Divided Hearts Settle Through Undivided Worship | Romans 12:1-2

Made it a little bit easier to wake up this morning.

You know, little, little sunshine in my steps.

If if I was in a musical right now, that the soundtrack would

be awesome. Let me put it that way.

It's good to be here. It's going to be back here.

I mean, last week we were my wife, Maddie and I and many of

our college student leaders and students, we were over in Iowa,

the urban heavyweight known as Des Moines.

That's who we were. And there was 7500 college

students gathered to do what we just did, to sing the name of

Jesus and to hear his word preached that they would be

mobilized for the mission of God on planet earth.

And it was just so amazing to see college students for every

tribe, tongue and nation from all across our nation to say

Jesus Christ is King. And they're coming from schools

like Florida and from Oregon, from Syracuse and Iowa State and

Dallas, TX, at Denton University of North Texas.

I mean, we're coming from all over the country united under

one name, which is Jesus Christ. And we are a part of that

movement here in the Salt Network.

We are about seeing the the gospel advance in the next

generation. And I am so excited to see what

he does here at ASU in 2026. We're praying big things.

I'm not just here to celebrate with you what's happening in New

Year. I want to actually preach God's

Word to you. So if you could turn your Bibles

to Romans chapter 12. We're going to be starting a new

Romans 12 · chapter mention

series this morning just for the month of January.

That in a world that is super anxious and worried and

stressed, what actually anchors us?

What actually settles us in the middle of a turbulent world?

What actually gets people to be steady when life is unsteady?

I think the Bible has some things to say about that.

I think that that Scripture is going to be helpful for us in

seeing what it's like to live the life God intended.

It's interesting how the turn of a New Year's calendar can make

you painfully aware of how much you want to be like everybody

else. You know you'll listen like 1:00

to 10:00. Ask yourself this question one

to 10. How much pressure do you feel

this year to be like somebody else?

Certainly not everybody else. Like I'm not waking up this

morning wishing I was a Packer fan.

You know, that's not me, but I am.

I have considerations, right? I'm thinking to myself, hey, how

can I be more like this dad or this husband?

How can I take care of my body in this way?

How can I take care of my finances like them?

How can I dress like them? Maybe you are less socially

inclined. You're like, you know what?

I actually don't look at people and go, I want to be like them.

I kind of want to stand out. Maybe you're more individualist

in nature, but I guarantee you have people that you look to and

respect, people that you follow on social media, people that you

see at work that you're like, man, I just want to be more like

them. And that's a pressure that we

feel each and every week. And it provokes insecurity,

fear, jealousy, greed, envy. It's a pressure.

Pressure to vacation like they do, dress like they do, work

like they do, live in a house like they do, date like they do,

be married like they do. That pressure is exhausting and

it's anxiety inducing. That pressure is not meant to

bear the weight of your life and your soul.

That pressure divides your heart.

That pressure to look out at what everybody else has and what

they are doing and what they are like.

It's crushing. We're in this series called

Undivided, which is for you younger folks in the room, it's

going to be looking at mental health.

Us older folk might say it's just our stress.

We haven't said the word mental health is often, but it is

common. It's the we're all talking about

the same thing. It's like, hey, how can I go

about the stress and anxiety and the worries of this world?

How can I do that and be steady and strong?

How can my life be settled? Because the temptation each of

us face every single week is we'll slice up life like a

pizza. We have our family slice and our

work slice, our church slice and our money slice.

But God isn't intended to be a portion or a slice of your life.

He's meant to hold the whole thing together for you.

And if he is only a portion of your life, you'll experience the

woes of building your life on something other than God.

If God is just a piece of your life, you won't actually

experience the peace He wants you to experience in 2026,

because the divided heart brings in brings an anxious life, but a

undivided life brings a settled, peaceful heart.

So I want to help show you through God's Word what it's

like to make God everything about your life, what it's like

to make him more than a peace, but the thing you're the

epicenter which you orbit your life around.

I think Romans 12/1 and 2 is going to be helpful for that.

We're in the book of Romans, and the book has a premise.

In case you're unfamiliar, Paul wrote this book to a church in

Rome and he's writing to them saying, hey, all of humanity has

a big problem. It's called a worship problem.

We have a worship problem. We worship created things rather

than the Creator. We try to worship ourselves and

all our doings and our achievements and say, Hey, God,

look at me and all the greatness I bring to the table, and would

you just look at me and save me? But that's actually contrary to

the gospel. And he says, hey, guess what?

