The Church of Eleven22 - Wk 26: Right Theology Leads to Right Doxology

Episode Date: July 15, 2018

To be loved by God is to be given the reward that is obedience to God. We don’t obey to get a reward—though there will be plenty—obedience is the reward.

Amen. And isn't that amazing? I mean, does it ever get old church hearing people confess Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior? God is so good to us as a people. God is on the move through 1122 and those stories you just heard are confessions of faith. Those are lives being changed. God's presence is on us as a people and it is good to be a part of this church. Amen. Amen. So thankful that you hear with us today. man, God has been doing some incredible things through our church over the last a handful of months for the last 25 weeks. We have been walking through the New Testament book of Romans. And has this Romans journey not been incredible? Amen? Amen.

I mean, how good is God that God would burden our pastor's heart to, with this book for this time and this season of our church that he would draw us deeper into who he is? And he would show us how to think rightly about him. and he would reveal so much truth to us through the book of Romans. Pastor Jobi and our other preaching pastors have been doing an unbelievable job walking us through verse by verse, line by line, as we get a deeper understanding of the reality of God and God's purposes. And it is good.

It's been an amazing journey for us as a church. But not just for us as a church. It's really been quite the journey for my family. It's been a really unique season in the life of our family. and so before I get all hot and bothered in the text, would it be all right if I celebrate with you all for a minute something God's done in our lives? Thank you very much, thank you.

So I'm going to do that now. Man, this Roman's journey really has been unearthing for us. God has been so good. Think back with me to Easter weekend. Easter weekend was an incredible weekend here at 1122. Thousands and thousands of people gathered across all of our campuses at all of our locations to worship Jesus and to make much of his resurrection. And hundreds of people did what we just watched on that video.

They confessed Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. And so it was a marking weekend for us as a church, but it was incredibly significant in my family. It was an Easter that I'll never forget. You see, we have a bejillion services on Easter weekend as a church, and my family attended the Saturday services. And after service on Saturday evening, my seven-year-old daughter, Anna Catherine, comes to me and she says, hey, Daddy, will you put me to bed tonight? And I was like, well, yeah, of course.

Like, I'm pretty active in bath time and bedtime, but I can tell there was something that she wanted to talk to me about. And so after bath time, she puts on her pajamas and we sit down in this rocker in her bedroom and she's in my lap and I'm like, hey, baby, what's up? What do you want to talk to Daddy about? And she's like, well, Daddy, I got some questions. I'm like, I can do questions. Let's shoot, you know. What's the seven-year-old going to say that's going to blow my hair back? Don't even say anything.

Don't even bring it up. This is my seven-year-old daughter. This was her first question that night. She said, Dad, how come God's the only one that gets to be God? If you want to start with the self-sufficiency of the Trinity, dear, we can. No, I didn't say that. I was like, great question. And so we began to unpack the questions.

My wife, Jennifer, and I, we've had many conversations with my daughter throughout the years, but this night was distinctly different. It was incredibly obvious that God was drawing my little girl into himself. And then after about an hour of asking and answering questions, I ask Anna Catherine, I said, Anna Catherine, do you believe that Jesus is God's son and God raised him from the dead? Yes, Daddy, of course. do you want to confess him as your Lord more than anything? And as I break down as a bucket of tears, I'm like,

Lanna, Catherine, let's just tell him. And so in her seven-year-old way, she had missed that she's a sinner and that she believes Jesus is God's son, that he died on the cross for her sins, and when he did it counted for her. And that he rose again three days later, and then she confessed him as the Lord of her life. Isn't God good? Amen, church? Amen.

Thank you so much as a church for being a part of discipling my family and for letting us be a part of this movement. It's amazing to see the things that God does. And so a couple of days after that, my daughter comes to me and she's like, all right, Daddy, what am I supposed to do now? And I thought, well, isn't that the question? And I said, well, baby, you know, you just learn more about who Jesus is and what he wants. And then you just follow him every day. You just trust him and you follow him. And as you grow in your understanding of who he is.

And she was like, okay, but what am I supposed to do right now? And I said, well, a great first step is baptism. Jesus says, believe and be baptized. He got baptized, so it's always a good idea to do what Jesus did. And so what do you think about getting baptized? She was like, oh, I don't know about that. And I said, okay, well, just think about it and pray about it, and then let us know if that's what you want to do.

