Ruanna Levi - Transformation & Growth - Repentance as a Lifestyle Pt. 2 - Sunday, September 13, 2026

The desire of wanting to walk with God is meant to draw you into light.

It's meant to draw us into this process where we will sit with the Lord and ask him to search our hearts.

If you just present yourself and say, Lord, shine your light on that.

He will.

And in his light, we see light.

In his light, we understand ourselves.

You want to be self-aware?

Get into the light of God.

I was um, I was thinking when we're singing that song, There's no one like you, Lord.

There's no one like you.

We've just got back from Tasmania late last night.

Um, and I don't know why there, but every time we go there, we find these stories that remind me, even to the ends of the earth, God is building his church and always has been.

And I remember last time we went, we went on this um like sort of boat, but they gave a documentary as you went.

And it was in the far southwest of Tasmania, like it's pretty wild, pretty remote.

And certainly when the first settlers were there, it was a long way from London.

And there was this island that they put the worst convicts on.

There was no way they could escape this island.

They couldn't swim far enough to shore.

Um, they could there was nowhere to hide, nowhere to go.

They were there and they were made to build ships.

But what we found out last time was there was a couple there that went as missionaries to that island, all the way from England, and they were there to tell the worst of the worst in the remotest of remotest places about a God who loved them and redeemed their lives, and they gave them blankets and they taught the children to read when they built the church.

And last time we went to a place, but we went there again called Philosopher Falls, and one of the reasons why I love it, apart from it's this extreme rainforest.

Like you can't fit more plants per square meter than there.

And there's vines and there's moss and there's green everywhere you look, and it's it's like steep down to this rushing Arthur River, and it's called Philosopher Falls because um when Tasmania was nearly bankrupt, and it was so bankrupt it was not able to run itself as a state anymore, it was gonna just be absorbed into Victoria and just kind of forgotten about almost.

And there was a believer there who they was nicknamed Philosopher Smith, and he was like, We're not doing this, God's got a destiny for this state, a calling for this state, uh identity for this state, and so he prayed, and basically the Lord told him to just head off with him and his dog and listen and follow his directions.

And he set off, and for three weeks he went through this terrain.

And when you see the terrain, like I would give up after an hour, like it's 45 degrees, slippery, raining, trees, you're climbing over logs, climbing under vines, like it is extreme.

But this man heard the voice of the Lord and he followed it.

And there were several times when there was like he could have gone this way or that way, and the Lord clearly spoke to him.

And after three weeks, he was looking one day on the ground near these falls, and he saw a glint on the rock.

He's like, That's tin.

And he explored further and he found this huge mass of tin there that they were able to mine and save the entire state.

He could have kept the money for himself, he could have become the wealthiest person in Australia, probably at the time.

But he was like, God is redeeming this state, and he personally sewed all of that money into the entire state to stop bankruptcy and set Tasmania as a state on its journey to today.

Poured it into education, health, roads, government, the whole thing, just funded the whole thing himself.

Until it could stand on its feet.

And it's such a beautiful picture.

Just one man who was like, God, you've got something here.

One person who was like, we're not accepting just it all fell apart.

One person who was like, God, you've got a plan.

Just tell me.

And gave himself to this arduous journey, this difficulty, until he found breakthrough, and then he gave it to the future of that state.

And I just I just love these stories because it's easy to go, oh, what's God doing?

Where's God?

What's he doing here?

What's he doing there?

But there he is working all over the world.

All over the world.

He's building his plan and his story and his church.

And it's so glorious to be part of it.

And it's just such an honor to walk with the Lord, isn't it?

Such an honor.

And I felt like as we worship, I don't know why, today, Zachy on those drums, it felt like war over the city, didn't it?

Like it just felt like war of who God is was being released over the whole city.

It was really amazing.

So thank you, worship team.

All right.

I want to just bring the second part of that message I started a couple of weeks ago on repentance and the beauty of repentance.