All that working, all that striving, all of that obedience,

guess what? It's not enough to save.

And so the book in these problems of worship, it kind of

hinges around for their force for therefore is in the book of

Romans, the first one is in verse chapter 3, verse 20.

And it talks about how all the world stands condemned under the

law that your righteousness is not going to be enough to get

you into heaven, That if you got to heaven tonight and God's

like, hey, why should I let you in?

And you said, hey, look at all the good things I've done.

That's not going to cut it. That's not the ticket because

your righteousness is insufficient.

So he says in 320, therefore we all are under wrath.

Then you move to chapter 5 and it's the therefore of

justification that we have been justified by Christ and his

righteousness and now we can have peace with God.

Then you have Romans chapter 8 verse one, which is therefore

Romans 8 · chapter mention

now there is no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ

Jesus. That's three.

Therefore is going from condemnation to justification to

the assurance of not being condemned anymore.

But now we get to chapter 12 verse one, and Paul is

reflecting on all those mercies of Romans one through 11 and

he's saying, look at what God has done.

And then he writes this Romans chapter 12 verse one says this,

Romans 12 · chapter mention

I appeal to you. Therefore, I urge you, I'm

pleading with you as emphatically as I can tell you

this, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies

as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your

spiritual worship. Verse 2, Do not be conformed to

this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that

by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good

and acceptable and perfect. These are God's words for us

today. I want to help you grab hold of

them for your life in the form of a big idea.

This is the sermon in a sentence.

If you like to take notes, I hope you jot this down.

It's this that divided hearts settle through undivided

worship. Divided hearts settle through

undivided worship. That if we're not giving God our

whole selves, if we're giving him just a component or a peace

or a part of our life, our hearts are going to grow

anxious. They're going to going to grow

weary and worried, but God saying here to us in Romans

Romans 12 · chapter mention

chapter 12 verses one and two that divided hearts will settle

through an undivided worship. If we would offer our whole

selves to God, we will find the peace that he has promised.

So I want to give it to you three ways to offer your whole

self today. The 1st is this, that if I give

God my whole self when my body is a sacrifice.

Here's how you know you're giving God your whole self and

not just a part of your life. First, I give God my whole self

when my body is a sacrifice. Do you see that there in the

text? I appeal to you.

Therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, you consider all

that God has done to move you from being condemned by your sin

to being justified by faith. God's mercy is the Vista with

which you're looking at your life.

You look at God's mercy towards you, His withholding of His

wrath and His judgment against you, and then what do you do?

You present your bodies as a sacrifice.

That's a good thing to write down.

Your body is a sacrifice. That's a spiritual truth.

Your body, it's constantly being offered to someone or something

in worship. You were made to do that.

It's just who is the audience of your worship is the question.

Your body is a sacrifice. Now, what comes to mind when you

think of the word sacrifice? Do you think of animals on an

altar? Maybe you think of like a

sacrifice bunt in baseball. Maybe you're like like a total

sports pro in that way. And the first thing that comes

to mind for you is baseball when you hear the word sacrifice.

Or maybe you think of like Ron Weasley and Harry Potter, like

he's going to sacrifice himself. Like you think of that, or you

might be thinking similarly to how the Romans thought altars,

temples, priests and blood. That's when they hear the word

sacrifice. That's what they think too.

But like, hey, this is going to require blood.

It's going to require a temple, it's going to require an altar.

That's how they thought about it too.

In the Greek Roman world, people would have had those similar

thoughts. But Paul is redefining it for us

here as a Christian that there's three characteristics of a

sacrifice. He wants you to see.

So you see that word living. That's not just a living

sacrifice, it's actually wants you to think of the sacrifice as

three pieces, living, holy and acceptable.

See that in your Bible? That's the kind of sacrifice

your body is supposed to be living sacrifice, a holy

sacrifice and an acceptable sacrifice.

Now let's look at that first one.

Living sacrifice. That feels a bit like an

oxymoron, does it? Not?

Like jumbo shrimp or man child, right?

Or maybe even good coffee. Yeah, somebody like, wow, that

guy's putting coffee on a blast. I don't like it.

I'm sorry. Living sacrifice is

intentionally an oxymoron because in the Old Testament

sacrifices were dead, and in the New Testament sacrifices, us are

alive. That's a shift.

