“Conformed or Transformed? The Worship War In You.” (Rom 12:1-8)

Martinson. Thank you. All right. Good

morning. We are in Romans

12 and we are uh in a series called

disruptive disciplehip in a secular age.

There's probably no more disruptive

countercultural line in the entire Bible

than the first verse of Romans 12.

Present your bodies as living

sacrifices. Here's the truth in this

passage.

In our modern time, we're all already

living for

something. We're already offering our

bodies, our time, our energies, our

affections to

something. The only question is what are

you and I

worshiping? And we already know what

those things are going to be. some

measure of career,

image, success, children's success,

identity, political

identity, moral

identity, justice in some way, or maybe

just the endless

distractions from whatever your

preferred device pulls.

But Romans

12, it doesn't ask if we're worshiping.

It confronts what we worship. And it

invites us into something

better. Five quick examples as we get

started. The

algorithm. We're being formed even when

we think we're just

scrolling. So, what does that look like?

Well, have you ever had your phone

suggest uh it's happening even more with

AI more and more every week? The

suggestions are freakishly

accurate. How did it know that now that

Liverpool's moving to Adidas from Nike

that I'm going to want a vintage Adidas

knit hoodie with the track pants in a

vintage 70s glow? I don't

know. Mind-blowing.

little championship pin from the Premier

League title we just won. I don't know.

That could be one thing. Uh or or maybe

it's the fact that it also is suggesting

how to repair a broken relationship with

a 14-year-old after they storm out of

the house. I mean, these are the types

of things that it gives me. I'm

like, not only are they listening, but

they know what my son just

did. It could be a product, a playlist,

a real, doesn't really matter. Uh, but

how do they know us? It's not magic.

It's formation. Tech companies have

studied our behavior to the point they

can predict our desires. It's not just

marketing. It's

disciplehip. We're not as free as we

think. We're being shaped and the real

question is by what toward. That's the

worship war inside you and inside me. We

have a a slide here that we put on our

website and remind us several times a

year. We go after this war of

intentional versus unintentional

formation. I'm not going to go into it

to detail, but I want you guys just to

see and remember there's a dynamic where

where you can do this intentionally or

you can do this unintentionally. We have

a choice to make. The second example,

marketing. Maybe you can relate to a

moment in the checkout line where

there's several different displays.

Maybe you're not scrolling the the

algorithms as much as the next person.

And it's like, h, how in the world? I

didn't know that I needed that whatever

temptation, that cooking book. Jimmy

Oliver, he came up with a new one. I've

got 17 of them, but I need one

more. For me, it's it's

uh I'm getting bombarded with ads like

why everyone is ditching modern

minimalism and going for

cozy. That's really that's literally the

thing that keeps popping up for me. It

knows me. In that moment, I realize

something again. I'm not just shopping.

I'm being

formed formed into a self-help version

of success maybe or productivity or

performance that would never actually

satisfy my longings for coziness or

whatever. That's the world we live in.

Discipling us towards consumption,

towards control, towards

self-optimization. And what we'll see

Romans 12, you can be conformed to that

or transformed into something so much

better.

Thirdly, AI and identity formation.

AI can now mimic a voice, write a

resume, finish your sentences. It learns

by watching you, listening to you, what

you click, what you avoid, what you

love. It It blows my mind. It knows what

I like more than I do sometimes. It It

feels like it can predict what I want

for

dinner. Even artificial intelligence

understands that. Romans

12. It understands more in some ways

than we

realize. It knows that we're being

shaped into something. But the

difference is AI isn't concerned with

who we

become. Paul's question is, are you

being formed? No. The question is who is

forming you? Number four, the fourth

example, costly countercultural choices.

I've had conversations with friends,

even maybe someone in the room, where

you've turned down a promotion, uh maybe

because it's compromised your ability to

be

present with your calling or with a

family uh or with even just this church

community. I've seen just the most

amazing confrontations that some of you

have had with the priorities of life and

you've essentially said things like

everything and everyone I thought

thought that I was crazy when I told

them my process but I knew I was being

pulled towards

something that looked like

success but it wasn't the success I knew

I was looking for. It wasn't forming me

into the way of Jesus.

huge significant lifealtering changes

some of you have made. And we love

people like that. They inspire us. The

ones that can make countercultural

decisions and reshape their life when

they had everything that the world says

is priority number

one. Some of us need to be inspired in a

new way. And that's exactly what Romans

12 is saying. That's the war over

worship. Every day we're either present

to ourselves or the or the world's

vision of

life. We have a choice. Whether we we

operate out of God's worldview or our

own. Fifth final

example main character syndrome. I like

this one. You guys are familiar with

this. Well, too much main character

syndrome. That might be the Los Angeles

beacon of

selfidentity. Main character. There's a

phrase that's gone

viral. The main character syndrome. Uh,

I'm I'm I'm new to this, so I did some

research. The idea of main character

syndrome is that you should live like

the hero of your own

movie. A little part of me is like, "Oh,

you mean the people that aren't the main

character of the movies? They get to now

do this like in daily life, and now I

live in a city that's just full of these

main character mantras." Just kidding.