This is the second part of it.

So if you haven't heard that, if you weren't there that that week, please listen to it because it will this kind of feeds off that.

But just to kind of refresh your mind a bit, I talked about what is repentance.

Repentance is simply turning from our ways into God's ways.

It's a heart stance, it's a life stance of I want your way, God.

I want your thoughts, I want your affections, I want your opinions, and I want your ways.

And as you would all know, it means to turn around.

Means to just physically turn around.

Because often when we're doing our own thing, we've got to move, we've got to turn, we've got to change our thinking or our view or our understanding or the path we're walking on.

There's got to be a shift when we come into alignment with God.

And it's a beautiful thing that is unique to Judea Christian faith.

Repentance.

It's unique because there's no guilt attached to it, there's no shame, there's no attempting to somehow make yourself better.

It's simply agreeing with God.

I agree with you.

I agree that your thoughts on this matter are truer and better than mine.

And we do it out of the reality of Romans 8 that there's now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus.

And repentance is the first call of Jesus.

It was the first call on earth.

It's how he announced his ministry.

Matthew 4, 17, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

And in Mark 1, 14 to 15, it's put like this.

He said, The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand.

Repent and believe in the gospel.

Change your thinking.

God's available.

Believe the good news.

And I think if we anchor ourselves into those three things, the acceleration of growth in our life, the acceleration of maturity in our life is massive, isn't it?

Change your thinking.

Be willing to have your thinking changed on a daily basis by the Lord.

If we just did that one thing, presented ourselves every day to the Lord.

Okay, Lord, just change anything in me that jars with your thinking.

Change me where I don't behave as if you're available and your kingdom's available.

And change where I am not.

Put your finger on where I am not believing the fullness of good news.

And last week we went through, I mean, last time we went through lots of um examples of what people repenting looked like in the Old Testament and New Testament.

But this week I wanted to talk about how to cultivate a lifestyle of repentance, a lifestyle of this changing our thinking.

We don't want to be people that are stuck in old ways of thinking.

We don't want to be the same today as we were last year, and we certainly don't want to be the same in a year's time as we are now, because our inheritance as sons and daughters is change, is transformation.

And I remember the moment that I gave my heart to the Lord was in a theoretically physics class.

We never did physics.

But I had been arguing with my friend for three months about whether God was real and whether Jesus was a savior.

Three months he patiently argued with me and answered me, throwing every question I could at him, and had him and two other people in his Bible study just praying for me.

And I still remember the Friday just before recess, I was like, I have nothing more to say.

He said, What do you mean?

I said, Well, I'm gonna follow Jesus, I don't have any more arguments.

And I said, Don't we pray or something now?

I don't know how I knew that.

So he led me in prayer to offer my life to Jesus.

And let me explain to you, this was not a charismatic, cultured person.

He told me the gospel and he prayed, and there was no this thing of you're gonna feel anything.

There was no mention of that.

I prayed that prayer and I walked outside into recess and the entire world looked different.

For 45 minutes, I had this experience where the entire world looked different.

All of every tree just looked like it was so full of life, I would just stare at it.

Every person, friend, not friend, all of these people that I went to school with, I was just staring at them.

Because I just for this window of time, God showed me how He saw.

He showed me what people looked like in their true form, he showed me the glory that was in people, the wonder.

And I was just staring at these people that I didn't even like before, just amazed.

Like, wow, you're incredible.

I don't know what they thought I'd taken, but I just could not, I could not hide it, and what I understood from that is everything looked transformed, and it's so so deep within me this belief that we get to be transformed, it is the glory of humanity, and so the question is how do we cultivate that in our life?

Because God offers us everything but makes us do nothing.

You need to understand that God is not gonna make you change.

You want to hang on to your old nature, He will just wait.

He will call you, He will show you, He will love you, He will not make you change ever.

He never did, He never made anyone follow him, he never will.

He walked past the disciples, all of history was gonna rest on them.