That's a shift in Christian sacrifice, that we are a living,

breathing, alive sacrifice unto God.

We are not only a living sacrifice, we are a holy

sacrifice. That means we are set apart from

sin, that we go about our everyday lives hunting down,

chasing, removing the cancer, the tumor that is in US called

sin because it is destroying us from the inside out.

And because God is holy, we are called to be like Him in

holiness because His Spirit lives in us.

We are crushing sin at every turn we can.

We hate it because it put our Savior on a cross.

So we are living. We are holy sacrifices set apart

from sin, and we are acceptable. Which means it is well pleasing

to God that there are sacrifices some of you are making to God

right now that aren't acceptable because they're not actually the

offering God wants. That's something you go about

your life and the unacceptable sacrifices.

You're saying, hey Lord, look at all the good I am doing and you

look at him and go, God, look at me and how awesome I am.

Look at all the people that are following me.

Look at all the accolades I've achieved.

That's not what that's not God's economy for this a holy and

acceptable sacrifice, sacrifice that's well pleasing is simply

this obedience. Are you doing what God has said?

That's what's well pleasing to God.

If you are stuck living in unrepentant sin, you are not

holy and you are not offering a well pleasing sacrifice, holy,

acceptable, living. These are worship.

You see that in your Bible there, a sacrifice that's

living, holy and acceptable, which is your spiritual worship.

You might have another translation of the Bible there

that's talking about true worship or even reasonable

worship, depending on your translation.

They're all getting at this idea that worship goes beyond just

singing. It is not less than singing like

what we just did is worship. Certainly that is the narrowest

sense of the word. What Paul is doing for us here,

that our sacrifice, our living wholly and acceptable worship to

him is the broadest sense of worship.

It is offering your whole self to God.

That's what he's saying. Not just your lips in praise,

not just that part of your body, but you wake up every single day

consumed and captivated by Christ.

You worship Him. You offer your whole self to

God. Hey, I'm going into that meeting

as a representative of God. Hey, I'm parenting this

bickering match between my kids as an offering to God.

I'm opening up my Bible in the morning as an offering to God.

I'm driving this car as an offering to God.

Everywhere you go, everything you do is meant to be worship

unto God. Whatever it is, whether you eat

or you drink, it's meant to be done unto God.

And the only proper response to God's grace and His love and His

mercy for you in Christ, the only reasonable, true and

spiritual response is that your whole life and whole heart

belong to Him. Member, I appeal to you.

Therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, what God has

done for you has changed you completely, that you are not

your own anymore because you were bought with a price.

And now Christian, guess what? You can't help but see what

Christ has done and you can't help but live like He lived as a

living, holy and acceptable sacrifice.

Because Christ doesn't just want a piece of your life, He wants

the whole you. He doesn't just deserve a piece

of your life, He wants the whole you.

And we understand the difference between giving a part of

ourselves and our whole selves. Now imagine for a moment you're

in a relationship or you're married.

Let's stick with a marriage one for the sake of the

illustration. And if I got home today and I

told my wife, hey, you have 12 minutes of emotional connection

today. That's it.

That's the only part of my that's the only part of my heart

you're getting today. 12 minutes.

You know why I don't have time for that.

That'd be pretty, pretty aggressive, wouldn't it?

How well would that go for me? Not good.

Or if I said, hey, you know what, my body has a limit and I

will no longer be taking out the trash.

You get a part of my body, you don't get all of it.

You can have my attention for 12 minutes, but you know what?

I'm not taking out the trash. I'm not going to serve you in

that way. Or to flip the illustration,

hey, if your wives fellas told you know what, you can hold my

hand and that's all you're getting from me physically

forever, That holding back parts of yourself would undermine the

unity that God intends. That that relationship is meant

to be an offering of your whole self and body and mind and

heart. Holding back would destroy the

relationship. It would hurt it.

And the same is true of our relationship with Christ.

He is worthy. He is deserving of our whole

selves, our whole bodies, physically for him.

And Christ sets the pace for us in this.

This isn't something he's God isn't asking you to do something

he hasn't already done for you. And what's crazy to me is like

if you read the Bible, there's no shot a human being would have

invented a story like this. They wouldn't have invented a

Christ like this, a savior like this.

Only Jesus is like this. And only God could have created

such a divine plan of mercy and grace for us.

