Re-Energize Your Mind - Romans: Book of Revolution

Hey, I'm Pastor Steve Hole.

I want to empower you today to walk in your true identity as a worshiper and warrior.

Today, embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.

Welcome to the Born for War podcast.

A poll conducted at the end of 2022 by the American Psychiatric Association, APA, found that about two out of every five Americans rated their mental health as fair or poor.

The three top areas where Americans feel the most anxious: 70% are worried about the safety of their families.

68% are anxious about the safety of their identity, and 66% are fearful for their health.

The rapid increase in depression due to anxiety is at an all-time high.

The National Institute of Health, NIH, have found that over 21 million Americans struggle with some form of depression, with the highest number being youth between the ages of 18 to 25 years old.

Never have so many people been diagnosed with panic, agoraphobia, social separation, anxiety disorders.

The mental health and counseling systems are on overload in America.

Fifty years ago, the mean onset of depression was 29.5 years old.

Today, it is 14.5 years old.

In America, we have an anxiety epidemic.

And it's impacting our health, our marriages, our jobs, and our relationships.

There are exceptions to that.

So I want to look at a scatter plot diagram.

You that do research may know this diagram.

This is when they, whenever anybody does a survey or they're trying to figure out what's the average, this is what they're looking for in a scatter dot diagram by which average people on whatever they're being studied for fall into groupings on the X and Y axis, but then you see the red dot.

This is always true.

There's always an outlier or two, below or above.

And if you're doing research, you're looking for an average, and so the outlier is cast out.

You don't count the outlier because either your form of measurement is wrong in that case, or it messes up what you're trying to do.

And so you don't want to count them.

So they get cast out, and you're always looking for averages.

And that's the stats I just gave you would be an example of a scatterplot diagram where they came up with the percentages that they had based on what's average.

I call this the cult of the average.

So the cult of the average drives our education, the cult of the average drives politics.

The cult of the average actually drives the church.

So we've had a movement for the last 30 years in America called the seeker movement, the seeker church movement, and that's based on a scatterplot diagram of what's average that people want to hear.

So if you have heard guys on podcasts or YouTube, preachers and stuff, and you listen to them, and maybe you're one who also listens to messages on leadership, messages related to how to live a better life, and then you listen to the pastors in this kind of grouping, you might find yourself saying, Well, they sound exactly the same.

In other words, the motivational speaker that might be speaks a certain way, and then you have pastors that speak it a similar way.

That would be based on what the analysis was of the scatterplot diagram.

Well, one of my favorite passages in scripture, and if you come to the road for very long, you're gonna hear me say it incessantly, is John 10.10.

The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy, but I came that you might have life and might have it abundantly.

Well, the reason I love John 10.10 so much, it's one of my top 10 verses in the Bible, is because Jesus is saying that there's an abundant, joyful kingdom of God life that's different than what Satan wants you to have.

So, you're still looking at the scatter plot diagram.

I believe that Jesus is calling us to be outliers.

That Jesus is calling us to move past the average, not be an average Christian.

I have zero interest in being an average church in America.

Because the average church in America is not doing very much.

God wants you, as individual believers, to walk into your workplace, to come into your family and be outlier, not natural, but supernatural, abundant life, kingdom-seeking men and women that make an impact.

That you're an outlier.

And as an outlier, we are constantly challenging each other here at the road.

I mean, we were outliers yesterday.

We went to these two dilapidated houses in this neighborhood in one of the rougher neighborhoods in our city, and we cut the grass and we cut wood and we redid the house and we painted it and we gave it our all for like eight hours.

And it looks beautiful now.

Who does that?

I mean, even the owners were like, who does this?

How do we sign up, you know?

And then we had other people from the neighborhood coming up going, Can you do my house?

You know?

Because we're being outliers.

Nobody does that.

We do that.

We need to be people who walk in the grace and the power of the Holy Spirit and this abundant life that God has for us, not being average, but walking in the supernatural outlier presence of the kingdom of God in our lives.

And so let's show the diagram again.

So in this diagram, this is the goal of our church.

This is what we're about.

This is why Jesus came, is that we are kingdom of God outliers, disciples of Jesus, and we pull people up.

We don't push people down.

We're lifting people up by our lives.

We want to walk into our jobs and our families and the things that we do in such a way that people go, I want to be like that.

There's something different about that person.

That person, oh yeah, they're kind of religious.

Well, okay, well, I kind of like their religion because there's something different about them.

There's not a negativity like everybody else has.