That's none of you, I

know. But here's here's the thing. We're

we're encouraged to curate our own vibe

and be the center. Not just in Los

Angeles. This is just a modern way of

life. The problem with that is if you're

the main character of your life, you

will sacrifice everything else, your

relationships, your rest, real rest,

your

integrity to keep the

spotlight. But scripture tells us a

better story. That's what we're going to

look at today. Don't conform to the

story of the world, but be transformed.

Don't sacrifice your soul to play a

role. Be transformed and let mercy write

the script. So, here's here's before we

open the word, there's a myth in modern

life that we're that we're just neutral

people, independent, we're free

Americans, self-directed, but the truth

is we're already worshiping something.

Every person lives for something. and

what you live for, what you sacrifice

for. It might be again career, image,

family, freedom, your sense of control,

whatever it is, you're putting your

time, your energy, your attention, your

emotion on the altar of

something. And the question is not if

you're worshiping, it's

what something is forming you or

deforming you. And Paul is going to look

at a new kind of worship, one that

doesn't just fit into your life, but

reshapes it entirely. Romans 12, I

appeal to you therefore, brothers, by

the mercies of God to present your

bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and

acceptable to God, which is your

spiritual

worship. This is the culminating moment

of his entire letter to the

Romans, possibly the greatest

theological letter ever written.

This is the therefore to the entire book

of

Romans. Verse two, 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. We're going to do two things

this morning. We're going to look at

these two incredibly dense, rich,

important verses that are hugely

foundational for the Christian faith.

Then in verses three through 8, Paul

talks about the gifts of grace where he

gets incredibly practical about what

this looks like in daily life for them

2,000 years ago and it applies to us in

the modern moment. So the first point,

oh let me read the the the the verses of

3 through8 so you know what I'm talking

about. Here's the gifts of grace. For by

the grace given to me, I say to everyone

among you not to think of himself or

herself more highly than you ought to

think, but to think with sober judgment,

each according to the measure of faith

that God has assigned. For as one for as

in one body we have many members, the

members do not all have the same

function. So we though many are one body

in Christ and individually members of

another one another having gifts that

differ according to the grace given to

us. Let us use them if prophecy in

proportion to our faith if service and

our serving. The one who teaches and is

teaching. The one who exhorts in his

exhortation. The one who contributes in

generosity. The one who leads with zeal.

The one who does acts of mercy with

cheerfulness. So here's the first point.

What God wants is all of

you.

Everything. This is going to be the most

painful point. It gets

better. Look at the phrase therefore by

the mercies of

God. Again, that therefore is weighty.

It's the pivot from all of the theology

in in chapters 1- 11 to the practice of

the final few chapters of the book. The

mercies of God are plural here signaling

the different tangible ways that God's

grace has been experienced and can be

experienced. The one word uh this one

word is basically the hinge of the

entire letter. And this is what Paul's

saying. He's saying if the gospel is

true, if Jesus really died for you, then

God's

mercy is

free and it's real. The only reasonable

response to God's

mercy, grace is getting giving you

something you don't deserve. Mercy is

not getting something that you do

deserve. And he's saying this

mercy, the only reasonable response to

someone who's given that kind of mercy

to you is to give your whole self to

God. And he says, "Present your

bodies as living

sacrifices." That's temple language.

And he's radically redefining this idea

of a sacrifice. Instead of offering

parts of an animal, you offer the whole

embodied life, everything. You don't get

to keep parts of

yourself. And every single one of us

wrestle with that. I don't care if

you've been a Christian since you were

three. You wrestle with giving your

entire life as a sacrifice. You

do. The more we hide that, the

disservice we give to the rest of the

world. The world needs to see us wrestle

with this sacrificial

living. It's not about ritual sacrifice.

It's about relational and embodied

devotion in every aspect of our life.