Because Romans 12/1 is telling you to present yourself as a

living sacrifice, the very thing Christ did for you.

He lived his life as a complete sacrifice for you, offering his

body in obedience, offering his body with his blood dying on a

cross for us. He lived a life where it cost

him that body and in turn we live lives in return that may

cost us our very selves is why people like Jim Elliott have no

problem dying for Christ is because Christ died for him.

He's like you know what to live is Christ to die is gay.

It does not matter. I want to offer my body as a

sacrifice of worship. So why does this matter?

Where does this hit real life? I want to help you see where God

is calling you to put your body on the altar in 2026.

I just want to walk. Walk through those 3 words.

Living, holy, and acceptable. So where is God calling you to

put your life and your heart on the altar?

Your body first? Maybe it's in the living

category. Here's what I mean by that.

Does God exhilarate you? Like does God exhilarate you?

As thrilling as things can be on earth, is the most thrilled the

thing that makes you most alive? Is it God?

That's a tell tale sign of your worship is God is thrilling to

you. You love him, you're captivated

by Him. You can't help but talk about

Him. Maybe, just maybe, he's calling

for you to put your life in a different category this year and

say, hey, no, Christ is my life and your body would follow suit

in that second holy. Are you setting yourself apart

from sin? Like, are you listening to what

God has said in his word about how to live and conduct

ourselves here on earth in a holy and acceptable way?

And you're saying, hey, I'm putting to death this part of my

life that is sinful. I'm not sleeping with somebody

that is not my spouse. I am not lashing out in anger.

I am not getting greedy when I hear about other things that

people are achieving with their wealth.

Are you putting to death those things in your life?

Holy and acceptable? Acceptable.

I want you to ask this question of yourself.

Has God's mercy shifted your audience in life to pleasing

God? A lot of us are here today,

living a life that's trying to please others.

That your body is a sacrifice to the pressures of this world, to

the pressures of your boss, to the pressures of your parents,

to the pressures of your friends.

Could you just shift your audience to being, hey, what am

I doing today to please God? You give your whole self to God

when your body is a sacrifice. He gets you and your presence,

your physical self. That's not the only component.

Second, I give my God my whole self When second, my mind is

transformed. When my mind is transformed.

Verse 2. Do not be conformed to this

world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.

Conformed is the idea of being fashioned or molded mentally.

I want you to think of like a glass welder, like, like the

people who do those cool Instagram videos that like are

so satisfying to watch. You know, when they're making

glass with their bare hands and blowing in.

There's like all kinds of heat and stuff.

I want you to think like that, that your mind is being

fashioned like that every time you are reading something, every

time an idea is introduced to you, that you begin to believe

things about the world and about God and about yourself.

That can be good or they can be bad.

They're almost never neutral. And you are being conformed.

You are patterning your life after somebody.

When I was 8 years old, I wanted to be nothing other than Benny

the Jet Rodriguez from The Sandlot.

So I wore the cool 2 tone shirt and I wanted to get the PF Flyer

T-shirt like shoes. Like I wanted to be that dude.

Never got his jawline apparently.

But you know, I, I, I, I prayed for it.

You're patterning your life after somebody mentally.

You're like, hey, how am I going to live?

How am I going to think? How am I going to spend money?

How am I going to spend my time? And God is saying, do not be

conformed to how the world tells you to think about the world.

Don't let the world fashion and shape you and pattern you after

it, but rather what does the Bible say?

Be transformed. This is where we get our word

metamorphosis. That you, like a Caterpillar

would become a beautiful butterfly.

Like you would actually have that level of change in your

life that people would not even recognize what you've become

because the Word has changed you so much that you might have been

an angry person and now you are a loving person.

You might have been a cynical person and now you're a person

full of faith. God can do that in your life.

This year. He can take the most anxious

person in this room, the person who thinks there's no way I can

get out of this prison cell and he can set you free.

That is the power of God. He can do it.

So we are not like the world. We want to be like the Word

being transformed by the renewal of your mind, and the world is

not going to let up on pressuring you to be like

itself. It's peddled down from the world

in your ears all the time. Hey, have our things, spend

money our way, solve conflict like we do, lead like we do,

parent like we do. The world is full of

worshippers. Human beings have a worship

problem though. People are often worshipping

stuff rather than the Savior, and the Bible is calling God's

people Saints to not be conformed to the world.