And then, you know, we'll take it from there. And so about a week goes by and she comes to her mother and I, And she's like, okay, I want to get baptized at the beach. And I was like, well, I know a guy who can help make that happen for you. And so she goes through the beach baptism process. And before we walk out on the beach, the baptized people, we gather with all the people getting baptized. And we have a small worship service myself.

And some of our pastors and elders, we lead a time of communion. And so that day, my daughter got to take communion for the first time. And then we marched out onto the beach. And then this happened. Check it out. Come on. You know, hey, how good. good as God. It is the mercy of God. It is the grace of God. I'm so thankful as a dad. I'm so thankful

as a man. That was one of the most significant experiences of my life. No question about it. And it is all due to God's grace and for His glory alone. I'm so thankful to be a part of this church. And I'm so thankful to be able to stand here with you today and continue this journey through Romans. If you remember last week, in the middle of Pastor Jobi's sermon on Romans chapter 11, he made this statement. He said, right theology leads to right doxology. Right theology leads to right doxology. You remember when he said that? Okay, well, I got to be honest with y'all, confession. I love it when he starts talking all theologically dirty to us, you know? He starts dropping like the ologies on us, you know, the theology and pneumatology and eschatology and all these

ologies. I'm starting to sweat. I'm getting all excited. And then and then he starts the fications, you know, like the fication words like justification and sanctification and glorification. and mortification and vivification. By this time, I'm just losing my mind. I'm like, Pastor W., you take me on a vacation anytime. You know what I mean? Like, I'm feeling so good about it. I love it.

I love it. He makes this statement. He says, right theology leads to right doxology, which means that right thinking about God leads to right responding to God. That when we think rightly about God, we will respond rightly to him. And that's where the Apostle Paul takes us in Romans chapter 12. So let's dive in to verse 1.

Romans 12 1, Paul says this, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers. Now, remember back to Romans 9, Paul makes this very clear set of statements that is just, obviously, he is pleading from his soul. He has got some anguish in his soul that he wants his brothers, people he loves dearly, to understand these truths that he's laying out. In chapters 1 through 11, Paul has been telling us, and all believers, for all of human history, exactly what to think about God. Romans is perfect doctrine. If you ever wonder, what am I supposed to think about God? What is the gospel?

Romans is the book from which almost all doctrine the church practices comes from. So Paul has perfectly and exactly been elaborating for us what it is to think rightly about God. And he's like, okay, now that I've shown you how to think rightly, I'm going to show you how to respond rightly and I want you to get this brothers I appeal to you listen from my guts I want you to believe this I appeal to you therefore brothers by the mercies of God don't forget Paul has established it is by God's mercy that God picked us it is by his mercy alone that we were picked how are we picked by God's mercy and then he so he says how you were picked by God's mercy and then he says why you were picked by God's mercy and then he says why you were

pick. To present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. So this is where we're going to spend a lot of our time today is unpacking what I believe to be one of the most essential truths for a believer to walk out in the freedom purchased for them by Jesus Christ on the cross. I believe one of the most liberating and essential truths a believer can embrace. is the truth that obedience to God is a gift from God.

Obedience to God is a gift from God. It's not a have to, it's a get-to. It's the response to the truth of the revelation that is the good news of God. By the mercies of God, this is the believer's response. When you think rightly about God, this is the right response. Hold on on. You're telling me that the God of the God, the universe who created

everyone and everything that God the Son Jesus left the glories of heaven to come down here to this earth and to live a perfect life to put on human skin to clothe himself up in this wretched body of death that he lived a life perfectly

without sin so that he could die a death and become sin for me. That's what you're telling me? You're telling me that Jesus Christ offered his life up on the cross and then he didn't stay dead. He's so awesome. He rose again three days later and because he rose from the dead, he now has the keys to death and hell and he's given me the victory.

That's what you're telling me? You're telling me by the mercies of God, God rescued me through the death of his son. By the mercies of God, God reached his hand down cosmically through time and space and grabbed my heart and not only did all that for me, but then gave me the ability to believe it. By the mercies of God, not just that, he doesn't even leave me alone. He is pursuing me. And he has a part for me to play in his story. By God's mercy, he wrote my name in the book, and now he's given me a role to play.