He walked past, follow me, just gave them a choice, and he does that to us all the time.

And so, how do we agree with this lifestyle of repentance?

And I've kind of got six different things that I think we can do to accelerate our change, accelerate us into the likeness of Christ, accelerate us into thinking like God.

That's actually feasible.

Paul talks about it.

So the first is from 1 John 1, verses 5 to 9, and it's an active process of stepping into the light, engaging with the light of God, and knowing that's going to be a constant process.

1 John 1:5–9

And this is what it says.

This is the message which it's 1 John 1, 5 to 9.

This is the message which we have heard from him and declare to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.

If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

So God is perfect, but he's not perfect in a kind of distant, unapproachable way.

He's perfect in light.

And light has a way of pushing into darkness, creeping over into darkness.

I don't know if you're in the habit of watching sunrise, but I am a fan.

And one of the things I love is this creep of light over what was darkness, and the darkness can do nothing about it.

And the light comes in, and first it invades those kind of top peaks or the top clouds, and then it just goes deeper and deeper and deeper into the shadows, into the crevices, into the places that are kind of slunk in darkness.

And that's what I see.

The light of God is it comes and penetrates us, it calms and saturates us, it comes and reaches into the crevices of our soul.

It's not that God just vroom, if you missed it, it's like he allows that light to creep into the deep places within us.

The deep places of hurt, the deep places of doubt, the deep places of pride, the deep places of wrongthinking.

And he allows his light in and it removes the shadows and the darkness by its very nature, if we let it.

We're lying.

Because the desire of wanting to walk with God is meant to draw you into light.

It's meant to draw us into this process where we will sit with the Lord and ask him to search our hearts.

You can stay hidden if you want to.

But if you present yourself and say, Lord, search me, or why am I reacting like this?

Or why do I resist this?

Or why do I keep behaving like this?

Or why do I do this?

If you just present yourself and say, Lord, shine your light on it, he will.

And the light shining is not that he's like, Well, you're a fool.

That is never the result of God us giving permission to God to shine his light on us.

It's always, you know, this thought?

You can get rid of that now.

You know this way that you think of yourself, or this fear, or this hurt from something that was said to you.

That's what he shows us where that's coming from.

And in his light, we see light.

In his light, we understand ourselves.

You want to be self-aware?

Get into the light of God, get into his presence, and he will explain and show you things and bring wholeness and maturity in a way that's unfathomable in any other way.

And it means that if we want God and we worship him and want to know him, we need to position ourselves for the searching of the Holy Spirit.

And it's so beautiful.

It's never that the Holy Spirit has ever showed me darkness in me and I wish he hadn't.

It's always freeing, it's always life-giving, it's always healing when he does.

And it says here, when we choose light, the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.

We can kind of gloss over that, like, yet we know we're forgiven.

That is a power statement right there.

The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin in that agreeing with light.

The word sin there is Hamaria, and it means not just sin, not just what you've done that may be wrong.

It's offense.

It's things that have been done to you that have caused offense, you get cleansed from.

Those things that you've done that have offended other people, offended God, offended your own soul, when you've judged yourself harshly, when you've been critical of yourself, you get cleansed.

It means to be without a share in.

You know that's what the sin does?

It robs us.

It robs us of what is possible in God.

It robs us of the better option.

And so John's saying here with that word, it cleanses us from missing out.

It cleanses us from being without what was actually ours.

It means to miss the mark, to wander from the path of righteousness and that which is done wrong and with intention.

And so when the blood of Jesus comes to cleanse us from sin, it's not just what you rebelliously chose to do that you knew was wrong.

It's everything that's been done against you.

It's when you just wandered kind of into the ways of the world and didn't realize.

It's when you la you didn't lay hold of what was yours in God.

All of it is cleansed when we choose light.

The blood of Jesus.

Does not force itself upon you.