Listen to me St. City, the world will pressure

you to become like itself, but the Word will fashion you to

become like God's Son. You must have the word in your

life. It must be the thing that is

renewing your mind non-stop. That's actually that word

renewal is huge there for understanding why we're talking

about the Bible right now. Do you see that word there in

your Bible? If you are unfamiliar, be

transformed by the renewal of your mind.

That word in your New Testament is always connected to the Holy

Spirit. Whenever you see the word

renewal, I want you to think this is the Spirit's work.

We worship God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit,

and this is His role in changing you from the inside out.

That the word renewal is like new birth, that what was dirty

is now clean. What is old is now new because

of the Spirit and the Spirit's primary agent.

The thing that is God is using to change you the most I'm

holding in my hands. Would you let God renew your

mind this year? Would you resist the temptation

to be fashioned by the world and let God fashion you to be like

him instead? That is the best life, the most

flourishing life possible. That most of your anxiety is

because you're disobeying God. And little by little, day by

day, you can be fashioned into the image of the designer.

I don't know if you like home renovation shows.

I like them as ambient TV in the background where I'm just trying

to like, you know, play a video game on my phone or something

and Maddie just wants to clock in there.

But one of the things I love about it is I love watching the

process. Little by little, day by day,

this, this designer, this architect will come in and they

completely have a new idea to make this thing look brand new.

And there's a process of tools and work being done.

And what I love seeing is at the end of it, you can't even

recognize the old home. Do you realize that God can have

a complete renovation project of your heart?

A complete renovation project of your heart?

Like, you may be prone to losing self-control every time you get

bad news, but you don't have to stay that way.

That you, like a moth to a flame, could pull up your phone

and be drowning in a sea of debt because you're addicted to

gambling, but God can break you free from that.

The architecture of your life is built by what you give your mind

to. You can be a new person,

Christian, You are a new person, and now you can be renewed day

by day, new mercy after new mercy, and your life is moving

in the direction of your strongest thoughts, the things

you believe most about the world, and for the pressure of

this world to fade, for anxious hearts to settle.

For 2026 to be your best year yet, you have to get your mind

renewed by the words that you can discern what ought to happen

tomorrow for your life. So what's this going to mean?

It means St. City, we're going to have to

have less scrolling and more Scripture in 2026.

Less scrolling and more Scripture.

As your pastor, may I just confess something to you?

This is such a hard problem for me, like the dopamine addiction

is real right here in this pulpit.

I wake up and I am ashamed to tell you that.

Well, the first thing I do is I open up my phone and I just

start scrolling and I scroll and I scroll and I scroll in what is

called by our younger friends doom scrolling, right

prophetically stating that doom is upon me, it's coming upon me.

And when I read and when I see and when I have.

And may I just say that I one of the reasons why I'm doom

scrolling instead of opening up my Bible first, I don't actually

believe some of the things God said.

I would say I believe it, I would read it and then I'd say I

believe it and I would try to apply it.

But the reason I'm not actually applying it is because I don't

truly believe it. Here, let me explain for you

that Psalm 19 I want to read for you verse, it says this, that

God's words are more to be desired than gold, even much

fine gold. It's sweeter than the sweetest

thing you could think of, honey. Now I would tell you, I believe

that. But when I wake up in the

morning and the thing I crave 1st is my phone, guess what?

I'm telling my life and my heart that I actually crave something

else more than scripture. And if Scripture is going to

change your life in 2026, you can't just read it, not think

about it or not believe it and then start doing it.

You have to ask yourself the real hard question.

Do I believe this? Like if you're going through

your Bible reading plan and you're like, hey, it's it's

January. I'm in Genesis right now.

So maybe you're reading about Abraham right now and you're

like, hey, do I believe that faith is what God blesses?

And where in my life does it take faith?

Do I believe God is trustworthy enough to follow?

You have to ask yourself the hard questions and go Lord show

me what's in me that doesn't believe this and watch on this

side. Your life will truly change.

Don't just spend 2 minutes in a devo.

Actually sit with God and say I love you and I love your word

and watch as he changes your mind from the inside out.

He'll renew it. So less scrolling and more

scripture now. Second, less entertainment, more

enjoyment of God's glory. Now, I don't want you to just

have Scripture on your mind. That's a great thing, and I hope

I appropriately emphasize how important it is for your life.