There's a positivity, there's a happiness in joy.

The results of over 200 scientific studies on nearly 275,000 people found that joy and happiness leads to success.

Let me read that again.

200, 200 scientific studies on 275,000 people found that people who are joyful and happy become successful, not the other way around.

It wasn't that success made them joyful and happy, it was that they had joy and happy and it made them successful.

Sean Accor, in his book, The Happiness Advantage, he's a Harvard professor, writes quote, data abounds showing happy workers, joyful workers, have higher levels of protectives, produce higher sales, perform better in leadership positions, and receive higher performance ratings and higher pay.

Now, you say, well, Steve, you're kind of using happiness and joy, the same.

Let me explain the difference.

From positive psychology, they talk a lot about happiness.

Now, the reason I like Sean Accor in the work that he's done and the books that he's read, and by the way, my third habit in my book is be a truth seeker.

So when you hear me quoting things sociological and psychology, I believe the kingdom's there too.

Now, you don't worship at the altar of psychology, not by any means.

I'm not a Freudian psychologist by any means.

But what I'm saying is there's truth there that are elements, okay?

Elements and characteristics of the kingdom of God.

And you're remiss if you cast it all out because it's not straight from the Bible.

The Bible actually is found in what we see in many of the studies to be true because the Bible is the truth for all time.

Does that make sense?

So, here's what I say is the difference.

Happiness is often viewed as something that is external.

So we see happiness based in getting that job, getting that promotion, having good kids, having healthy kids, whatever it might be, your health would make you happy.

I'm gonna switch it a little bit and say that joy is something that's inner.

It's from the kingdom of God order.

It's the order of the kingdom of God within.

So my thesis would be that the more joyful you are in Christ, the more happy you are in your life.

So, in other words, that's what Sean accorded.

That's when I started reading his stuff and go, well, look, that's kingdom stuff.

And he might even be a believer, I don't know.

But what I love about it is the fact that they're finding that even if your life is in shambles on the outside, if you begin to get your heart right, if you begin to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you, that gradually, over time, the joy within becomes the happiness without.

In other words, it makes an impact in our lives.

So here's my thesis for today.

My thesis for today is that people who re-energize their mind and life according to the order of the kingdom of God are the most happy, most joyful, most fulfilled people on the planet.

So turn to Romans 12.

That's where we are.

We've done 25 messages in Romans 1 through 11.

And now we're coming to the most practical part of the book of Romans.

So the next couple months, as we finish up Romans, we're building on everything that we learned in Romans 1 through 11, which is theologically the deepest part of the Bible.

And what we've been picking up is that we walk by faith, not by works.

So some of you may have come out of church backgrounds where the emphasis was constantly on being in church, going to church, doing this and doing that.

And instead of walking by faith, and that the results of a joyful life results in those things.

In other words, you don't make the emphasis the law, but you follow the law because the emphasis is your heart.

So seeking the kingdom.

So, typical of Paul and all of his epistles, the first part's theological.

The first part is he's laying a foundation for us to understand.

But now, 12 through 16, the rest of Romans is how do you work that out?

How do you walk by faith?

And so we pick it up in verse 1, and it's like an amazing bridge.

This is like an amazing bridge.

Remember, he's writing to Jews and to Gentiles.

He's writing to both.

So he's been talking incessantly.

You probably got tired of hearing this all these many months we've been doing this.

The law, the law, the law.

And how do we walk out the law?

Not by actually focusing on the law, but focusing on the grace and the power of Jesus Christ.

The life, death, and resurrection of Christ, we fulfill the law through a new law, which is the law of love.

And that's what he's going to talk about in the last five chapters.

But this is how he makes the transition, the bridge.

I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that means the love of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

So in verse 1, he's taking that messianic view of temple sacrifice.

He's saying, just as the Jews sacrificed, they killed a physical animal, they killed that lamb, they killed that bird, they offered it on the altar before the Lord, you're now the sacrifice.

It's not that you sacrifice something outside of you, you're the sacrifice.

You and I are the sacrifice.

We come and we lay ourselves out on the altar, not as a dead sacrifice, but as a living sacrifice.

Someone said one time that the problem with a living sacrifice, it keeps crawling off the altar.

And so we tend to do that, right?

And so it is that living entity of our lives, of living the kingdom of God.

We're the new Israel.

The new Israel is the believer.

What we see, what I like to say to people, is that it's Old Testament concealed, New Testament revealed.

