The Gospel Transforms All of Life

Archaeologists have been tracing the development of all kinds of things through the years, but one of the things that uh that they've been tracing and I've learned about is the development of hinges, like mechanical engineering, physics, hinges, how these things go forward.

They can actually trace the hinge back about 3,500 years.

The earliest hinges were developed in uh in Turkey and in Egypt using all kinds of raw materials, uh, including wood, which is pretty remarkable.

You think about a wooden hinge.

I feel like that'd be pretty difficult to get that going.

There'd be a lot of friction there, but these guys found a way to make it work.

Uh more recently, in the Middle Ages, they started using different materials, more robust hinges, uh, to use heavier doors, especially in castle complexes.

Right?

So you can imagine in the castle complex, and as the invading marauders are coming in, the ability to swing that heavy steel door brought an just incredible amount of security, an incredible amount of peace.

And the movement that came on that door through the hinge really was a life-shaping reality for people who lived in these complexes.

It's pretty incredible, right?

The hinge doesn't look that impressive on its own, but it makes a world of difference.

Romans chapter 12, especially verses 1 and 2, is the powerful hinge of the entire book of Romans.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

It's only two short verses, but there is an explosive power contained in them that is not designed for moving heavy doors and castle complexes, but to give the power to change your life in a radical way, to bring real and lasting transformation, not just modifying your behaviors a little bit this week, so you're two or three percent different than last week was.

It's an amazing little passage for you.

Here's what I want you to hear this morning in one short sentence.

The gospel transforms all of life.

That's what Romans 12, 1 and 2 is going to be telling us.

The gospel transforms all of life.

Now, over the Easter time period, we took a little break from Romans.

Uh, and so we're gonna dive back in here and we're actually gonna put our foot into it, and uh, we're not gonna take a break from Romans until we finish the book of Romans, chapter 12 through 16, and we are gonna uh keep our eyes on the target, keep things moving forward here.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

Um, but it'd be good to review just a little bit.

Maybe you're newer with us, or we've just been away from Romans for a bit.

Uh the theme of Romans, if you've been here the whole time, starting back last August when we started, I hope you've got this.

But if not, here it is: the righteousness of God.

And the basic idea is God is righteous and nobody else is.

None of us are.

Paul says that the religious people they're not righteous, the irreligious people, they're not righteous, only God is righteous, and all of a sudden we got a problem.

Because an unrighteous people cannot live with a righteous God.

We are separated from him, we are at hostility with him, we are at enmity with him.

What's going to happen with this problem?

Enter Jesus.

He came from heaven to earth, he lived the perfect righteous life that no one on earth did, that we certainly didn't, no matter how good we think of ourselves.

He went to the cross.

He died on the cross, in our place, paying the penalty that we deserve, death.

He took the blame of the unrighteous upon himself, so that any who trust in him by faith could receive his perfect life.

You could be righteous.

The righteousness that is God's is given to you, and he is righteous to give it to you because of Jesus.

It's all because of him, nothing because of us.

This means your sins are forgiven.

If you've trusted in Christ, you can have a real relationship with God.

You can have a real secure hope of eternity.

This is the gospel that we are describing, that God saves sinners through Christ, that you can be righteous through Christ, not through yourself.

And Paul has taken chapters 1 through 11 of the book of Romans, explaining in great detail these truths of the gospel.

And now we get to chapter 12.

Here's the hinge where he says, Now let's take the power of these truths, apply it to your life, and here's how that door is gonna swing, and you're gonna feel the freight of it, the force of it in your life, and it will change you.

Now, as we move through this last section of Romans, what this means is as we preach God's word, you are going to feel a shift.

Paul's emphasis is less doctrinal in the last section and more applicational.

There are sections that'll be really intense.

It's going to step on some of your toes.

Some of you will feel uncomfortable about that.

Others of you will kind of love it in a way.

You're like, oh, I love it when the preacher steps on my toes.