You see, when we think rightly about God, it leads us to a place. By the mercies of God, here's what we see in Romans 12-1. We see that obedience produces joy. Right thinking leads to right responding, and right responding is an obedience to God that produces joy in the life of the believer. Apart from obedience, joy cannot be experienced. We were designed to enjoy God. The Westminster Confession of Faith, the shorter catechism, says this, that the chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever. That God designed us and saved us and did all of those things by His mercy so that we could delight in him.

so that we could enjoy him in the means by which the believer enjoys God is obedience. The believer cannot experience obedience apart, cannot experience joy apart from obedience. I mean, think about it. What is heaven, if not, uncontested obedience forever? I mean, do you believe that the kingdom of God fully realized, heaven is a place of joy? Well, of course it is. what fills heaven with joy

God does how do we eternally experience that through uncontested obedience uncontested obedience is joy fully realized the New Testament narrative is to love God is to obey God and to be loved by God is to be gifted

obedience to him as believers we don't obey God to get a reward although there will be plenty obedience is the reward. It is where our joy is found. And so in verse one, Paul uses these two phrases. He uses spiritual worship and living sacrifice. This word spiritual is the Greek word logicon, which is where we get our word logical.

And so what Paul is saying, that your logical response to who God is when he shows himself to you, when he reveals himself as truth to you, the logical response is, here's my life. Take it. Here's the keys. Here's the throne. You can have it. This is your logical response, your spiritual worship. And then he uses this other phrase, living sacrifice.

Now, if you are a Jew sitting in Rome in the first century and you hear this phrase is Paul penned it, and you're sitting there reading it with your friends. Friends, and you hear this word, living sacrifice, immediately your mind would go to two points in history. The first would be Abraham and Isaac. Let me just remind us a little bit about Abraham and Isaac. Abraham was this average normal dude who God picked. And God picked him and said, Abraham, I'm going to make your name great. I'm going to bless you and you're going to be a blessing to all the nations.

I'm going to give you kids and their kids are going to have kids. And then a nation is going to come forth. And the reason this nation is going to exist is so that I can show my glory too. them and that I can show my glory through them and that the whole world will know who I am and what I've done through this nation and this is the nation of Israel and not just that but that one day I will send the Messiah as a part of this nation and he will rescue the world from their sins. So Abraham, God makes this promise to Abraham and so Abraham's like, oh, we're going to have kids and then a year goes by and then two years go by and then three years go by.

And then 10 years go by. And then a lot of time goes by. And Sarah, Abraham's wife, when she is 90 years old, she gets pregnant. Work that out. 90 years old, she gets pregnant. And they have a son, the child of the promise in his name is Isaac, from whom the nation of Israel would come. So Isaac's growing up as a boy.

And in Genesis 22, God looks at Abraham and he says, Abraham, I want you to sacrifice Isaac as an offering. And so in the text, there's not so much as a comma. God tells Abraham to do this thing. Abraham had seen God's faithfulness. Abraham knew who God was, and so he responded to God. God told Abraham to do it. There's not so much as a comma.

He grabs two young workers and Isaac, and off they go. God says, I want you to go over here to this land called Mariah, and I want you to offer up Isaac as a sacrifice. And so Abraham goes across the countryside and over the hills and down the valleys, and there he is, standing at the foot of Marya. Mount Moriah, the mountain of sacrifice, where he is going to walk up there. And as far as he knows, he is going to offer up his son's life. And he looks at these two young workers he brings with him in Genesis chapter 22, verse 5, and he says this. And then Abraham said to this to his

young men, stay here with the donkey. Side note. Sometimes I feel like that's what Pastor Jobi's saying to y'all when he leaves y'all here with me. I'm just saying, y'all stay here with the donkey. And then Abraham said to his young men, Stay here with the donkey. And listen to this. Get this. I and the boy will go over there and what? Worship.

Think about what he's saying. As far as he knows, he's about to author up his son's life. And he calls it worship. He's about to make Isaac a living sacrifice. And he calls it worship. Now we know the story plays out and Abraham lays Isaac on the altar and then God provides a substitute. He provides a ram and that ram is sacrificed in Isaac's place and Isaac goes on to live and produce the nation of Israel. So fast forward from that moment to 2,000 years later where God seals the picture that he was painting for us with Abraham and Isaac on the same mountain.