But this word renewed in 2nd Corinthians 318, jot that

reference down. It's saying with unveiled face,

we're being transformed to be more like God from one glory to

the next. And the thing that helps you

transform beyond just Scripture is a meditation and an enjoyment

of what? The glory of God, the weight of

who God is, sits so heavy on your life.

His gravity upon your soul is so mesmerizing that you are

enjoying him. You read a story of Jesus

meeting with people in John and he's dunking on the Pharisees in

John 8:00 and you're like, man, I love Jesus.

I can't believe I would know him like this.

Enjoying God, exhilarated by God.

And what gets in the way of that is our stupid attention span

most the time. We get entertained way too

easily. And that's saying that as

somebody who loves movies and TV and hobbies and sports, like I

love all that. I'm not saying none of that.

I'm saying less of it, that your life would look different, your

anxiety level would look so different if you would have just

enjoyed God with part of your day.

If instead of in the car listening to Joe Rogan for the

70th time, what if you listened to somebody talking about the

glories of Christ? What if instead of on Netflix

binge watching again and again and again, what if you took the

time to actually take time to enjoy God in prayer and in

presence? And some of you are like, man.

Or is he saying that I can just sit there and enjoy God?

Yes, he's meant to be enjoyed. He's meant to be loved.

We must give our minds to God. And I'm convicted by this.

Like I'm going to be changed by this in 2026.

Lord willing. I'm praying God would speak to

me in a new way this year as I lay aside so many trinkets and

treasures and just stupid garage sale stuff for the treasures of

heaven that would seek first the Kingdom of God in his

righteousness, that that would be true of me in 2026.

So would you go with me this year?

And would you say, hey, less scrolling and more scripture,

less entertainment and more enjoying of God.

And I think that our church will look so different as a result.

So will your life. You won't regret giving God

less. 3rd and finally, I give my whole self to God.

I give God my whole self when third, my will is surrendered.

You are a human being, which means your body and your mind

have been given to God. But you have another part of

yourself that some of you and your mind and your body.

You're in the right place with your body.

Like you'd go to church right now and your mind would be

engaged. You're listening to what I have

to say, but it does not change the way you live at all.

Your will is unaffected. You remain in the same place in

your life because you're like, Nope, you're stubborn.

You're like, Nope, God, you don't get to tell me what to do

in that area of my life. Look at listen what the Bible

says. You'll 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 that

we're meant to discern as we go about our life, what we ought to

do in our everyday decisions that honor God, that pleases

God, that brings glory to God by the way that we live.

We're discerning through the testing.

We go about our day and like, hey, how should I handle that

thing at work, that parenting moment, that conflict with my

spouse? How should I handle that?

You're testing that. You're thinking about that and

you're like, hey, is this how the world thinks about it?

Or is it here's how the word thinks about it and you're going

about that non-stop. And then there's a point of

choosing. Will you obey or disobey?

That's where the will is that phrase the will of God is can be

very confusing for people. So I want to clarify it for you.

There's two types of God's will in the Bible.

It can be used in two different ways.

The first is this that one got one way to think about God's

will is his sovereign will. It's the will that always gets

done. Like if God says it, it happens.

If he speaks, guess what, Let there be light, there's light.

If he says, hey, my son is going to come in 2000 years and die on

the Roman cross, that's God's sovereign will.

We call that his will of decree, that he speaks like a king and

consider it done. It's happened.

The 2nd and the one that's talking about here in Romans

Romans 12 · chapter mention

chapter 12. We call that His will of desire.

It's what God wants for you, it's his design for you, and

it's the kind that we can actually violate, the kind that

to violate would be sin or foolishness, and God's will is

simply that you would obey him. I've heard it said this way,

that God's word is God's will, and God's will is God's word.

God's word is God's will, and God's will is God's word.

Meaning when God tells you to do something, do you obey the

commandment he's given you? Like right now?

Don't be conformed, be transformed, or you obeying

that? Or does it go in one ear, out

the other? It's easy to not surrender to

God's will because our hearts have been so formed by the

world. His influence on us needs to

keep growing and growing and growing and growing.

And it does with time. Praise be to God, but our hearts

are so depraved and dark that even with the Spirit in us,

there's still so many things that pull us towards the things

of this world that we need God to act upon us.

We need His influence so His ownership of us would not be

diminished. And for many of us, it's like we

want Jesus to have the keys to our house, but just not every

room. This is how it feels in our

heads that he won't. We give Jesus the keys to our

house, but not every room. Like he can have the living room

on Sundays, but we keep the bedroom, the office, and the

entertainment room locked. Like you can't have that.