So what's concealed in archetypes in the Old Testament comes into reality in the New Testament.

And so that the sacrifice of Christ came through a type of sacrifice of an unblemished lamb in the festivals of Israel that then became and came to truism, that came to a reality of the kingdom of God through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And so it is here.

He's making this transition to us.

You're now, you're now the living sacrifice.

You offer everything to Jesus.

Not just your spirit, not just your religious life.

I want everything.

I want it mentally, I want it emotionally, I want it spiritually, and I even want it physically.

I want everything as a holy, living, not dead, living sacrifice unto God by the mercies of God.

It's a new law.

It's the law of love.

Romans 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, the law of love will flow through there in the weeks to come.

You're going to hear the new law is not the Mosaic law.

The new law is the law of love.

That's outlier Christianity.

That's outlier discipleship.

As I said, my third habit is be a true seeker.

The beauty of being a true seeker is that you're smarter than everybody else.

Okay, that's one good thing.

The problem with being a true seeker is that you get prideful and arrogant about it.

So how do we stay humble with what we know to be true by being a truth seeker?

The answer is lie.

We're always looking at those.

And you know, you know, it was interesting yesterday with painting houses and all that, neighborhoods, neighbors coming over, and a lot of different folks with different socioeconomic backgrounds.

And our responsibility there was to exhibit Jesus, to be Jesus to those that were there.

And it was exciting to do.

And I think we were definitely outliers in the hood.

But Iranius, the great church father, said, a man fully alive is the glory of God.

A man fully alive is the glory of God.

If I were to give a thesis statement, besides this a being wholehearted about wilderness encounter coming up, that's it.

I love that quote.

You've seen it in my book.

Iranius, the church father, saying, Man fully alive is the glory of God.

That's what we want every time we do a wholehearted dance.

That's what we want to do on Tuesday morning.

That's what we want to do with Wilderness Encounter.

We want you men to come back more fully alive.

Because you see, the more you're connected to yourself emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, the more alive you are.

Because you come under the Kingdom of God order.

The order of the kingdom of God always works.

The best doctor to go see with your anxiety is Dr.

Jesus.

He has the answer.

The Kingdom of God order lined up.

That's why he said.

Quite interesting.

So don't go there.

It'll make this message go too long.

It's already gonna be too long.

But write down Matthew 6, 25 through 33.

Matthew 6, 25 through 33.

And what Jesus is saying in the Sermon on the Mount is that you're also anxious.

You're all mentally in anguish right now.

You worry about clothing, you worry about material things, you compare yourself to others, all those things.

And then he says at the end of that, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

And then he says, all these things shall be added unto you.

So the context is that the things that you worry about, God will line up if you'll get the primary primary.

Quit focusing on the secondary, because when you focus on the secondary, you never get to the primary.

But if you'll focus on the primary, I'll line up the secondary.

So here's the way the message writes it.

I like this.

If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers, most of which are never even seen, don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you?

What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting stuff.

That's a great line.

So you can respond to the giving of God.

Instead of getting, receive what God has for you.

People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over such things.

But you know both God and how he works.

Steep your life in God reality, God initiative, God provisions.

Don't worry about missing out.

You'll find out your everyday human concerns will be met by God.

So when we give ourselves, our hearts and our minds to seeking the kingdom first, then the thesis that I'm giving becomes true.

So here's my thesis again.

My thesis is that people who re-energize their mind and life according to the order of the kingdom of God are the most happy, most joyful, most fulfilled people on the planet.

And the love of God is poured into our hearts, and God begins to transform us to be this living sacrifice that God wants us to be.

So now let's read verse 2 again.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

I mean, this is the question, right?

This is always the question.

It's the number one question of every pastor.

How do I know God's will?

I was with one of our young men, and we were painting yesterday on this house with the Springs Initiative, and he said, Can I ask you a theological question?

I said, Yes, everyone wants to ask me that.

But his was easy.

He said, How do I know God's will?

I mean, it was basically, how what is the, I think he would say, I think he would, he might rephrase it this way, he would say, What's the contrast of the free will of God and knowing the will of God?

And that's like, that's the question, right?

Well, he's saying it right here.

He's saying, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove, you may prove, what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Now, write this down.

This is really important.

You don't discover God's will.

You do not discover God's will, you become God's will.

That's what he's saying.

You become God's will.

So, church, here's what he's saying.

He's saying that if you'll transform your mind by the re-energizing of the way you think, not conforming to the world, you'll discover the perfect will of God.

