

So you too, if you wish to be saved, you must do the same and become like a dead man.

Like the dead.

Take no account of either the scorn of men nor their praises, and you can be saved.

It's just it's a beautiful story because what happens is when we actually live a life where we we realize that when we come into Christ, our life is not our own.

That means that we can actually, you can actually reach a point where you're unoffendable by the people around you.

Doesn't mean you don't have feelings, but but it's it's critical that as we live into the gospel, that we realize that as living sacrifices in view of God's mercies and living sacrifices, that like it says in Ephesians 4, maturity is when we're no longer tossed to and fro by every wind and wave of doctrine, every opinion, everything that everybody has to say, every new bandwagon, every new way of thinking, it doesn't have a sway on you.

It doesn't mean that you don't have feelings.

It just means that your feelings no longer have the same power over you as when you were your old self.

They're no longer powerful because your new life in Christ is alive and it's active.

So we're living from the mercy of God.

And out of the mercy, our lives, we don't even consider our sown.

Consider our lives our own.

We're walking in our waking and our sleeping and our working, completely surrendered, hands open.

We get compliments.

Cool, praise Jesus.

We get insulted?

Cool, praise Jesus.

But we stay on course because our lives are not our own.

They've been bought with a price, they are his.

And this has everything to do with patterns of thinking.

That's where we're going next.

So Paul builds in this idea.

And in the next line, it seems like he's shifting a thought, but I think this is all very connected.

He says, Do not conform.

You see what it says here, do not conform to the pattern of this world.

Okay, we'll stop there.

Do not conform to the pattern of this world.

No, this word conform in its usage here is not necessarily something that happens to you from the outside in.

It's actually a self-imposed shaping in order to fit in.

Now, there are forces that kind of work to shape us from the outside in, but what he's talking about, he's talking to him, he says, don't conform.

In other words, don't press yourself into a shape and a color and a flavor and a texture that fits right in in order to win the praise and the acclamation and the affirmation of the world.

Now, this word the world is this Greek word eon, which actually in other translations says the present age.

Do not conform to the present age.

Now, first century Jews would often refer to the present age as one that was corrupt, distorted, full of sin and brokenness.

And but there was the age to come, which is the age that Jesus initiated in himself.

But the age to come was an age that was full of restoration and beauty and reconciliation and redemption and right thinking and right living, righteousness before God.

So Paul is saying, do not conform to this present age of distortion and injustice.

Don't fit in and press yourself into a shape so that you will be accepted.

Sometimes it appears that the only way forward is to either give up or to give in.

Anybody?

Sometimes it feels like the only way to move forward is to give up, to give in to the voices and to messages and to the expectations and to become like what everybody else is like.

And this has a lot of applications to it.

The easy, low-hanging fruit here, say consumerism.

Spending more money than you have than you actually have just to keep up.

That's a pattern of this world.

It's a pattern of this present age.

It's a force, it's an expectation.

If you don't have a lifestyle that is Instagram worthy, if you don't have something worth posting and getting a lot of likes, then you gotta level up.

Go get the credit card, sell what you need to sell, you know.

Go figure it out.

Go into debt.

Live beyond your actual means.

And a lot of people feel the pressure, especially young people, feel the pressure to overextend and live a life that they don't actually have access to, right?

Excessive living, another low-hanging fruit.

We see this in entertainment.

Some of us feel like just because we have access to 50,000 shows on Netflix and Apple TV and Amazon Prime and more shows than ever before in the history of the world means that we have to consume them all.

And we take in everything offered to us just because the acting and the directing is good.

No, listen, I love good movies, I love good shows.

But what we have access to us is far beyond what our souls and our spirits can bear, guys.

You guys have to understand this has a tremendous effect.

What comes in through your eyes and comes in through your ears has a tremendous effect on the patterns of your thinking.

Just because it's a good storyline doesn't make it righteous.

Doesn't make it okay to consume on every level.

And I'm having to do this more and more.

And when I'm watching shows, I'm like, this is really funny, this is really good.

But man, there's something tweaked on the inside.

I'm realizing that the need to take every thought captive means limiting my options in order to preserve my life for the Lord, because I am a living sacrifice for Him.

So you know, obviously, church is all rail and consumerism and entertainment, so that's nothing new to you guys, right?

But there's other things, ideologies happening in our culture, right?

I mean, the secularism that is pervading every sphere of influence actually removes God or the need for God or even the mention of God.

It doesn't even happen in shows anymore unless you're watching the chosen.

It hardly even happens anymore in mainstream media on any level.

And it's a pervasive thing that's training us to think that we can you can do your business, you can lead your business, you can work, you can run a family, you can go about this life without actually needing God.