It's not a ritual offering, but an

ongoing dynamic way of setting yourself

apart for

God. So, what Paul's world is looking at

is everyone knew what this sacrifice

meant. Something valuable has to die to

please a god. And we think, "Ah, we just

don't do that in the modern

world." Really, nothing dies to please

our

gods. Have you scrolled for two hours

once? You know how many things die in

you after two hours of

scrolling? You feel more dead. You ever

just got up from a good scroll and gone,

"What the flip am I doing with my life?

like almost wanting to die. Like the

spirit of death gets on you, right? It's

like the most depressing thing in the

world. And that's when I'm looking at

church scrolling. Just imagine if you're

looking at like the dark stuff and

you've gone into like something you

shouldn't been looking at.

Just comparison to good

things to people off Sabbath somewhere

in the wilderness and cooking an organic

meal over a rustic

fire. Two hours of that I feel like

death. I didn't

Sabbath. I had my heart pulled into

wanting without doing anything about

it. And Paul's going, "Here's a shock,

everyone." Paul goes, "You're the

sacrifice, but not a dead one, a living

one. And you don't die once. You get a

sacrifice daily, day by day by day." And

this would have sounded awfully strange

to the ancient ears that Paul's writing

to. Because in both the Jewish and the

pagan traditions of Rome, worship always

meant three things. Worship meant

temples, worship meant altars, and

worship meant priests.

But the earliest Christians stood out.

They practiced no sacrificial

ritual. They named no one as priest.

That came later with the

Catholics and they looked to no physical

temple.

Why? Why were the Christians different?

Why are we still the ones that are meant

to be different and countercultural?

Because the way of Jesus believed that

Jesus Christ is the once and for all

sacrifice. The temple curtain has been

torn. That divide between God and man

that sat in the holy of holies tore from

top to bottom. Not just signifying but

literally representing that the space

between heaven and earth, God and man,

the presence of God. It does not dwell

in

buildings but in people. And that was

always God's heart. That was always his

desire from his people in the wilderness

with Moses. God wants to come and dwell

with his people. The issue isn't on

God's side. It's on ours. And Paul says,

"You are the sacrifice. You are the

temple. Your whole life offered to God

is now the place where worship

happens." So the phrase your spiritual

worship, what the is that talking about?

It's just a Greek word that means

rational, reasoned, or logical. not

spiritual in this vague modern SP sense.

Worship is not emotional escape or

mystical detachment, but it's a

rational, thoughtful, embodied

obedience, and it's grounded in reason,

rooted in truth, and it's engaged with

your real

life. I continue to enjoy Russell Brand.

I don't care how many times anyone else

has said it, I enjoy him. I know he's

being charged with some serious stuff

right

now, but here's what he says about

worship. You can imagine this in his

very odd English accent when it says in

the Old Testament, "Worship no other

gods than me." This is a man, by the

way, if you're not familiar with Russell

Brand. This guy was wild actor,

comedian,

eccentric, did whatever he want, lived

life to the full, always had a great uh

narrative on reading culture, super

witty, insightful, and he has just spent

the last year as what he calls as a

bornagain

Christian. And this is what he says

about this phrase, worship no other gods

than me.

He says the implication I offer is that

we are a species then that worships and

if you do not access the divine you will

worship the mundale. You will worship

the profane. You will worship your own

identity. You will worship your

belongings. You will worship the

template lying before you by a culture

that wants

you distracted and relatively dumb.

There is a secular man echoing the truth

of Romans 12 right before us. If you

don't intentionally give your life to

God, you will unconsciously,

unintentionally give it to something

else. Your career, your image, your

success, your tribe, your phone. You'll

always offer yourself to

something. Now, he's a complex figure

facing serious allegations, and those

need to be taken seriously. So, I'm not

condoning anything that he's done,

present, past, or future. But we're not

looking at Russell Brand as a spiritual

hero. He's a

mirror. His words reflect something true

about all of us. Our default setting is

to worship. And without Jesus, we'll

give ourselves to lesser gods that

demand everything and give nothing back.

Worship isn't what we

sing. It's how you live.

There's a shocking

illustration that I like to go back to

often. We're talking about the book of

Romans and the things that Paul

says, "Present your bodies as a living

sacrifice." A few years after Paul wrote

those words, the Roman Empire turned

that metaphor into a

nightmare. Emperor Nero began using

Christians as literal human

torches in the very city that Paul

penned these words.

lighting their bodies on fire to

illuminate his parties at

night. Imagine the horror. What Paul

meant as a wholly embodied offering

became twisted into a grotesque public

execution and the

Christians

sacrificed freely as an act of worship.