A few thousand years later Abraham is sitting there, not Abraham, Jesus is sitting on this mountain. mountain with his friends at the last supper. And Jesus is about to offer his life as a living sacrifice. He's about to go over to the garden and Gassimony where he is going to pray and he's going to sweat blood and he's going to utter this statement, not my will be done, but yours be done, Father. Jesus and the Father are one, Jesus, let's just say, Jesus thought perfectly and rightly about Father.

He knew the Father and he was about to enact every inch of God's will the way God designed it. But before he does it, he's there having the supper with his friends, telling them about what's to come. And then this is what Mark 14 says that happens. Right before Jesus goes to the garden where he's going to be arrested. Mark 1426 says this. And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

Another way to read that is when they had offered worship, Jesus went to give up his life. what is the word picture that the Apostle Paul is painting for us? What is it he wants us to see? And I believe it is simply this, that worship is willful obedience. Worship is willful obedience. Dr. Charlie Chase in his book, Grace-focused optimism, writes it like this. Your pleasing God is fueled by your passion for God.

And your passion for God is fueled by his passion for you. and his passion for you comes to its highest expression in making you his child. Your pleasing God is fueled by your passion for God, and your passion for God is fueled by his passion for you. You see, right thinking leads to right responding. It sounds simple, right? And actually, it's pretty easy to talk about. I'm having a great time. I'm not sure how it's going for y'all, but for me,

going all right. It sounds simple, but you and I both know it's really not all that simple to live out. It's really not all that easy to walk in willful obedience. Why? Why? What's the challenge? Well, I believe one of, if not the main reason that this is difficult to walk out is because we have an enemy. We have an enemy. That's why Paul says in verse 2, do not be conformed to this world. Romans 12, 2, do not be conformed. to this world. Well, what do you mean by this world? C.S. Lewis says it like this. Enemy occupied territory. That's what this world is.

Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, and you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. 1 John 3.8 says this. The reason, the Son of God, the reason Jesus appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. Where is the devil at work? In this world. That's why Jesus came here to destroy his works. One of the greatest lies that the enemy wants you and me to believe is that spiritual warfare is not that big a deal. He wants you to believe that spiritual warfare is not

a real thing. It is a big deal. See, here's the thing. Your enemy knows you. And if you were in Christ, he hates you. He wants to kill you. That's not my words. That's Jesus's words. He says he wants to steal from you. He wants to kill you and he wants to destroy you. He doesn't, he's not talking about, I want to make your life difficult. I want to end your life is what Jesus says our enemy's goal is for us. He hates us. And here is the enemy's objective. The enemy wants us to believe that we can find soul satisfying happiness outside of holiness. He wants us to believe that we can find a satisfaction for our soul outside of doing God's will, God's way. He wants us to believe that there's things in this world that can satisfy us.

And so he lies to us. He knows us. He knows that there's a part of us that wants to believe his lies. Think back Romans chapter 7. The Apostle Paul calls this the flesh, that there's something alive in us that gives a sympathetic ear to the end. enemies lies and there's a part of us that wants to listen. We just sang it as a church, I am prone to wander. Lord, I feel it. I am prone to leave the God I love. The enemy knows our wiring. He knows our cognition. He knows us and he uses us against us to destroy us. And the way he does

it is by lying to us and deceiving us and leading us down a path where we are completely distracted from God's will, God's way, and we think we can do it according to our will and our way. And so we are completely under attack by the enemy. Spiritual warfare is alive and well. He knows this about us. He knows that if he can get us thinking about something long enough, eventually we'll begin to care about that thing. And when it moves from our head to our hearts,

it's just a matter of time before we pursue it with our hands. If we think about a thing long enough, eventually we'll care about it. And if we care about it, we will chase it. He's doing anything he can to distract us with the things of this world as though they could ever satisfy our soul. Now, this attack comes at us many different ways and through many different forms. I don't know if you know this or not, but men and women are different. You didn't know? Nobody ever told you?