Drawing close to him, the light source, asking him to search us, reveal us, cleanse us, teach us.

You know, one of the things I like about Jesus' teaching about the lost is that they're all lost for different reasons.

Like he gives the parable of the lost son, he gives the parable of the lost sheep, he gives the parable of the lost coin.

And if you think about those things, they are completely different situations, aren't they?

Like the lost son, the prodigal son, actually rebelled against the father, despised the father, rejected the father, said, I'm going my own way, I'm doing my own thing, give me my inheritance, I don't care if you were dead, and I'm going to go and do what I like with it.

It's just clear rebellion that he's lost in.

The lost sheep didn't hate the shepherd.

It just wandered beyond where it should have gone.

Just got disoriented, lost, caught up, distracted, hurt, whatever.

And it ended up lost and helpless to come back.

And the lost coin just got lost.

Wasn't doing anything wrong, just got lost, got dropped.

And there's people in all those boats, and there's situations in all those boats in our lives.

There's places we've rejected God intentionally.

Stuff I don't want to do this, and I'm going to do it.

I don't care what you think, I don't care what you say, I'm doing this.

There's places where we just kind of life just kind of let us wander into a bad attitude.

Or wander into bitterness or wander into hopelessness or unbelief.

We weren't intentionally rejecting God, we just walked away from him.

And there's areas that just seem to have been dropped.

And we end up out of the hands of God in an area.

And so, in the same way, it's like we need the blood of Jesus to cleanse us from all of that in his light.

Everything that's affected us, everything that's polluted us, everything that's hurt us, everything that's violated us.

And if you're living in the world with people, you keep getting hurt.

You keep getting offended.

It's gonna happen.

So we have to just keep bringing ourselves into that cleansing.

And then John says this very strong warning here in verse 8.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

If we think, oh yeah, everything's kind of fine, I don't need to just ask the Holy Spirit to search me.

I don't need to put time into that.

He's like, you're lying.

Just flat, bang, you're lying.

And the truth is not in us.

Because we are in the world, we're constantly getting pulled on by the world, we're constantly getting hurt by people, we're constantly, our old nature will try and raise its head.

But he says, but if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Let's not harden ourselves to the process of transformation, of being changed.

And I love that he says, confess if we confess our sins.

There is something so freeing about confessing sin when the Holy Spirit shows you.

I don't mean an endless inward searching.

I'm not interested in that.

What I'm interested in is Holy Spirit, show me any wrong attitude, any offensive way within me, any bitterness that I've kept in my heart, anything where I've just rejected what you're saying, any opinion that is just not the way you think.

Because conviction is very specific.

If we're just like, oh yeah, forgive sin, uh what's the point?

Confession is freeing when it's specific.

Same as conviction from the Holy Spirit is specific.

He doesn't just go, well, there's all this mess.

He never says that to us.

He never just paints this gray sort of mess and says, try and fix yourself up.

He goes, this thought right there, that's hurting you.

The way you're judging that person, you need to stop.

The way you're afraid of this, I want to heal that.

This is how the Holy Spirit works within us, so specific.

So then our confession is specific.

Lord, I acknowledge this way that I've been thinking or this anger that I've harbored.

It's it's not your way.

Heal me.

And we are cleansed from all unrighteousness.

And so I just want to encourage you, beloved, come running.

Come running into the light.

Make space for it in your day.

Because he is faithful and forgiving, and he will transform you and free you and make you whole and mature you and strengthen you so fast if you will let him.

But it's through this, it's in his light.

The second way to cultivate a lifestyle of repentance is from Romans 2, verse 4.

Romans 2:4

It says, Do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance.

If you want a lifestyle where you're quick to repent, you need to be growing in the revelation of the goodness of God and the kindness of God.

And the more we understand that, the more we will embrace repentance because we trust Him.

The more we understand the goodness of God, the more we go, Well, search me.

Because everything you want for me is good.

Everything you want for me is kind.