Even

then, Paul's words

held because those

believers had already offered their

bodies to God. They'd already

surrendered their lives. Rome could burn

their

flesh, but Rome could never extinguish

their

faith. It's a challenge and an

inspiration for you and I.

If our faith was truly

challenged, would our faith

endure? In the irony, the empire tried

to destroy the Christians with fire, but

the church caught fire

instead with the spirit of God. What was

meant to intimidate only ignited

revival. And I feel that this is a

moment that we're in all across the

earth. If we will

allow the testing of our faith to

produce the kind of

fire that freely considers ourselves

dead so that we can truly

live the world will take notice. Paul's

words present your bodies are as

rational and real today as they were

then because our worship isn't just what

we sing. It's what we bring our whole

selves every single day. I want to

invite you into a just a real daily

simple

practice after those heavy heavy words.

What's just one thing you and I can do

this week to shift the atmosphere of our

life towards that aim? Here's the

simplest thing

ever. I know because I missed this many

times. How's your morning prayer life?

The practice of morning prayer. Do you

start your day before you do a single

thing and look at a single other

distraction? I invite you start your day

this week with simply saying, "God, I

offer my body to you. My mind, my words,

my energy, my relationships, it all

belongs to you. What if you and I really

practiced a morning ritual of

presence?" Because I know you and I

don't do it. I'm not talking about an

hour. I'm talking about two to three

minutes. I'd recommend there's a couple

apps. The pause

app, John Eldridge, Lectio 365, Pete

Greg, two of my

favorites. One of the things that John

Eldridge says is over and over. I've

said this before. I was my favorite

phrases. I give everything and everyone

to

you. Puts it to then scripture, anchor

your day. Nice little reflective music.

Three

minutes, I'm reset. You know what that

does? It changes what the first things I

turn to

are. Second point, why it feels so hard.

Why does this all feel so hard? The

reason why this feels hard is because

we're human beings and being human is

life and death. And this is about dying.

This is a kind of death. All of God

wants from you is

everything. Being a living sacrifice

feels like dying because it is. Do not

be conformed to this age, but be

transformed by the renewing of the mind.

This is talking about the most

significant element of our entire lives.

The word conformed literally means

pressed into a mold. We don't like being

pressed into a mold. We want to be free

of

molds. Everything our culture says we're

meant to go after. being free from

constraints. The kingdom says, "Be free

of all the other constraints." The only

way you're really going to get free is

if you will surrender and trust yourself

to my constraint and my mold. Because

I'm the only one that knows you, created

you, sees you, and built you for this

specific purpose. And if you try to fit

into any other mold, it will leave you

dissatisfied and aching and longing for

something more.

The renewal is distinctively Christian

found only in light of what has been

revealed in Jesus. That's what he's

talking about. It's not a general

spirituality or moral effort. This is

why Christianity stood out. No temple,

no priest, no sacrifice, no outward act.

We want inward transformation.

It's always been the Christian way of

Jesus. That's what we've stood for. Have

we screwed it up? Yes. Have we gone into

religion? Yes. Have we gone back to

rituals that are meaningless?

Yes. Though that's not the way of Jesus.

This isn't the way of his presence. And

what Paul is talking about isn't

behavior tweaks or a vague spirituality

that feels nice. It's not try harder to

be better. It's a completely new way of

seeing the world through the cross and

resurrection, taking life and death,

putting it in front of you in all

eternity and saying, "Is this something

I can submit my life

to?" Be transformed by the renewing of

your mind means rethinking everything in

light of what Jesus has done. It's not

about being positive and self-help,

positive thinking. It's think crucified,

think risen, think the gospel. Only the

gospel shows us that you're more broken

than you thought, but more loved than

you imagined.

Only the gospel says that you're not the

hero of the story, but you're included

in Christ's story. Only the gospel says

you don't change to earn God's love.

You're changed because of

it. So, here's what we want to ask

ourselves. Where are you and I thinking

like the rest of the

world and not like someone who's been

raised from the dead?

Transformation doesn't begin by trying

harder, striving, but by seeing the

world with this worldview and then

living like it's true. That's not

self-help. It's real

renewal. So, quick positive thinking

verse the gospel. I think I have a

chart.