It hurts, but it feels good.

I needed that preacher.

Look, let me tell you whether it makes you uncomfortable or you kind of like it, the goal is that you would be transformed, that you would leave, and you'd beat your chest and say, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

That's how we're supposed to walk out.

That's what this is supposed to be producing in our lives.

And what we're gonna see, especially here in 12, 1 and 2, but really through the rest, is that the gospel is what changes your life.

The gospel is how you become a Christian, but the power of the gospel is also how you grow as a Christian.

And lots of people get the first part.

Like, yes, here's the prayer I'm supposed to pray, here's the truth I believe, that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

I get that.

The wage of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

But they miss the second part that the power of the gospel is how you change as well.

That grace fuels growth.

So in the book of Titus, it was written a little bit differently, but Titus chapter two, it says, the grace of God has appeared in the person of Jesus, and it brings salvation for all people.

And grace is what trains us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and live self-controlled, righteous lives.

In other words, grace is what transforms us, not inundating us with rules and heavy-handed browbeating of how you need to do this, this, and this.

Second Corinthians chapter 3, Paul writes, he says, Beholding the glory of the Lord is how we're transformed from one degree of glory to another.

2 Corinthians 3 · chapter mention

Beholding the glory of the Lord.

As I look to Christ, my heart is melted and my life is changed.

I could give you tons and tons of examples.

I quoted a couple passages already.

Let me give you just a couple more.

It's like Paul says in Ephesians 4, you're struggling to forgive somebody.

What do you do?

Brothers and sisters, forgive one another as Christ has forgiven you.

Ephesians 4 29.

Look to Christ, his forgiveness to you.

And as you look to him, beholding the glory of the Lord, you'll be transformed from one degree of glory to another.

Romans 15, we'll get there in a few weeks.

He says, Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you to the glory of God.

You struggle to welcome somebody, there's something in their life.

Say, I don't know that I really want to welcome them.

Well, then look to the example of Christ.

How did he welcome you when there was a lot of ugly in you?

And God will be glorified as you look to Christ's example and live that out.

Say, I want to be more generous.

Like I feel inflation is going up, the markets are volatile, hard for me to be generous.

How do I do that?

Paul says, 2 Corinthians chapter 8, verse 9.

2 Corinthians 8:9

You know the grace of our Lord Jesus, though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.

Look to his example.

The gospel is how you become a Christian, but it's also how you grow as a Christian in forgiveness and hospitality and generosity in a thousand other ways.

The gospel transforms all of life, is what we're trying to say.

And we'll see it right here in chapter 12.

This passage has four kind of movements across the two verses.

So form four points this morning.

But the basic idea is this if the gospel transforms all of life, I get the idea.

How particularly does that actually happen?

I'm glad you asked.

That's what we're gonna look at.

Here's the first movement.

Number one, it starts with a huge appeal that you would offer your life as a living sacrifice.

The appeal is sort of of a legal language for a legal argument that Paul has been building.

Look at verse one of chapter 12.

I appeal to you, brothers, therefore, brothers.

It's more than an ask, it's more than a request.

It's more urgent, it's an appeal by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

It's gonna require intentional action from you.

Present your body, offer your body, give your body.

It makes this appeal that we say is a huge appeal, and it may not look like a huge appeal to you right out of the gate, but it is.

When we use the word sacrifice today, we oftentimes mean something very differently than what the biblical audience would have understood it as.

Again, intense imagery of a death to self.

And this action that you take, this isn't what makes you a Christian.

This is the response to what Christ has done.

It is the call for every single Christian, it is the expectation of Christ upon every Christian that you present your whole self, your mind, your body, your soul to Christ as a living sacrifice, and not just as a living sacrifice, but as a living sacrifice in a way that is holy and acceptable to him.

You see, what happens is we tend to think, well, I've got I got Jesus kind of drizzled on this area of my life.