And it is a lie.

You need God more than you need air.

You need God more than you need food.

We need God.

And listen, I know this is a whole can of worms.

It's a whole thing, which is why in a couple months we're actually gonna take several weeks and walk through the entire topic, different angles of sex, marriage, singleness, um, same-sex relationships, transgender, that kind of thing.

And listen, it's not gonna be this takedown.

It's not, we're not just gonna be saying, coming up here and just saying wild things just to get attention.

We want to together as a community have conversations publicly that you're already having in private, that we're all having in our homes and with our kids and with our friends, but we want to hold this before us so that we can see together some through lines of what does God say in the scripture?

How do we grow in biblical clarity but also outrageous compassion as we navigate this kind of time together?

We need to have that conversation.

And we haven't done that on a specific level.

And I get that that's sometimes we little mentions of that kind of create a thing of where are we at and all those things.

Listen, we're gonna do some work there as a community, and I believe it's gonna help us to continue to become a people of awe-inspiring love.

That's our mission, that's what God is doing.

We're keeping our vision on Jesus, we're not getting trapped into culture wars, we're not doing that, but we are gonna tackle some hard topics that are probably gonna make all of us squirm on some level, and that's okay because God is with us, all right?

It's actually not off topic, okay?

But part of the reason we conform is because we have an innate desire to not be seen as archaic, outdated, bigoted, better than, and so we're tempted to make ourselves into a pattern that that feels like a little bit more friendly.

But I'm telling you guys, any way of thinking that is not rooted in truth actually just leads to destruction.

The reality though is our desire to belong, this is really important that we understand, people's desire to belong is so strong.

It's actually, for most people, a desire to belong is actually stronger than our desire to live in the truth, which means when we have when push comes to chuve and we and we have to choose between the two, most people will choose belonging over truth.

That sounds like a bold statement.

That's just that's not a stat.

I'm just saying that when you look at the hierarchy of needs and the way that we're wired, our desire to be in community and to be loved and accepted oftentimes is higher than our desire to align with truth, which which means that a lot of people abandon what is true in order to feel a sense of community.

And we see this in a lot of different uh spheres of society right now.

Um, but it's it's an innate desire.

Belonging is a good desire.

We were made to actually belong to God.

We were made to belong to Him.

But what happens is when we trade truth for belonging, it only leads to a way of thinking that does not have a plumb line.

It's not aligned with what will bring life.

And even in the church, sometimes we we trade truth for belonging.

Some of you, us here, we're not honest with ourselves or with those around us because we're worried about getting kicked out if we ask certain kinds of questions.

But I'm saying, even in the church, we have to be willing to be honest and authentic with where we're really at, because God only meets us where we're really at.

So we want to do that here too.

But Paul is saying here, you need to watch out.

Do not conform or press yourself into a mold.

But then he says, be transformed.

But be transformed, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Let God shape you.

And this whole idea, this idea of transformation, renewal, it's this idea of restoration, renovation, a complete change for the better.

It's not an incremental change, it's an otherness.

There's a transformation that's possible in God with our thinking that does not come just from more information.

It comes from transformation.

And that's where all of this themes kind of come together.

Because the reality is all of us, every person in this room, has been, you have actually been formed into the type of person you are.

Like the person you are right now, you have been formed into the type of person you are through a lot of different things, but we were created to be formed.

We were formed into the garden by the hands of God and by the words of God, by his breath.

We were formed out of dust and clay.

We were deformed by sin.

It distorted the form and the image.

And through the the the images of deformity from the web.

Wow.

I don't know if you guys just heard that.

My watch just said, here are some images of deformity on the web.

That's the worst Google search of all time.

Gosh, I rebuke that.

Um but we were formed, we were deformed.

Christ came to show us the form, the beauty, and the image again, so that we would have the power not to just be informed, that's the problem.

We're trying to inform our way into transformation.

You can't inform your way into transformation.

Transformation comes by a renewing of our mind with the thoughts of God.

If we don't renew our minds in the way that we think with the thoughts of God, revealed in the scriptures, then we will conform.

That's the thing.

But the invitation is there, there is a transformation into Christ's likeness.

And this is so important, guys.

This is this is key here.

That in this kind of time that we're living in, we live in a deluge of messages.

We live in a deluge.

We are literally baptized every day into the way of the world by what we consume with our thinking, by what we watch and by what we take in.

The answer isn't just hiding our heads in the sand.

That's not what I'm proposing here.

I'm not saying just, you know, la la la la la la.

I'm not saying that.

I'm saying some of that.

Some of us need some of that, right?