God is has kinder thoughts towards you, a kinder plan towards you, a better plan for your life than you can ever come up with yourself.

And when we actually believe that, what Joel was talking about this morning, believe that God's intention is for us to see his goodness here and now.

That in everything he will work for good if we'll agree with him, any situation, then the more we will embrace repentance.

And I want to encourage you to become a student of the goodness of God.

Notice his goodness.

It's why thanksgiving is so critical.

It's why remembering the faithfulness of God is so critical.

We become students of goodness, we become students of the faithfulness and the kindness of the Father.

And so when your old nature goes, you know, oh well, you've got to just do this on your own, it's just like I'm not buying that.

Someone who is far better than me and far kinder than me is saying to do this, I'm gonna go with that.

We are when we're saturated in his goodness and kindness, we understand that when he calls us to repentance, it's pure love.

There's no fear in love, it's pure goodness.

It's his heart that we would be free and not entangled.

See, Hebrews 12, verse 1 says this.

Hebrews 12:1

The fact of the matter is, sin entangles you, it entangles your mind, it entangles your steps, it entangles your actions, it entangles your heart.

That's what sin does.

And out of love, God wants us to be free from entanglement.

And I don't know, like the writer of Hebrews here is saying, let us run with endurance the race that's before us.

Laying aside everything that entangles us.

I don't know if you've ever done an endurance race, but when you're doing an endurance race, you get rid of every single weight you can.

Like the first time I turned up for an endurance race, my friends are like, no, no, no.

They started attacking my bike, they started taking off the reflection things, they started taking off the light, they started taking going through the toolkit to getting rid of everything you wouldn't absolutely need.

And they're I'm like, it's a few grams, and they're like, get rid of it.

I'm like, the lights, you know, 100 grams, get rid of it.

Because they understood that over an endurance race, every gram matters, every bit of weight matters.

You get rid of it, and this is an endurance race we're running here in life.

And you want to get rid of every weight.

You don't want to be lugging around guilt from this, shame from this.

You don't want to be lugging around bitterness about this and that person and this and that.

You don't want to be lugging around judgments on people.

You want to be free to run, and the father in his goodness knows how to do that.

And when we're aware of his kindness, it's safe to let him explore our hearts.

If you don't trust the goodness of God, you won't let him in to your heart.

You won't let him in to your motives, into your reactions, into your intentions, into your ambitions.

But if we do, he'll only free us to run faster and less encumbered.

Thirdly, to cultivate a lifestyle of repentance, understand that what God wants to deal with in your own and other people's lives may not be what you think is the biggest issue.

That's often happened to me.

I think, yeah, oh God, you've got to deal with this thing in me.

And I'll sit with him and he'll heal something else.

Because the Father knows everything that has ever happened to us.

Do you understand that?

He knows every thought, every dream, every desire that we've ever had, and every word spoken to us, every moment of neglect, every moment of disappointment, every moment of rejection, every moment of abandonment, and every action that has wounded us.

So he knows exactly why we are like we are.

It's one of the reasons why we don't have permission to judge each other.

Because we do not know the inside story.

But he knows why we are like we are.

And sometimes he tackles things in unusual orders.

But there are areas that he will tackle, and these are some of them.

Areas that we've intentionally rebelled against him, where we've misused words to criticize ourselves.

Criticizing ourselves, such an idiot.

I can't do this, I always do this.

It's constant judgment against someone made in the image of God, you.

And the Holy Spirit will begin to deal with it.

He'll deal with our thought life, he'll deal with unforgiveness and bitterness, he'll deal with the love of money and the things of the world, he'll deal with complacency and apathy, he'll deal with our lack of love or compassion towards people.

He'll deal with whether we value our word to him and to other people, what we've said we'll do.

And he will also deal with the fear of man and what Hebrews 6:1 says is repentance from dead works.

Hebrews 6:1

That stuff you're just doing because you think it'll please God, but your heart's not in it.