That must be good, but I've not offered a complete and comprehensive sacrifice in every area in a way that's holy and acceptable to him.

Let me give you an example.

I remember I was a kid, and uh our house had a lot of hedges around it when I was a kid, and we had a burn pile in the back, and so what would happen is my dad would take the clippers, he'd go around, get the loppers, he'd cut it all off, and then it was my job to go behind with my brother and pick it up and carry it back to the burn pile in the back.

And so he would cut it one day, and then the next day I'd go get it, and we'd start carrying it back.

And I had a way of saying, Yeah, the job is done.

But when dad would come home and look at it, you know what I would find out?

The job wasn't done.

I thought I had checked the box, but it was not done in a way that was acceptable to him.

And this is exactly what happens in our Christian lives.

We look at the corners of our life and say, Yep, I did something for Jesus over there, something for Jesus over there, I've sacrificed this to him over here, I've laid this on the altar over here.

But if he were to come through and audit your living sacrifice, would he, like my dad, say, Justin, that is not acceptable to me.

You're still holding back for yourself.

This is not a complete and comprehensive sacrifice you've laid upon the altar.

What if we took a quick inventory right now?

Would you do that with me?

Like, what if we just thought through your day of the last seven days?

All right, let's think about the early morning hours.

It's quiet, it's dark, the sun is starting to rise.

Has that been a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to the Lord?

And it'll start to move into your working hours.

Maybe you're at home with the kids, maybe you're at a job, maybe you're going to school.

Has that portion of your life, those hours in your day, been offered as a living sacrifice in a way that is holy and acceptable to God?

We move into the early evening.

Family maybe is reconvening a little bit.

Everybody's feeling a little hangry.

Has that part of your life been offered as a living sacrifice in a way that is holy and acceptable to God?

And now you move into the later evening hours.

People are going down, sun is setting.

Has that part of your day in your life been offered this week as a living sacrifice in a way that is holy and acceptable to God?

And then we move into the weekend.

Is your weekend set apart to the Lord, sacrifice to him in a way that is holy and acceptable to him?

You realize God is concerned with way more than the externals and my behaviors, but to the internal life, my thought, my motivations, my desires.

You see, we read living sacrifice.

Yeah, you're supposed to live for God, but to think through minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, week by week, every area of my life, complete, comprehensive sacrifice in a way that is holy and acceptable to God.

Paul says about this this is your spiritual worship.

And when he says spiritual worship, the Greek word for spiritual right there is where we get our word logical.

This is your logical response.

While it is a huge appeal of a complete and comprehensive sacrifice, it's only logical.

It only makes sense.

It's only the reasonable thing to do.

To do anything less than that would be obviously cutting corners.

How is it that Paul can say, this is the only logical response?

The only reasonable response, the only thing that would make sense.

The compelling reality of the mercy of God.

Look, he says, you have to see the depth of the mercy of God.

And when you see the magnitude of the mercy of God, then this complete and comprehensive sacrifice becomes logical.

It is the grounding for all that you've been called to do.

Verse 1, there's a phrase that I didn't explain yet, and now we will.

I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercy of God.

See, all of chapters 1 through 11, Paul has been working to blow your mind with the depth of the mercy of God.

A few weeks ago, before Easter, we said, the whole trajectory of human history is the magnification of the mercy of God.

That's what it's all been about.

That in his mercy, he looked down at unrighteous sinners like me and like many of you, and chose to count them as righteous.

Because without the mercy of God, there is a spiritual heart blockage in every single person.

A heart blockage that is worse than 267 and 700 north at rush hour.

Like you're getting nowhere spiritually.

You need a heart transplant, and God says, In my mercy, I will give you that transplant.

Without the mercy of God, your spiritual ability is weaker than a newborn trying to do push-ups.

You have no spiritual strength.

You need his spiritual strength, and in his mercy, he says, I see your weakness, and I will give you what you could never produce on your own.

I had a few friends over for a bonfire this week.