And so this is really important.

Don't miss this.

It doesn't matter what the government does, it doesn't matter who wins the next election.

As important as all that is, and please, you know, vote.

You guys know at this church would tell you to vote.

But nobody, at least at this point so far, can change the choices you make about either being conformed to the ways and the structures and the interests and the disorder of this world.

Or re-energizing, reoxygenating your brain every day by renewing your mind to discover the perfect will of God.

You become the will of God by re-energizing your mind, rethinking how you think.

So I'm going to do something today.

This is a very, this is going to be some negative thoughts today.

Everybody smile.

Okay.

So we're going to do some negative thoughts because I feel like when I've heard messages on Romans 12, 1 and 2, I never hear anybody talking about being conform to this world.

I always hear about transforming your mind.

We'll get into transforming the mind a little bit today, but I do want to just go into being conform to this world because that precedes the other.

So I want to give you two thoughts here.

Number one, you have two thoughts, two choices with your mind.

Number one, conform to this world system.

You can choose to be conform to this world system.

Actually, the word here means the schemata, the schemes of this world.

Now, everybody look at me.

That's what most people are doing.

That's what most American Christians are doing.

Just look at our world.

If you have 65% or 70%, according to which survey you look at, people say, I'm a Christian, and then we look at the moral laxity in our culture, that would say to me that most Christians, those who call themselves Christians, and that's a misnomer in itself, probably.

Most people probably aren't saved who say they are, is they're conforming to this world.

They're conforming to the systems of this world.

They're in the scatter plot diagram, average.

So I'm not going to ask for a show of hands.

So don't raise your hand when I say this.

But who wants to be average?

I mean, do you want to just have an average life with an average lifestyle and go to an average church and have average kids and die an average person?

Or is God calling us to be raised up as a people that are outlier believers, that are seeking first the kingdom of God with all the joy of the abundant life that Christ promises and commands us to discover.

Because if you want the average life, don't come here.

Don't come to this church.

Go to an average church.

I want to live a supernatural life.

Raise your hand if you want to live a supernatural life.

Good.

We're at the right place.

Now, jot down for me 1 John 2.15.

1 John 2.15.

So the first thing is conform to this world system.

Or, number two, is to be transformed by the re-energizing of our mind according to God's kingdom order.

Now, here's my thesis.

My thesis is that the world system always leads to disorder.

Always leads to disorder because it's breaking kingdom laws.

Now listen, it's important.

You don't break kingdom laws, kingdom laws break you.

If you have sex with every man and woman out there, you're probably gonna get a disease.

You're probably gonna get an SDI.

You're probably gonna start having all kinds of issues in your body because of sexual contact with so many people.

So immoral living brings disorder.

If you're a perpetual liar and you really dig lying a lot, and you get up in the morning and you think about the next lie that you can come up with that makes you look good, makes others look stupid, you will start having a disordered life because you'll forget who you lied to.

It's a real bummer.

Politicians have the problem all the time because they lie so much.

So they live a disordered life because they said this, and then someone points it out that, well, you said this, or you wrote this article before, and then they go, well, that was different back then.

But if you seek first a kingdom and you become an honest person and you're living a moral kingdom life, there's order now.

Physiologically, you're healthier, mentally, you're healthier.

Emotionally, you're healthier.

I kind of like that kind of life.

So here's some of the qualities or features of the disordered world system.

This is what 1 John 2.15 says.

Do not love the world or the things of the world.

And I with parenthetics is a disorder.

Disorder.

If anyone loves the world, disorder, the love of the Father is not in him.

For all that is in the world, disorder, the lust, and here he gives three features.

The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life.

This translation is the pride of life is not of the father, but is of the disorder of the world.

So here's the features.

And I'm going to move through these fast.

Number one, lust of the flesh.

The etymology of lust means to be hot after something.

So the lust of the flesh is not just sexual, it could even be being a glutton with food.

This is what Barclay's commentary defined, lust of the flesh.

Gluttonous in food, slavish in pleasure, lustful and lax in morals, selfish in the use of possessions, regardless of all the spiritual values, extravagant in the gratification of material desires.

Now John Calvin writes, when worldly men desiring to live soft and delicate lives are intent on their own convenience.

That's me sometimes, right?

So Calvin always goes really hardcore, man.

I don't know if I would have gone to his church if I was in Geneva.

But he's saying this desire to live a soft and delicate life.

A life of everything being convenient for you.

Isn't that the American way?

Right?

So that's the lust of the flesh.