Fourthly, to cultivate a lifestyle of repentance, become a student of the promises of God.

2 Corinthians 7, verse 1 says this, therefore, beloved, having these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

2 Corinthians 7:1

Isn't that a beautiful statement?

It's not because you don't want to get punished, it's not because you're a failure if you don't.

It's therefore, beloved, because you've got these promises, cleanse yourself.

And the more we are filled with the promises of God for ourselves, for our own life, for our families, for those around us, for our church, for our city, whatever it is.

When the promises are set before us, when we're aware of them, what does what are the promises of God for you?

Can you list them off?

Because if not, I suggest start studying.

Start looking up the promises in the Bible, buy a book on it, read them, meditate on them.

What does it mean for you?

Sit with the Lord.

What are you what are your promises?

Speak to me.

And when we understand the promises of God, we yield.

We surrender because it's better than what we could have organized.

When we understand deep fellowship with the eternal one, the rejection of people means far less to us.

When we understand the promises of God to care for us and provide for us, we don't need to grasp at things of the world.

When we understand the holiness of God, we don't want to be polluted with unclean thoughts.

When we understand our destiny in God, we don't want to be weighed down with hurts and offenses.

John 8, verse 31 to 32 says this.

John 8:31–32

Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed him, If you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed.

And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Abide means dwell.

It doesn't just mean quote.

It doesn't just mean when you need it, you start hammering on some quote.

Abiding is a dwelling, a living with.

That's the knowing.

You will know truth, like that level of closeness, that level of intimacy, that level of vulnerability.

You will know the truth.

You will understand truth.

You'll yield to it.

Fill your life with the word and read it not for information, but read it with it searching your heart.

I often like to think of the word understand.

I've mentioned this a while ago, came from the courtroom.

And it's why judges are seated higher than the people in the courtroom.

And the judge would call the person forward before they released their judgment, and they were to come and understand the judgment.

They stood under what was being released from the judge.

They came and stood under that statement.

And that's where our word, do you understand this mean, comes from?

It's not just can you kind of get your mind round it?

It means are you coming to stand under this concept?

And so when Jesus is saying, you will know the truth, you will understand the truth, you will stand under truth.

And so my um I like to imagine that I'm coming under the word to speak over me when I read the word.

I'm coming to stand under it and let it do what it can do, which is search me, know me, try me, teach me, explain things to me.

It's the great spotlight of heaven searching through my soul and bringing me into truth.

Jesus said in John 15, 1 to 8, I am the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser.

Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that bears fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

You're already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.

It is his word that makes us clean.

Abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.

I am the vine, you are the branches.

He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing.

If anyone does not abide in me, he's cast out as a branch and is withered, and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they're burned.

If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it will be done for you.

By this my father is glorified that you bear much fruit, so you will be my disciples.

We're cleaned by the word.

The withered branches were part of the vine at some stage.

I'm just saying.

They just stopped the connection, stopped the water of the word, stopped the nutrients of communing with Christ.

Abiding Christ and his words gives this dual mix of growth and fruitfulness and power in prayer.

Sixth.

Develop a deep love for the work of the Holy Spirit.

It is the Holy Spirit's deepest delight to lead us into all truth, also known as freedom.

John 16, 5 to 16 says this.

Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, says Jesus, it is to your advantage that I go away.

For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you.

But if I depart, I will send him to you.

And when he has come, he will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment, of sin because they don't believe in me, of righteousness because I go to my father and you see me no more, of judgment because the ruler of the world is judged.

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

However, when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak, and he will tell you things to come.

He will glorify me, for he will take of what is mine and declare it to you.

All things that the Father has are mine.

Therefore I said he will take of mine and declare it to you.

Do you understand?

The Holy Spirit leads us and counsels us into all truth.

And you want to develop a very personal relationship with the Holy Spirit.

And it says there that he convicts of sin, and the sin is where we haven't believed.