It got hot out.

I had to move to the other side away from the fire where the wind was blowing it.

In eternity, the fire will go forever.

And there will be no refuge from it and no relief.

And it will be tormenting and terrible.

And apart from the mercy of God, that's where every single one of us is headed.

And despite all of this, his mercy coming in, fixing our heart blockage, giving us strength, transforming our destiny.

We look back and we're like, boy, I don't know, God, like you're demanding a complete comprehensive sacrifice in every area of my life in a way that's acceptable to you.

I don't know.

That feels a little intense.

That is our heart posture.

That feels a little radical, like maybe God, you should chill out a little bit over there.

I probably don't need to give my first and best in every area of life, as long as I can know I'm giving a little bit in some areas of life.

Guys, recognize this.

When we offer our spiritual reheated leftovers to God, it is a dishonor to his mercy.

And we tend to justify it by saying, well, I wouldn't give God reheated pizza.

I'm giving him reheated steak.

It's really good steak on the second time around.

But it's not giving him the first and the best.

And in view of his mercy, how could we give anything but first and best?

Here's what's maybe more amazing about the mercy of God.

When he chose to show mercy, he knew not only our original state and how lost we would be, he also knew our ongoing posture that would lean into our own goodness, our own pride, our own overlooking of his mercy.

And he still said, Yes, I know how weak you will be, and I will be glad to show mercy.

I will run to show mercy.

I will take joy in showing mercy.

I will not be begrudging in showing mercy.

He will never run out of mercy.

In his mercy, he took what we deserved, giving to us what we didn't deserve.

1 Peter chapter 2 speaks very clearly about Christ, saying, He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

1 Peter 2 · chapter mention

By his wounds, you have been healed.

Listen, Parkside, you got to get this.

A medium-sized view of God's mercy may be the biggest obstacle to your growth today.

You say, Justin, I don't have a small view of God's mercy.

I've been around the church for a little while.

I read my Bible, I know that God is rich in mercy, but a medium-sized view of God's mercy may be the biggest obstacle to your growth today.

Because his mercy is unfathomably large.

There are no words to describe the height, the depth, the length, the eternality, the generosity, the joy of his mercy.

You must come to him afresh.

Saying, Lord, I need you.

Oh, I need you every hour.

I need you.

I can't do this on my own.

You're my one defense.

You're my righteousness.

Oh, God, how I need you.

Scriptures tell us there is more mercy in Christ than there is sin in you.

And Christ went to the cross more readily than we go to him.

And Lamentations 3 says his mercies are brand new every single morning.

Great is his faithfulness.

He will continually pour them out and pour them out and pour them out.

On the basis of his mercy, we offer everything to him as a complete and comprehensive sacrifice in a way that is acceptable and it's the only logical response.

This is the argument Paul's making.

And what he understands is as we lay this out, you can understand it, you can make sense, but there's gonna be some threats to actually living in this way.

And we're gonna need to build an action plan on how do I consistently live out this truth I know to be true.

And that's where he goes in verse two.

So let's look at the next section here.

There's a dominant threat that you would be conformed to this world.

So right out of the gate in verse 2, 2a, it simply says this do not be conformed to this world.

Now notice right out of the gate, the the verb tense shifts into a form of passivity.

There is a mold in the world that is trying to press you into that mold, that you would be conformed.

And the word world there in the Bible, it means many different things.

Sometimes world means like the physical land.

Sometimes world means the people.

In this case, it means neither of those.

World means of this age.

There are patterns of thought, do not get pressed into them.

There are values and ways of thinking and behaving, do not get pressed into them.

I'm gonna give you some examples here because we can get really practical.

But one thing I just want to warn you about before I give these examples: there is a tendency that we think, oh great, here's an opportunity to throw rocks at the world and say, here's all the stuff that's screwed up about how the world operates.

And Paul's point here is to say to you individually, do not be conformed to that.