We've got to be careful.

Lust of the eyes, number two.

In Scripture, the eyes are the primary organ of perception and often the principal avenue of temptation.

And we see that in the case of David with Bathsheba, where David sees her, lust of the eyes, that then leads to having sexual relations with her.

It's something that incites covetousness, jealousy, or sexual lust.

Proverbs, I mean Job 31, 1, I have made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully on a woman.

So this is a big struggle for men, but it's a different struggle for women.

It's where you see another beautiful woman and you compare yourself with her.

Or you look at the clothing that certain people wear and you want and you long for that, or you get magazines so you can kind of that's the lust of the eyes.

And I'm not saying don't wear makeup, okay?

I'm not saying that.

The reason I say that is because makeup's good.

Makeup's good.

Okay.

Right?

Okay.

Lust of the eyes.

Okay, number three.

This is probably, this is, I think these are, I actually think these are building on each other.

There's a lust of flesh, lust of the eyes, but then he says, pride of life.

The desire in every human being to be his or her own God.

Arrogance, self-promotion, and greed all stem from the pride of life.

It describes that arrogant spirit of self-sufficiency.

It expresses the desire for recognition, applause, status, and advantage in life.

The phrase describes the pride in what life can offer you.

The word in Greek translated pride describes a bragger, somebody who brags a lot.

We call it among men, we're talking about whole-hearted men, we talk about being a poser.

Church is full of posers.

And they're the ones who want to tell you about how great they are, all the books they've written, or the conference they've spoken at, or whatever.

The internet is full of it.

The back of books on the biography is pride of life right there.

So it's a struggle for all of us in this room.

That's being conformed to this world.

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

That's how you prove what is the good and acceptable, perfect will of God.

So live.

Remember, abundant life, abundant living, Jesus said, spelled backwards, is evil.

Because when we're conforming to the world, it's evil for you.

It's evil for me.

Because it's like leprosy.

It's like a physical, mental, emotional leprosy.

So right now you're we're walking around with 5G.

We've got waves of electricity and power flowing through here that are causing some people to lose their minds.

We are eating food laced with pharmaceuticals.

It's coming into our system and it's destroying us physically and emotionally.

Like yesterday we were, I was weed eating this yard for this at the house that we were at, and I heard this woman say that her husband was a master gardener.

Well, that's interesting.

So we started talking, and then he shared that if you take white vinegar and you spray white vinegar on grass or weeds, it kills it.

Why do we not know that?

Because Monsanto makes Roundup.

And we know that if you are walking in your barefoot where Roundup has been sprayed, that gets into your system.

That affects you.

That's the world's system made out of greed.

God's system, vinegar.

By the way, vinegar is like the coolest thing.

I mean, vinegar cleans almost anything.

I don't know.

Vinegar, I mean, we're using it in a dishwasher, you're always using vinegar.

That's a part of God's natural flow.

You see what I'm saying about the kingdom order?

It all works together for good.

Well, this is all I'm gonna have time for today, is step one.

Now I'll get into the rest next week.

But here's step one to re-energizing your mind.

So this is the one positive statement that I've made.

Re-energize your mind by experiencing Jesus.

Folks, it all starts there.

If you are not experiencing Jesus, you cannot re-energize your mind in the kingdom way.

So we can talk to the cows come home about other things that re-energize the mind, and we will next week.

But this is step one: experiencing Jesus.

Isaiah walks into the temple.

He's in the temple.

He sees the Lord high and lifted up, and he experiences God.

He experienced the pre-incarnate Christ, the vision of that, and then he gets his calling.

And so in our lives, have you experienced Jesus?

Is he truly, have you been born again?

Is he truly your Lord and Savior?

Gotta get that straight.

Because you can't seek the kingdom if you ain't got it.

You experience the kingdom being alive in your heart.

I'm not talking about church.

The road did not go to Calvary for you.

Steve Holt did not go to the road for Calvary.

Jesus did.

Jesus is the beginning of new life.

Jesus is the beginning of the abundant life.

And I want to say, settle that one.

You gotta settle that one.

Have you opened your heart?

Have you become a living and holy sacrifice and given your heart and your mind and your spirit and your emotions to Jesus.

Give it fully to him and then seek the kingdom.

And God will start lining up the secondary because you've made the primary the primary in your life.

Thank you for listening to the Born for War podcast.

We hope today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.

To connect with Pastor Steve's sermons, books, and blog, visit Steve Holtonline.org.

God bless.