Positive thinking says you're basically

good. You just need to believe it. The

gospel says you're deeply

broken. And yet you're deeply

loved. Positive thinking says change

comes by affirming

yourself. The gospel says change comes

by denying

yourself. But denying yourself isn't the

end. It's not just like have a great

diet.

be made new. You can't be made new by

any other method than in

Christ. Positive thinking says, "Control

your mindset." By the way, these can be

good. They're

limited. They're

limited. Focus on controlling your

mindset. The gospel says, "Focus on

surrendering your mind to the truth of

God's

mercy." Positive thinking says, "You can

do it if you believe in yourself."

The gospel says you

can't. Someone already did for

you. Positive thinking says try try to

speak a better future into

existence. Manifest

it. The gospel says live out a better

future that's already

secure. Positive thinking says centers

on your willpower. The gospel centers on

God's grace and the spirit's power. When

you have no

willpower, puts a community of people

around you to remind you who you are to

lift you up when you can't remember and

you don't have the willpower. If I have

to have the willpower, I am

screwed. If you have no willpower today,

the gospel is good news. If you have no

willpower today, the world has nothing

to offer

you. Positive thinking

says, "Sure, build your pride up when it

works and shame when it doesn't. The

gospel will build a humility when you

succeed and hope when you

fail." Summary, you can look within

because you have what it takes, which is

a lie. You

don't. You can receive the gospel. You

can look to the one who's already done

what it takes and invites you to be part

of the

story. You can choose the power in

you, but the gospel says the power is in

God. Positive thinking offers

motivation. The gospel offers

transformation.

So in this world and in this cultural

age that's trying to shape

us, the lies are that you belong to

yourself, that your truth is your

authority, and that the good life is all

about control, autonomy, and a certain

kind of freedom. But Paul is saying that

that's not true. You're not your own.

You were bought with a price. And true

transformation begins when we stop

trying to be our own

gods and we submit to the mind renewing

mercy of the one who conquered

death. So if we're honest, this is where

worship war is happening in every single

one of us. Not somewhere out there, but

right here and right in here. It's our

desires, our identities, our loyalties.

So, here are some questions to reflect

on. Where do you feel this worship

war? Where do you feel

it? What part of your life are you still

keeping off the

altar? What's the area you feel most

resistant to surrender? What voices

shape your thinking more than God's

word? Social media, news cycles, family

expectations, your own self-doubt?

Where are you trying to be your own

authority instead of trusting

God's? What decision or desire are you

holding on to because if you're honest,

you think you know best and you're not

really trusting God's

best? Where do you feel most pulled to

conform to be molded by what everyone

else thinks, wants, or

does?

Appearance,

success, parenting, security, sexuality.

What is it?

Where do you sense God calling you to be

transformed, but you're resisting

because it feels like

death? What change do you know is right,

but you're afraid to

make? What false story are you tempted

to live by right

now? I'll be safe if I just succeed in

this one area. I'll be loved if I'm

impressive. or just the lie that I'm not

enough. Another simple

practice as you start your

mornings just this week, go back to this

scripture in Romans 12. Take your two to

three moments. I give everyone and

everything to you, God. That's your

first practice. Your second practice

will take two more minutes. If you want

to be super spiritual, here's what you

do. Before touching your phone, your

email, for some of you, before even

checking to see if your kid's

breathing, a small, quiet act of

rebellion to the gods of this age would

be, "Put your mind to this scripture and

let God's truth renew your mind before

the world does.

Are we doing

that?

Could the simple act of doing this first

for two

minutes as not an external ritual that

anyone will see, no temple, no

priest, but an altar in your bedroom or

in your bathroom or on your back porch,

wherever, saying, "I want to allow the

first things to be holy. I'm going to

ask him to reset me and reform

me. This is why becoming a living

sacrifice is so difficult because it

means letting go of the illusion that we

belong to

ourselves. The good news is the gospel

doesn't begin with surrender. It begins

with his mercy and that changes

everything. So as we start to land

here's here's the third point. The only

way this is possible is because mercy

comes before the obedience.

Paul says verse two, "The mercies of

God, not his laws, not his judgments,

not your performance, but his mercies."

This is the center of the Christian

faith. Before we ever offer ourselves to

God, he offered himself for us. He's the

perfect

sacrifice once and for all. He didn't

offer part of himself. He gave it all.

He didn't ask us to die without dying

first. And that's why this isn't about

earning his favor. It's about responding

to it.