It's not what you've done wrong, it's where you haven't believed in the bigness of God.

You haven't believed in who you are in God.

And that is the Holy Spirit's role to come and go, you know what?

This is who God is.

This is who you are.

This is what's possible.

He convicts us of our righteousness.

That's not, you know, you fell short.

He convicts us of righteousness that we have in Christ.

You are fully forgiven.

You are fully available before the throne of God.

You can meet face to face with the Father.

This is the Holy Spirit's work to convince us that we are sons and daughters of the living God.

And we can do marvelous things with him.

Like the man who went and saved a state.

And he convicts us of judgment.

And the judgment is that the enemy is judged.

He declares to us.

He declares to us the promises of God.

He declares to us the love of the Father.

He declares to you who you are.

Become a deep lover of the Holy Spirit.

A friend of the Holy Spirit.

It says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present yourselves as living sacrifices, 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.

What I'd like to say to you is have incredible value for your mind.

Have incredible value for the mind in you.

And I understand that we are not to lean on our own understanding.

Just lean, just base everything on what we can see or think right now.

We are to have our minds changed by the Lord.

But it's my opinion that the church has not valued the mind sufficiently.

Because right here, it's the source of transformation for your life, is the renewing of your mind.

You let your thinking change, everything will shift.

You let God in on your thinking, your life will be transformed, and you will become a transformer of the world around you.

But you've got to have this renewed.

We've got to value what happens in our thoughts.

We've got to value our understanding.

This is why the Lord constantly come and reason with me, come and talk to me, come and debate with me.

Imagine the humility of God.

But he cares so much about our thinking.

He puts so much esteem on the human mind, on what you understand, what you know, what you perceive, what you value in your thinking.

And we need to value it.

So what's before it, he's just said something and he says, therefore, value your mind and let it be renewed, because it will transform everything.

And the what's before it is Romans 11, 33.

And it's this declaration about the mind of God.

Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.

How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out.

For who has known the mind of the Lord?

Who has counseled him?

Or who has first given to him and it shall be repaid to him?

For of him and through him and to him are all things.

To him be glory forever.

Amen.

Do you know in 1 Corinthians 2 verse 16, Paul says, We have the mind of Christ.

1 Corinthians 2:16

In Philippians 2 verse 5, it says, Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 2:5

The New Testament standard is that our mind is getting to that place through communion with God where we think like God.

He never wants us to be these subjects just being given task lists.

He wants us to think like him.

And this is how he thinks the depths of the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God.

We are being brought into depths of wisdom and understanding and knowledge that are beyond what you can expect.

It's why the great revivalists of old, they were like John Wesley, like he changed continents.

One man just changed continents.

But you know, he got up, studied the word for hours in the morning, started preaching at 6.30 in the morning after a few hours reading the word.

But when he went for hours on horseback, traversing the United Kingdom, on his, he made this little library on his horse that could take books.

And he had books of science and astronomy and biology and medicine and physics and the great plays and literature.

And what he was doing was he wasn't afraid of his mind.

He wasn't afraid of knowing and exploring the riches and the wisdom of God in knowledge.

And as he opened up his mind in that and the word of God together, it was fueling this incredible mind that could see revival across the earth.

The depths, the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.

And it's ours, beloved.

It's ours to walk into, it's ours to know, it's ours to explore.

As we get transformed, as we allow the Holy Spirit to come and move on our thinking.

As we allow the light and the word to search us out, as we learn the promises of God, the goodness of God, we'll be renewed and then be transformed.

And then transformed.

Father, we ask that you would do this within us.

We ask that we would be a people that are eager students, eager learners, eager to understand and know and change, yielded to you in awe of your thoughts towards us.

Set us in motion, accelerate us, God, in a life of change, a life of repentance, a life of coming into greater and greater agreement with you, and hosting more and more your thoughts and your mind.

It's our greatest honor, God.

The work of salvation within us.

Amen.