So look at yourself and say, Where might I be conformed to the patterns of thought in this age that I hadn't previously thought about?

It's easy to try and dunk on somebody else, and it's harder to say, here's where I need to change.

Paul's point is saying you need to change here.

Passivity is deadly in this regard.

Because we're called to live in the world without being of the world.

The temptation is to be totally immersed and just adopt it all, or to go the other direction and build a bomb shelter and say, look, I'm not like the world, but you're not in the world.

You're making no difference for Christ in the world.

You're not engaging the culture.

So to be in the world, not of the world, requires active and intentional thought, rejecting passivity.

What are some of these molds that are so dominant in our age?

Let me give you two of them.

Here's number one: be true to yourself.

The idea of authenticity as the highest good.

You hear phrases like, you do you, listen to your heart.

Like, honestly, guys, that may be some of the worst possible advice anyone could ever give you.

And what's really interesting to me is if you think about it for just 20 seconds, you will know that even in our world, as we say this, we don't mean it.

Like, imagine you showed up at Diddy's trial and he said, Well, I was just being true to myself.

I was just listening to my heart.

Like, everybody's gonna know, yeah, that doesn't work.

Right?

So it's one of those things that automatically you know is self-refuting.

But underneath that, you've got a fundamental issue of authority.

Who's going to set who you are and how you act and how you think, you or God?

That's what's underneath it.

Who gets to set the rules?

And if I apply that broader authority question across a couple of areas, let's see what we come up with, right?

So we let's start with relationships or how we live in community with one another.

What does Philippians chapter 2 tell us?

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

Not be true to yourself.

Philippians 2 says, Count others as more significant than yourselves.

Look to the interests of others, which has always been a fascinating thing to me because I'm thinking, well, I need to look to the needs of others.

Paul ups the ante in Philippians 2, don't look only to their needs, look to their interests and count them not merely as a significant thing, count others as more significant than you.

Be true to yourself is an absolute heresy of this age.

What about how we exercise authority?

Don't listen to your heart and how you exercise authority.

Your heart will tell you that it's okay to be a domineering husband because there's no other way to get everybody else in line here.

Don't listen to your heart.

Listen to Christ.

Husbands, love your wives, serve them, lay down your life as Christ laid down his life for the church.

Parents, don't listen to your heart.

Your kids need discipline.

They need to be spanked.

The rod of discipline dries out folly far from the heart of a child.

It is an act of faith to discipline and love.

Of course, never in anger, not in an abusive way, but in kind, godly exercise of authority.

What does it look like to say, don't be true to yourself.

Don't listen to your heart, not only how you exercise authority, but how you submit to authority.

Kids, can I talk to you for a second?

You know what Ephesians 6 says?

It says, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

So the way you obey mom and dad is how you're obeying God.

And right after that, it goes a step further.

It says not merely obey your parents, it says honor them.

So it's not just the action, it's the attitude.

How you submit to authority is very important.

You hear this, kids.

Don't listen to your heart.

Listen to what God says and submit to him.

And there's a threat.

In our age, you get molded in and say, but I know better than my parents, or they're doing things in an old-fashioned way, or my friend's parents do it differently.

Listen, God gave you the parents he gave you because he wanted you to have the parents you have.

Submit to them, obey them, and honor them.

If I can zoom this out off of kids for a second, in our inability in this age to submit to authority, the vast majority of church transfers in America, members moving from one church to another, the vast majority comes down to the fact that we stink at submitting to authority.

Well, the music wasn't how we wanted it.

Well, the men's ministry wasn't what I thought was best.

Well, the women's ministry wasn't like this.

Well, there was uh there were some clicks over there in this area.

Like, guys, if you find the perfect church, don't go there.

You'll mess it up.

You see, there's all sorts of messages in our world saying, be true to yourself, listen to your heart, put yourself as the authority instead of God as the authority.

Don't be conform to that mold.

What's the second mold that's pressing in upon us?