We don't present ourselves to earn

mercy. We present ourselves because

we've already reser. We've already

received it. Let me say it again. We

don't present

ourselves because we've earned this

mercy. We present ourselves because

we've already received

it. And the gospel paradox is laying our

life down is where we finally find it.

In surrendering control, we discover

true peace. And in dying to self, we

come

alive. That entire next section is all

about the

practicals. Maybe I'll get into it next

week. Maybe we'll get into it a

different day. But here's what I want

you to see and to pull from as you get

into this text throughout the week. as

you ask the Holy Spirit to meet with you

as you get real with these questions

that we've looked at this

morning. I want to leave you with

this. Paul's vision for disciplehip is

radical because of this. You cannot put

your Christianity into

compartments. The whole self is to be

offered to God in thinking, in serving,

and in being. You're not just saved from

something. You're saved for something

and real formation isn't a Christianized

version of project

self. It's a process of true salvation.

To quote John

Markr, the worship war is won by

mercy. So come to the

altar. Maybe it's not a physical one,

though you're literally invited to come

forward today.

Make a statement for your own soul to

say this is a moment that I want to

shift the mindsets and

perspectives and rituals in my life. I

don't want to be deformed and

unintentionally formed by something that

is never going to bring fulfillment and

purpose, satisfy the longing in my

soul. Join me in this prayer. This is

your heart, Lord. We're tired of being

foreign by everything around

us. I'm tired of sacrificing for things

that can't give me

life. Maybe you've laid your life down a

million times, but we do it as one body

today. We lay our lives down and we

decree that I am yours. form me, use me,

renew

me, for I am a living

sacrifice. If you were able to pray that

prayer, I want to challenge the

practices of your life to four simple

things. Daily surrender.

Use the morning

offering to set the direction of your

life and your

soul. Renew your mind. Take this

scripture. Start with this scripture and

let it wash over you and reset you and

anchor you. And then take action in this

community.

The entire rest of Romans 12 is about

how the gifts are there, not for you to

have all of them, but for you to share

them and receive from them from those

all around you. Serve someone in this

house this week in the simplest

ways. Hey, do you need someone to watch

a kid? Hey, you want to grab a bite? Can

I just pray for you? Is there anything

going on in your life? You just came to

mind as I was praying. If you are

struggling and need someone to pray for

you, you know what I have found? I have

found that when I need prayer, if I will

just volunteer prayer by text with three

people, I don't know how it

works. I don't tell them like, "Hey, I'm

going to pray for you if you pray for

me." I don't tell them that. They don't

get to pray for me. I'm going to pray

for them. Every single time I do that,

by the end of the day, I will get prayer

somehow, some way, without even asking

for it.

It's how the kingdom works. Your

faithfulness to serve in the midst of

crisis, your own crisis, will draw the

response of

heaven. You cannot sew the seeds of

serving people in this kind of kingdom

and not receive the rewards. And the

reward the rewards are not the worldly

rewards. The rewards are you receive the

blessing, the grace and the mercy that

your soul craves and it will come

towards you in every way, shape and form

and it will humble

[Music]

you. So if this is the cry of your

heart, I just want to join you in one

final decree this morning. And if this

is the cry of your heart and you want to

step into this in greater measure, I

just want to invite you to stand.

[Music]

One more holy

moment. I went long, so this is going to

be kind of a go in all different

directions. While the team plays, you're

going to be invited. If the ministry

team could come over here, that would be

amazing. My left, your right, they would

be honored to pray for you. Here's what

I would invite you to do as we pray this

prayer. Get super practical with two

things. The answers to the questions of

your heart of what you're holding on

to and the steps of how you're going to

practice a different way simply. That is

a quiet rebellion against the gods of

this age.

As this team plays, I want you to make

those two decisions in your soul. The

answer to those questions and the

defiance to the way of the world and a

countercultural stepping forward in the

most simple practical ways possible in

the ways of the king of Jesus. Would you

just join me in saying, "Holy Spirit,

where I have no willpower, strengthen

me. where I'm living under the lies of

being formed by things I do not want to

form me. Would you develop in me a

countercultural

fire that whether it's the altar in my

bathroom or it's the parties of Rome,

would I be willing to be set a

fire to die

daily to be a living sacrifice?

Thank you that the

history and the authority of your word

is what gives us hope in every test that

this world gives us. We

respond to your mercy with

surrender in Jesus name.

Amen. Do whatever you need to respond.

Get prayer. Respond in worship. Come

forward. Stay at your seat and linger.

Leave when you're ready. Have an amazing

Sabbath. We love you so much.