Well, look, I do not pretend in the least to have women figured out. I live with three of them. It's a mystery. You know, I do. I love them. dearly, but it's a mystery to me. I don't have it figured out, but here's, let me show you, let me tell you how this plays out in my house. The enemy is how the enemy attacks my children. Not too long ago, my daughter, Anna Catherine and I were on a date, and she got all dressed up for

this date. She had her, like, Hawaii sundress on. It was the cutest thing you've ever seen. And then she put on these, like, white, shiny little heels, and she did out our hair all did. And so we went out to dinner, and it was awesome. least 10 times throughout the night, I told Anna Catherine, Annie Catherine, I love you. I think you're beautiful. You look, you look beautiful. Ten times, at least I said some version of that.

We go through dinner and then we have dessert and we get back in our car. She's sitting in the back and as I pull out of the parking spot, I look in the rear view mirror and she's got her sad face on. And I'm sitting there thinking, we just ate cheesecake. What could you possibly be sad about? you know but I see the sad face and I'm like okay so I go Anna Catherine what's wrong baby what's going on and she's like nothing now I'm no woman whisperer but I'm just telling you nothing does not mean nothing it's kind of like I don't care it does not mean I don't care

where do you want to go eat I don't care you want to go to chick filet I don't want to go to chick-fil-a you don't like Jesus you know like I don't care it means I don't care it means I don't I care. I just don't want to pick. And so you just keep guessing until you get it right. And so, all right, no problem. But nothing for sure doesn't mean nothing. So I'm like, okay, Andy Catherine, what's going on? And she's like, well, and this is what she says to me. Six years old at the time, she says, Daddy, nobody said anything about my dress. I got, I was a little frustrated at that point. But not because she didn't notice. that I said it, but because by God's grace, I knew exactly what was going on in that moment.

The enemy was lying to her. He was saying, you need to do something to get noticed. You need to do something to get people to pay attention to you. You're not beautiful. Try harder. He's lying to her. And so I slammed my car into park. Gently, there's a child in there. I slam my car in the park. And I turn around and I look. And I look. look at her dead in the face and I say, Anna Catherine, I love you and you are beautiful. And then I quote some Bible verses to her and then I say, Anna Catherine, more importantly than that, there's a, you have a daddy in heaven who will never let you down and he sees you. His eyes are on you and he loves you. And that's all that matters. And I would say the same thing to you today.

No matter what lie the enemy is throwing at you, you can rest assured that you have a Father in heaven who will not ever let you down and his eyes are set on you. He loves you. Just like you are. He's not going to leave you there. He's going to transform you, but he loves you. He sees you. You matter to him. These lies, the enemy throws at us, they come in all different kinds of ways and make no mistake. He is incredibly good at the game that he plays. the think care chase think care chase he knows the game and he is unbelievable at it but make no mistake he is completely defeated by the blood of Jesus

and the power of Jesus name we fight from victory but we are at war do not be conformed to this world but is what Paul says in verse 2 but be transformed by the renewal of your mind conformed as an outside inward what Paul is saying is

don't be influenced by the spirits that are alive in this world. Don't fall into the traps and the temptations of the enemy. Don't be conformed from the outside end. But be transformed. Transformed is an inside outward. Be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Pastor Jobi teaches us all the time. Romans chapter 8 verse 1.

He says, there is now therefore no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus. Right. And we know that this word condemnation is a building term. It means unfit for use. And in the same way, this root word transformed transformation is also a building term. And the best way to understand it is renovation. Transformation is renovation. Anybody here ever bought a fixer upper? Some of you all like, I'm sitting next to a fixer rubber. But you chose them. You didn't buy them. So anybody ever done a fixer upper? Okay. So my wife and I, we lived here for a couple of, two and a half years or so.

and we rented for the first few years that we lived here. And we decided you people are right, and so we'll stick around for a while, and it was time to, it was time to buy a house. And so we go on the house hunt, and I got a secret confession to make. I really, I love being a pastor and all, but I really just want to be a real estate mogul. I love it. I love the hunt. I love walking through people's houses. I love seeing all your pictures.

You think we don't see your pictures. We see your pictures. And so walking through people's houses, and I love the process of figuring it all out. and we went through dozens and dozens of houses and then we pull into this house and as we step into it, I got to be honest, I walked into the house and I thought, this is not my bag at all.