But we live in such a deluge, it's almost like a baptizing and an immersion into a new way of thinking.

That um NT Wright says it like this: having the mind renewed under the persuasion of the spirit is the vital start of that true human living, which is God's loving will for all his children.

That we have we actually have to become the type of people who live persuaded by the Spirit, renewed under the persuasion of the Spirit.

It's an immersion into the Father and the Son and the Spirit, so that our mind and our body actually work as a coherent team.

You can't live as a living sacrifice until your mind and your body are renewed in the ways of God, which means that we have to remind ourselves we actually have to live a life of constant renewal that actually uh that actually is growing in capacity over our willingness to take in everything else from the outside in.

So uh you guys, I'm sure, have plenty of stories of what this could look like.

Um one of our favorite things to do as a family is uh in the summer is hiking.

Um any hikers out there?

Any hikers?

Okay, some of some of our hikers are actually probably hiking right now, but um so uh so you know we're we're trying to get our kids to love hiking, which is sometimes a challenge.

And so earlier this June we did one of our big or first hikes of the of the summer, and our son Asher, it was just a mile uh mile up to an old mine near the Buena Vista area, and he decided before he got there, he's like, I hate hiking.

I hate that I he's like, I don't want to do this, I'm already tired, you know.

Like he's he's kind of going into it before we even got there.

And so we get out of the car, we're like, we're doing this, we're gonna be a happy family, you're gonna do this, we're making memories, right?

Because that's what you do, you threaten them into happiness.

It works every time.

And so we get on the we get on the hiking trail, and it I kid you not, it's like we're 20 yards in, and he's already just flailing around on the ground.

He's like, I can't do this, I hate this, and then he goes into all this identity, like existential crisis.

I'm not like you guys, I'm not like you, I'm not, I'm not like you guys, I can't hike, I'm not a hiker.

And it's like it turned into from an activity into this whole identity thing.

I'm like, you're not a hiker.

Like, where is it even coming from?

Of course you're a hiker, you have two legs just like us.

And uh, and so we almost had to drag him up the mountain.

I mean, it was it was excruciating.

You know, and it's you know, again, a a memorable summer experience.

Um and uh but we're like, oh my gosh, we've gotta we gotta do something about this.

And so as we've been hiking throughout the summer, um, we had to prep him for, you know, we did a big hike this last couple weeks, and and it was longer, and we knew it was like, oh my gosh, this is longer, it's higher, it's more aggressive.

Like, we don't stand a chance.

Like, this is gonna be I I I already resigned.

I'm like, there's no way he's gonna do it.

Let's just leave him back at the campground.

Um, and but Megan's like, no, we're gonna we're gonna do this.

And so she started prepping him like days before.

Hey, we're going on a hike, and listen, you're a hiker, you can do hard things, right?

God has made your body to be strong, and you're gonna experience his creation, you're gonna love it.

And she started just kind of like, you know, just just just just giving him these little nuggets of both identity and confidence of like, listen, I know you feel like you can't do it, but you can do it because God has made you to do it.

And so she started feeding him this thing, also, which which which also helps.

We planted candy boxes every mile on this on this hike.

So so on this hike, on this hike, it was both a renewal of his mind and a lot of candy.

And it worked.

It worked.

He made it the whole way up, no complaining, did the whole thing.

We cheered, we championed, he came back down, there was no fits, there's no flailing on the ground, there was no taking his hat and throwing it and throwing hiking sticks across the thing.

He did it, and we did it, and we it was awesome, it was great.

But it came, it came, you know, it came with the preparation, it came with a a change of thinking.

And obviously, that's a that's kind of a light, a light way to get at it.

But I believe that as we enter this next season together, it's gonna be more important.

As we started that you're talking about prayer rhythms, actually interrupting, setting spiritual alarm clocks throughout our day.

Some of you are still doing that.

Maybe you've dropped off of that.

It's not a habit you've done.

I'm telling you guys, I believe that God, one of the one of the words I continue to hear in my spirit is get ready for the work that I have for you.

Get ready for the work that I have for you, which reminds a change, it means a change in the way of thinking.

It means a preparation, it means an assessment of what is it going to take to go where God's actually actually asking us to go.

To means that we have to change the patterns of our thought to align with the way the kingdom of God works so that we can go where he is asking us to go, so we can reflect who he is, and we can live as a people of great love and light and righteousness and holiness in the days that he has called us to live in.

This is what I believe is before us.

1 Peter 1.13 says this.

Therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Church, every one of you, you have to prepare your minds for action.

Which means the invitation for all of us is to pay attention, think about what you think about, up the ante, your capacity to sit before the word of God.