You don't get to talk over that area of my life.

Lord, your, your desires there don't match mine.

And I'm going to do what I want to do.

I'm going to live with who I want to live with, even though

they're not my spouse. I'm going to watch what I want

to watch. I'm going to lash out how I want

to lash out because it feels good.

And some of you are here thinking, wait a second, Is he

calling me to put every part of my life over to God?

Yes, yes I am. Because you're asking if I gave

God my time, what would happen to my calendar?

What would happen to my plans and my hobbies?

You're riddled with doubt and you're like, hey, if I gave,

actually gave God my talent, what would happen to my career?

If I gave God my treasure, what would happen to my retirement

plan? Jesus is worthy of your total

will being surrendered to Him. Let Him worry about all those

things. You just do what He told you to

do. Don't let the world convince you

to only surrender parts of your will to Jesus.

He gets to tell you how to live in this life.

He gets to tell you what to believe about the world.

He gets to call the shots for your life.

He is your Lord. That word means Master, boss,

authority, and He teaches us through here what His will is.

Don't let your heart stay divided.

Let it be settled through undivided worship, that your

body and your mind and your will align and be unified.

Let the gospel renew you, because what hope could you

possibly have to fix your heart? What hope could you have to

change what you want in life? I mean, our hearts unconsciously

and instinctively produce all kinds of things.

Like what hope could you have to stop being a jealous and

prideful and ego driven person? What hope could you have against

insecurity and cynicism and anger?

How are you going to stop being those things?

What hope to heal your heart could you have for foolishness

and anxiety and doubt? What hope is there for despair

and shame and bitterness? Don't you see it runs so much

deeper than just what you do in your will?

It's who you are underneath. That's the problem that God has

to change who you are at your core.

You need a new heart. You need a new mind.

You need a new body. You need all those things.

And thanks be to God that Jesus Christ Saints City has come for

us, that that outside force has changed us and it can continue

to change us. That we have a living, breathing

sacrifice. We have a mind that was

perfectly renewed. We have an acceptable, pleasing

offering to God in Jesus. Don't you see the gospel that we

have a living, holy, pleasing sacrifice, who gave His body on

the Christ on the cross, so that we could have a Christ that He

gave His blood on the cross, dying of death.

You should have died for your sin, having no sin of His own to

pay for. He went there on a bloody cross

for you and I. And not only that, he had a

completely transformed mind. The mind that is Christ Jesus is

the mind that looks at everybody and says, you know what, I'm

going to count them more important than me.

And thank God he did because he thought I was more important and

you were more important than his own life.

He shed his blood on a cross so that we can have a relationship

with God again. Don't you see how much God loves

you? He sees that dark part of your

heart. He sees that pattern in your

thinking, that pattern in the way you behave, and he sees how

much you hate it, how ugly you think it is.

And he looks at you and he says, But God demonstrates his own

love, and that while we were still sinners, that while we

were at our ugliest and our darkest, he died for you so that

your body, your mind, and your will could be glorified in

Christ. It could be changed.

This is the good news of the gospel.

It is an announcement. You can't fix your heart.

But guess what, I can. That's what God tells you today.

It's so often our division in our hearts, our disunity in our

minds and our bodies. Guess what?

It's because we forget the most basic and foundational thing in

the Bible. You can't change you, God can.

God can do it. Don't believe the lies that

you're going to be stuck there forever.

God can change your life this year.

His Word is alive, His Son is alive and His Spirit is active

all. Would you let Him work in you

and through you? Who else is there to want and

live for? What other Savior is coming for

you? There's only Christ, the one who

by the mercy of God saved us from our sin.

Why worship anyone or anything else?

Why let the pressure of the world and people?

Why try to become like them when you have Jesus, the one who is

worthy to pattern your life after?

I appeal to you, therefore, by the mercies of God, to present

your bodies as a living, holy and acceptable sacrifice to God.

Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the

renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is

the will of God, what is good, what should I do, what is

acceptable, what does God want and perfect?

You have the perfect sacrifice in Jesus.

Let's be his disciples. In fact, I want to help you

close with this four ways that you can be an undivided disciple

this week. These are our language for

disciples here at Saint City. These are how we think about

being a disciple. That this component hits all

parts of our life as a Jesus follower.