It just wasn't our style. It was not how I would prefer to live at all. It needed a lot of work, a lot of work. But my wife, as she's walking through it, she gets this look in her eye. You know that look, man, that makes you go, oh, buckets. Like, this is going to take some work.

and cost some money. And so we leave the house, and my wife is like, this is the one. And so after an incredibly short negotiation between her and I, which is typically how it goes, we make an offer and we buy the house. And off to work, we go ripping up baseboards, tearing out floors, painting walls, replacing stuff. We had to do almost all the work ourselves. I don't know how to use tools. This is a problem.

I don't even own a tool. I'm begging and borrowing. all my tools for my friends, and they get there to drop the tool off, and I'm like, hey, let's just stay a while, you know. And, you know, this here, this is what I know how to do. Hammers and nails, not my bag, man. But I'm in there. I want my wife to be happy. We go to work.

And day after day, hour, after hour, we work on our house, and then we move into it. And friends don't ask friends to move. You keep that in your mind. But we move into it. We move into the house, and now we live there. We've been living there for a while. and it's our home. And I barely even remember the work.

But here's what I know. My home is filled with joy. My hallways are filled with my kids' laughter's and wrestle time with daddy. Our friends on our back porch are always there with us making memories. People are coming from out of town and making memories of their own. A house is like a hotel. It is now our home.

You see, my wife saw something in that place that I did not see. All I saw was. the work it was going to take and what she saw was our home. And had we passed on that opportunity, had I not done the work, had we not done the work, would we even know what we were missing? Probably not. But now that I've tasted and seen what it means to have a home filled with joy, I cannot imagine my life without it. And in the same way, God looks at us and he says, I'm going to occupy you. I'm going to renovate you one project at a time

one step at a time and here's what I'm doing I am preparing you I'm letting you taste and see joy now because I'm preparing you for the joy of glory later God has stamped glory on the hearts of his children and he is preparing us to occupy heaven with him forever in glory

this preparation the Bible calls it sanctification unto glorification. Make no mistake about it. Salvation. Justification by faith alone. It happens in a minute. When you confess your life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, you are justified, you are made right with God. But the process of your life known as sanctification being transformed into the likeness of Christ, the way this transformation happens is by the renewal of your mind. The mind is the battlefield. You see this renovation, it does not come overnight. Salvation for sure. But renovation does not come overnight, but it comes over time.

It takes work. God initiated work. He sees what we don't. He has the end in mind and he is working on us, preparing us for it. He has chosen us for his dwelling place, and he is renovating us for his glory and for our joy. and the way we experience this joy is through obedience to the Father. It's through obedience to the Father. So what are we to do?

I thought about coming up with some cute formula for you to remember, what am I supposed to do now? And it really boils down to this. Take a step. Take a step. Take a step in God's direction. It's not a fix-all. No one step is a fix-all.

But over time, God's at work in it. So what are you to do? Take a step. In every step, here's what we're trying to do. Here's what our objective is. We're trying to load our mind with right thoughts about God. We are trying to load our minds with right thoughts about God. We are either loading our minds with right thoughts about God

or we are loading our minds with something else. And so as we take steps of obedience, we are trying to load our minds with right thoughts about God so that we would think rightly about it. And this is why, really the heart of why we gather on the weekend to worship is to glorify God and worship in Word to celebrate who he is to think rightly about him and to load our minds as a people together with right thinking about God. It's why we gather.

So making worship a regular part of our routine on the weekends is a step of loading your mind up with right thinking. Another great step. We offer a lot of steps here at the Church of 1122, not the only ones that you can take, but we offer some join a disciple group. The heart of disciple groups is that you would download deeper into the Word of God. That you would download deeper into the Word of God. Maybe you tried it and that wasn't the group for you. No problem.

Try another one. Take a step. Take a step. The most important question you can ask each week in disciple groups is read the Bible verses and then say, what does that teach me about God? You see, we want to think rightly about God first. We don't start. The most important questions are not the questions about us.

it is more important to think rightly about God than it is to even think rightly about ourselves because we actually cannot think rightly about ourselves until we think rightly about God. So join a disciple group. Wash your mind in the Word. Fill your mind with thoughts about God serve. On the weekend, serve with one of our partners in our city. Surround yourself with God's people in order to fight the battle of the mind, to think rightly about the Lord

in hopes that it goes from here to here by God's grace. And if it goes to here, then our hands will surely follow. Our hands will surely follow. So take a step. Do the work. It's worth it. You're not going to get spiritual abs overnight. You don't come to church once

and then all of a sudden you can bench press 6,000 Bible verses. It's not how it works. It takes time. It does take time. But here's what happens. Here's what happens over time. Over time, as we set our mind on God and we delight in him through obedience, here's what happens over time.