And listen, guys, I know it.

So if you have a kid at home, the moment you open up the word of God, the entire world breaks down.

Every text message, every notification, every need, the car breaks down.

Everything happens the moment you sit down to spend time with the thought with Jesus and his thoughts.

I'm telling you, everything will war against that.

And there's a reason for that.

Because it's the only thing that leads to life.

And the only way of life that leads to transformation.

And the only way we live is living sacrifices to be holy, to bring worship that is holy and acceptable to God, that we may know his perfect will.

Amen.

So I already mentioned in a couple months we're going to be doing a little bit of a topical teaching emphasis on sex and gender, single marriage, and it's that whole soup and a whole crock pot of amazing topics.

But before we get to that, we'll talk about a little bit about our gospel identity and the identity given to us by the Father.

What is the gospel and why is it good news?

How does this good news shape us and form us today?

When we say good news, what does that actually mean?

And before we get there, before we can talk about good news, we have to talk about where that good news comes from.

We're gonna take a few weeks and just talk about the scriptures.

What is the Bible?

Can it be trusted?

Is it still authoritative over our lives?

And if it is authoritative, how is it authoritative?

And what do we do with the parts that are confusing to us?

How do we navigate?

How do you actually build a life on the Word of God?

That's what we're gonna talk about for the next few weeks.

So we have a few building blocks, they all are gonna be a through line, but I'm just telling you, the through line through all of this, as we as we journey together, this is just a sneak peek, is going to be about renewing our minds with the thoughts of God because his truth is what actually leads to freedom.

Amen.

Hey, let's stand together.

Romans 12, 1 through 2 in the Passion Translation says this beloved friends, what should be our proper response to God's marvelous mercy mercies?

To surrender yourselves to God, to be his sacred living sacrifices and live in holiness, experiencing all that delights his heart, for this becomes your genuine expression of worship.

Stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around you, but be inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit through a total reformation of how you think.

This will empower you to discern God's will as you live a beautiful life, satisfying and perfect in his eyes.

Let's close our eyes together today.

Father, as we receive your word today, I thank you.

One, for those who feel the pressure to conform to ways of thinking, family members that are hounding them with different perspective, coworkers, friends, neighbors, and that the things that we get pressured into believing or thinking or acting upon.

I thank you, Lord God.

All of those things, you're releasing pressure from this room and you're saying, enter back into the easy and light yoke of Jesus.

I thank you, as we come to you, you give us clarity of thought and clarity of mind so that we can live in the grace of God.

So I just see pressure lifting off this room for those of you who are carrying pressure around you, and as say, let the pressure be gone in the name of Jesus, that you are a son and daughter of God, and He's given you right thinking and a sound mind.

And God, I pray as a church, as we respond to this word, God, that you would grow our appetite and our capacity, like stomachs growing out.

I thank you, God, to grow our capacity to be in your word, to not just flip through for the verse of the day, but to actually be nourished in our inner man to spend time with you in the scriptures, discerning your thoughts and your will, so that together as a community we can grow into the fullness of Christ.

I just pray as we move out that even this week, even tomorrow morning, that every person in this room would open the scriptures and it would be life and water and bread.

In Jesus' name.

We say thank you, God, for your mercies.

I pray a blessing over my friends here today as we go from this place.

We go in the Spirit of God.

Living sacrifice is holy and pleasing to you.

In Jesus' name, we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Awesome.

Awesome.

Thanks, guys.

So a couple things before we keep standing, keep standing, pay attention.

You're like, all right, that was great.

I'm out to lunch.

All right.

Um, if you want prayer this morning, we're gonna have ministry team members up front, they're gonna have badges around their necks.

These are people that are here to pray with you.

We believe that prayer has an effect because God is with us.

If you need prayer for any healing in your body, anything in your life that you just want somebody to be with you in faith, I want you to find somebody with a badge and uh and and and get prayer.

If you are newer to the community and you want to talk to a pastor, if you want to uh connect and hear a little bit more about the community, ask some questions, find out what's going on.

We want to invite you to our brand new Connect Hub.

And so what in the back of the room, you see Amy with this beautiful white and black sign that says connect with us.

Go find Amy.

Maybe you're a guest here today and you just want to just come hang out.

Maybe you just want the double insulated coffee mug and a shower head.

Go find the connect.

Go to the connect of go see Amy with the connect sign.

Maybe you've been here for a couple months and you haven't yet talked to a pastor.

Come back.

We want to meet you, we want to greet you for the rest of you.

Go get your kids, bring them back up, go in the peace and the strength of the kingdom of God.

Bless you guys.

Have a great Sunday afternoon.