The mold that your feelings tell you who you are.

Your feelings are most significant.

You must listen to them at all cost.

Hey, catch this.

Around Christmas time this past year, I saw an ad from Lexus trying to sell cars.

And they get through the ad and they get to the very end.

And here's what it said: the greatest measure of the season is how it makes you feel.

We live in a therapeutic age.

That feelings are king, feelings are dominant, they must be obeyed at all cost.

And I'm not saying feelings don't matter, I think they matter a ton.

But you must understand them like a dashboard on your car.

Then when I start to feel things, I say, hmm, there must be something going on under the hood.

I should look into that a little bit.

In that sense, it's great.

But when your feelings become the GPS that tell you where you're going all the time, and that you must go to that location, then you're gonna get screwed up.

Where do we feel this the most?

I think one of the major ways we feel this is in areas of our sexuality.

Right?

Our culture tells us all the time your sexual desires define you.

How you feel about your gender defines you, and it doesn't.

We have people being told implicitly or explicitly that sex is either gross or sex is God.

Neither is true.

Sex is a good gift from God, and our sexual desires is part of who we are, but not all of who we are.

All of it must be lived in submission to Christ.

And in every moment there's something in us that says, to go this direction feels good.

I think I should do it.

Right?

And with what's really interesting in pastoral counseling, what I've discovered more and more through the years is before people get married, it feels like they ought to be moving in a certain direction sexually, generally towards more engagement.

Say, nope, you need to submit that to the Lord and not do that.

Then once people get married, their feelings are telling them many times they should be moving away from engagement.

And it's trying to say, no, wherever you're at on this continuum, wherever you're at this place of life, submit it to Christ that this is a good gift from God for your benefit, for his glory.

And what your feelings are telling you may not be accurate here.

And while I'm on that topic, it'd be good to recognize as well that our culture tells us that babies get in the way and they're a burden and they're not a gift.

And I say they do get in the way, and they are costly, and they are a burden, and they're a glorious gift worth pursuing as well.

Kids, you need to understand this that you are a good gift from the Lord.

And the opportunity that you may have to get married one day and make more babies is an amazing gift from the Lord as well, no matter what our culture tells you about the goodness of kids or not.

Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.

All in all, here's what the first part of verse two is saying: don't be conform to the pattern of this world.

There are tons of molds out there trying to grab you, press you into a mold, tell you to think a certain way, and need to recognize it.

This is the dominant threat to following Jesus.

You be conformed to the pattern of this world.

So, what do we do about it?

How do we build a more proactive strategy?

That's our fourth and final point this morning.

The key to success is the renewal of your mind.

Renewal of your mind.

What's the second part of verse two say?

Do not be transformed, but rather, or do not be conformed, 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.

The word transform there, we get our word metamorphosis, where a caterpillar becomes a beautiful butterfly.

Complete transformation.

What happens inside that cocoon is there are enzymes that begin to drip, drip, drip, drip.

And it starts this slow transformation, but a real transformation.

And a caterpillar turns into a butterfly after a period of time.

And that's exactly the picture of what's supposed to happen in you here.

And how does that happen?

By renewing your mind.

Now, what's really interesting about this is if you look at modern psychology, the idea of change starting in the mind has been captured.

They get that, right?

And then there's all kinds of strategies that are given to us.

Maybe you're familiar with like mind presence awareness, MPA, it starts in the mind.

Or cognitive behavioral therapy, it starts in the mind.

Right?

So, insofar as we're saying it starts in the mind, modern psychology can help us to say, okay, there is a battle for my mind.

I must be renewed by my mind.

Now, how my mind is renewed, we're gonna have pretty sharp differences with what modern psychology tells us.

But we start in that place, and there's a recognition that we do what we do because we think what we think.

And if I want the outcome to look different, there needs to be a renewal of the mind.

What the Bible tells us, as you soak your mind in the truth of the gospel, there begins to be these like gospel enzymes that drip, drip, drip.