That's why we have 4 words actually, Because I don't want

you to be an undivided disciple. I want you to look at every part

of your mind, body, will. I wanted them to all be affected

by the gospel of Jesus Christ. So 4 WS so you wouldn't be

divided, but you could stand. I think Abe Lincoln said that

house divided against itself cannot stand, right?

Is that an Abe Lincoln quote? Don't quote me on that.

Abe said it first. Offer God these four things this

week. Ready.

Offer God first your worship. Are you offering your whole self

to God? Only you can answer that

question. Are you offering your whole self

to God? Or is He just get Sunday

mornings from 10:00 AM to 11:15 on the Sundays you want to be

here? Does he get just a portion of

your day? Or is your whole self belonging

to God? That is your only hope in life

and death, that you belong to Christ.

So are you offering your whole self to Him?

Second, offer God your walk. I'm talking about spiritual

disciplines when I say this. When we talk about walking with

Christ, we're talking about spiritual disciplines at Saint

City. Like, hey, what part of your

life have you pulled off of the altar that you are not willing

to sacrifice anymore with your spiritual disciplines?

Maybe it's sacrificing your attention in prayer.

Maybe it's sacrificing your time and getting up a little bit

earlier so you can spend time getting to know God, so you can

love God more through His Word, being in a small group.

In fact, community groups are launching this week at Saint

City. If you want to be in community,

be encouraged to be a disciple like this.

May I just encourage you to meet with us Tuesday night at 6:30 at

the Graduate. That's not in my notes.

I'm not I wasn't going there. I just feel it right now in this

room that you guys need to hear. Hey, guess what?

You can be a disciple with God's people.

You can have fellowship and carry out the one another's and

they're going to help you walk with Christ.

But some of you pulled that part of your life off the altar.

You're like, you know what, God, I've experienced too much pain

from the church. I don't want to be in a

relationship with Christians anymore.

That Sunday morning is just good enough.

You're living a divided life. God intends for you to be in

fellowship with His people. Don't settle for the anxiety

producing absence of gospel community.

Divided hearts settle through undivided worship.

Give God everything in your walk.

Don't pull it off the altar. The problem with living

sacrifices is we often keep crawling off the altar.

God wants to keep crucifying your flesh, so keep walking with

him. Third and not finally work,

offer God your work. When I say working for Christ

always that same city is talking about disciple in terms of how

you serve the local church that that's our language for serving

the church. Why?

Because even in the rest of Romans 12, you can Fact Check me

on this. The next thing he starts talking

about is how you use your gifts for the church that this isn't

it's directly connected in the Bible that your worship always

produces an output inside of a local community of believers.

So how are you sacrificing in 2026 for the church?

Join a team, get here early once a week, once a month, you know,

like do what you got to do. We we work with your schedule,

but you need to know something. It's always going to cost

something if it's a sacrifice. If it doesn't cost you anything,

it wasn't a sacrifice. So work for Christ 4th and now

finally offer God your witness. We worship, we walk, we work and

we witness as his disciples. Who are you telling about the

sacrifice Jesus has made? Have a person that you're

praying for this year that would come to know Jesus.

Have a person in your life that you are praying about.

Hey, I need to tell them about what God has done in me.

Testify. Witness, some of you are here at

the invitation of one of those things.

And may I just tell implore you, consider what Jesus has said.

Turn from your sin and embrace him by faith.

He is the only hope for living a life of eternality, of

immortality. It's with God and God alone.

When God gets our undivided worship, our hearts are settled.

So we all forgot our bodies, our minds, and our will.

Would you pray with me, Lord? Thank you.

Thank you that no one else and nothing else is worthy of this

kind of affection and worship. It's you and you alone.

And so, God, I pray that 2026 would be a year for a St. city

where we March forward into the great and glorious reality of

your Kingdom on earth, Lord, that we would see you work and

move in our discipleship. That we would be less divided,

less distracted by the things of this world and we lean into all

that you are. Oh God, you love us so much and

we're so grateful for your patience in our pursuit of you.

But God, would you show favor upon us more grace?

You don't, we don't, we don't deserve it.

But I'm asking God that as people take one step this week,

you'd give them ten that as they open up your word, maybe for the

first time this year, God, they would change their heart in an

instant. They go, man, I want this.

Would they be transformed? And God would you get all the

glory in Jesus name, Amen.