All of a sudden, we begin to get a better understanding, a deeper understanding of his love for us. The cross of Jesus Christ just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And we begin to really gain a deeper understanding of his love for us. and then that love does this thing where all the sudden our minds where they were full of bitterness and unforgiveness. Hey, bitterness and unfordiveness, they can't produce joy. They can't. But love can.

And love and joy, they work together and they become alive in you. And then all of a sudden you find yourself in this moment of suffering in this hard time and you are unexplainably at peace. And then you begin to take steps of faith. faithfulness and in your relationships where you used to be hostile and aggravated and frustrated, you begin to practice gentleness and kindness. And then you go through an episode in your life and you're thinking back on that episode and then you go, I practiced self-control. You see, these things love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.

This is the fruit of the spirit. And this is what God is at work producing in us. And we enjoy this fruit that he is cultivating in us through obedience. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Wash your mind. And here's what happens. As God becomes what you delight in, he shows you what you were designed for. As God becomes what you delight in, he shows you what you were designed for.

Do not be conformed to this world, verse 2, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. That by testing, that over time you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Isn't that why we're here? don't you want to grow deeper in your understanding of God's will for your life? Delight in him. Enjoy him by obeying him. In the areas of your life where you may not be walking out God's will, God's way, repent. Confess it, surrendered unto Jesus Christ and turn the other direction in the areas of your life

where God has spoken a word to you and he has given you something to do. He's revealed something through his scriptures that he, a step he wants you to take, or you heard somebody say something here at church that led you to a place where you're like, that is my next step. Take it. Don't hesitate. Don't delay obedience. Delayed obedience often is disobedience.

Take the step. Take the step. The work is worth it. So here's how we're going to close. We're going to close just like we do every week. This part of our service is what we call the respond time. And we call it the respond time because we believe that when we gather as a people and we get the revelation of God, we hear the good news of Jesus Christ. God shows himself to us.

He brings his presence and moves among us when we see him rightly that we will respond rightly. So we call it the respond time in hopes that we as a response. people would respond rightly to right thinking about God. We offer you every week three different ways to respond. One, we say you can respond. These are right ways. They're not the only ways, but they are the right ways that you can respond through prayer. At all of our campuses down front, we have prayer benches.

We would invite you to take a physical step in the direction of God today and pray. Pray for someone. Thank God for something. going to fix everything. It's not a fix-all, but it's a step. And one step after another step, after another step over time, obedience produces joy. Take a step. So we take a step through prayer. We take a step through worship. We sing right things about God. We declare these right truths through song about God in hopes that as we say these things that they will get into our minds and that our minds will then lead them to our hearts,

and our hearts will inform the work of our hands. We want to think rightly about God, so we sing rightly truths about Him. And then we respond through giving. We bring our first and our best to God, bringing back to God what he has so graciously given us. He gave us his first and his best in his son, Jesus Christ, and so we cheerfully, and we joyfully respond to him through prayer,

through giving, and through worship. You were created by God to glorify him and to enjoy him forever. Let's enjoy him together as we respond rightly to him. If you will, at all of our campuses, please stand with me. I'm going to pray. And then we as a people are going to respond to God. Let's pray together.

Our Heavenly Father, we thank you and we love you and we glorify you. You are better than anything in this world. you for the gift of obedience. We thank you that you're so good to us that you've created a pathway for us to experience joy in this life as you prepare us for joy in the next. We thank you for Jesus who, who by his sacrifice has created a seat for us at your table, Father, and we can live with you in your family forever. We thank you that you love us, that you see us, that your eyes are set on us, Father. I pray that us as a people, Father, God, that you would lead us down pathways of responding rightly to you that in areas of our

minds where we don't think rightly about that, Father, will you correct our thinking? Will you draw us deeper into your word and deeper into who you are? Father, would you protect us as a people from the evil one? Would you protect us from his lies and from his fiery darts? Father, would you lead us not to temptation, but deliver us from the evil one? evil one. We pray all these things by the power of Jesus's blood and by the power of his name. And all God's people said, amen. Amen.