And they change you from a caterpillar to a butterfly over time.

It's a beautiful change to observe in brothers and sisters over time.

And I'll tell you, it's a slow change, but nevertheless, a real change.

And it is possible because of the power of the gospel.

So see the beauty of it, recognize it's gonna take a little while so that you can say, by the grace of God, I'm not who I was, and I'm not yet who I want to be, but he is changing me.

And when this happens, Paul says, Then you'll know what God's will is.

You'll be able to test and discern and approve.

Look, he's not saying then you'll be able to test and discern and approve which college to go to or which house to buy or which job to take.

That's just your sanctified common sense.

Think it through and make a good decision.

What he's saying is, I'll be able to test and discern and approve.

What does it look like for me to lay all of my life as a living sacrifice, complete and comprehensive, in a way that is holy and acceptable to God?

Because my mind used to be clouded and distorted and thinking that I was offering my life as a living sacrifice, like a 12-year-old Justin picking up the hedges saying it was gonna be good to my dad.

And over time, immersion in the gospel shows me oh, here's what it looks like to offer this as a living sacrifice and not hold it back for myself.

It's gonna take work.

Right?

Like there's no GLP one for spiritual growth.

You gotta get in the gym.

You gotta stop eating so many donuts.

You gotta make a change.

So, what are those actual actionable strategies?

Let me give you three of them as we wrap up here.

Actionable strategies to renew your mind.

Number one, robust engagement with God's word.

It's like meat and potatoes in the Christian life right here.

It must be pervasive.

Right?

Maybe you got a Bible reading plan.

That's great.

I hope you do.

But catch this.

I'm talking about something bigger than just a quiet time or just a Bible reading plan, but holistic engagement where I'm seeing the Bible coming into my life all through my day and shaping my thought about every element of my life.

Our church fathers would often have advocated for a morning reading and an evening reading.

And psychologists tell us oftentimes the last thing that goes into our mind is being thought about by our mind throughout the entire night, even while we're asleep.

Like you want to accelerate the gospel transformation, enzymes dripping.

Read a psalm or two before you go to sleep at night and let that be the last thing instead of whatever you were previously thinking about.

And it's not hard to look at the Bible and take the Bible on its own terms about what it will do for you.

Like Psalm 119, verse 11.

Psalms 119:11

The Psalm says, I've hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.

Psalm 119, 105, your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

James 1.21, the implanted word received in your heart is able to save your soul.

Colossians 3, 16, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.

Deuteronomy 8.3, man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.

John 17, 17, what did Jesus pray?

Father, sanctify them in truth, change them in truth, transform them in truth.

And what comes right after that?

Your word is truth.

So it's not hard to hear what the Bible says about the Bible and how you change.

It's like, yes, this is where it's at.

But just in case that wasn't enough for you.

I saw a study recently from the Institute of Biblical Research.

They studied, I I think it said 200,000 people.

That's an enormous study.

And here's what they said about engaging with God's Word and the change it brings.

If you read God's word once a week, statistically, across the people they studied, it does almost nothing.

Don't mean to discourage you on that.

It's gonna have to be more robust than that.

If you read God's word two to three times a week in the people they studied, it was a negligible change.

Maybe a little bit, but not very much.

But when you cross a threshold according to this study of reading four or more times a week, catch these statistics of what they observed.

Among people reading their Bible more than four times a week, 228% more likely to share their faith.

407% more likely to memorize scripture.

I don't mean to overcomplicate things here, but the basic idea is when the majority input is the word instead of the world, the gospel enzymes in your mind will do their work and you will be transformed.

And it won't be fast, it won't be immediate, it's gonna take effort, but there's a real and beautiful change that God intends for you.

Robust engagement with God's Word.

That's the first actionable strategy.

Here's the second one.

Intentionally speak counterthoughts.

Intentionally speak counterthoughts.

So in a world that's marked by constant messaging, put yourself at the center, be true to yourself, you do you.

Your feelings are the most significant thing about you.

Guys, it is going to take regular, intentional counterthoughts being developed and spoken by you to counteract that messaging because it is everywhere.

It's everywhere.

Maybe you want to do a series of morning prayers, morning declarations.

Like one of the ones that I go to a lot in the mornings is, Lord, I need mercy today.

I need mercy today.

Lord, help me to remember I never graduate from Mercy University.

There are no graduates from that university.

Everyone needs daily transforming mercy.

And over time it will deliver you from your self-righteousness and looking down on others and wondering why they're such failures.

And then I'm gonna go to another truth.

I'm gonna preach it to myself every single day.

God, nothing I do can increase or decrease your love for me.

There's nothing I can do to get more or less mercy out of you.

You love to show mercy, and it's gonna deliver me from self-loathing and hating myself because I feel like a failure.

I'm gonna remind myself of that every single day.

Maybe another one.

Daily prayer.

I am not my own.

Lord, I know I am not my own.

I belong to you.

I have everything I need in you.

Lord, you are all I need for everlasting joy.

Today it feels like I need this thing and this thing and this thing for joy.

I know you're all I need, God.

You're gonna intentionally speak counterthoughts to get against the messaging of our culture.

Third, final, actionable item.

You're gonna actively build thick relationships.

Actively build thick relationships, excuse me.

Here I'm borrowing from the rest of Romans 12, but what we're gonna see in the coming weeks is there is an intensely communal nature to the Christian life.

Christian faith is always personal, it's never private.

You are made for community.

If you're a Christian, God has made you a new person and he's placed you in a new people.

You are meant to be bonded to others within a local church, joining that church, saying we are locking arms, following Jesus together.

Look, there's tons of talk everywhere about how AI is changing the world, right?

How's it gonna change your business?

Are you gonna have a job in three, five, ten years?

How's it gonna change the church?

Let me tell you the number one way I think AI is gonna change the church.

It's gonna force us to double down on being intensely relational.

Because there are relational joys and sorrows that you're created for as an image bearer of God that AI can never touch, that God created the local church in that way for your good and for his glory, and it will push us back to what we are required to be.

So let's get after it together, recognizing we all have blind spots.

Right?

You're driving down the highway.

You can have all the mirrors, but sometimes you just need somebody to look and say, Is there a car in my blind spot?

Spiritually, you need friends like that.

You need friends who will call you out.

You need friends who will stick with you when you fall and are willing to show grace on your bad days, not just your good days.

And my experience in the church is that lots of people think of having friends in the church.

And lots of people do, but to develop that kind of depth where you're willing to speak out when you see someone, see something in someone else's life, and you're willing to extend grace when somebody keeps tripping in the same way, it's pretty difficult to do.

It requires us actively investing.

So I'm building thick relationships, not based on performance, but on grace, on God's mercy to bear one of those burdens and love.

But my mind is renewed when I actively engage with scripture in a robust way.

And as I speak counterthoughts, and as I lock arms with other Christians, and I follow Jesus with them, and I have them speaking into my mind like Justin, that way of thinking, the way you're speaking of your wife is not God honoring their, is a way of renewing my mind.

Do you have people like that?

If not, actively get started in building these thick relationships that we will unpack over the next several weeks.

The gospel transforms all of life.

And these enzymes are dripping.

And we come back every day saying, Lord, I can't change myself.

I can't produce that in myself.

I'm going to give my best effort today, but I need your enzymes to do the work in me.

Father, we need your help.

Would you guide us?

Would you strengthen us?

Will you produce in us what we cannot produce in ourselves?

Would you change our desires?

Would you give strength where we lack?

And would you turn us as a people into a beautiful butterfly that is for our good, but also for your glory?

Would you produce that kind of transformation in your kindness and in your power?

We ask you to work mightily in Jesus' name.