Transformation

I don't think it's an unfair observation that I make about our particular culture, I'm speaking mostly of American culture, it's probably true of Canadian as well, kind of Western culture. And I don't think it's an unfair observation to say that we have an infatuation with transformation. Let me see if I can explain what I'm talking about here. Maybe I could give you an example or two. There are TV shows of plenty that have to do with the idea of transformation. In fact, I did as best I could, I tried to take a look at as many as I could find, and I found around a hundred shows that are about the idea of transformation, whether that's the transformation of your home, right, or interior design, or renovation, or buying something new or whatever, there's about a hundred shows on television that talk about the idea of renovation. There's entire channels on television that the entire content of that channel has to do with the idea of transformations, because we love, as a culture, seeing the before and the after, don't we? This is what it looked like, and it was terrible, and now it looks like this and it's awesome. Why? Because we love us some transformation. Now, don't even get me started if I go into some different realms, like for instance, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons told us that this past year they did $17 billion worth of plastic and cosmetic procedures. Now, I'm grateful that they exist, by the way. Sometimes people have accidents, and they need repairs and all of those kinds of things. That's great. On the cosmetic side, there have been some times where I have looked at the before and the after, and I have thought to myself, you probably should have just held on to what God gave you. Now, maybe it's me, but we love us some transformation. I mean, there's even a show on television called, "Dr. Pimple Popper." Real show. And it's what you think it is. But I thought, it's not just little pimples like we got when we were in middle school. No, no, no, it's big growths that are happening on a head, or a neck, or a back, or a leg. And we just somehow want to get involved in this show and watch the transformation. Why? Because we love transformation. And it is good when somebody can be helped in that regard, that's a wonderful thing. But we love us some transformation. What do you think it is that motivates why we have this infatuation with transformation? I'm not sure exactly, I just know that there are motivations around why we have an infatuation with the idea of transformation. If I were looking at those motivations on the positive side, I might say this. It's because we have a deep and significant longing, and that longing is actually about things that are broken that we want to see restored, things that are deteriorating that we want to see made beautiful. That at the core of who we are, we have this inner kind of longing, this inner kind of desire to see that kind of transformation. That's on the positive side. Now, if I were talking about on the negative side why we have an infatuation with transformation, maybe it's because in many cases, people just don't want to deal with reality. That may be the case sometimes too. So I really don't know all of the rationales around this, and why different people have different motivations, but here's the question that I would ask, why don't we have the same level of infatuation for transformation around our own souls, around our own inner lives? Why aren't we as infatuated with desiring to see the renovation of our own hearts, the transformation of our own lives? Now, we do this some and to some degree, but I would suggest to you, even in the church, I would suggest to you that too many times it's often just cosmetic. And as a result, it hasn't gone deep enough, this need for transformation hasn't gone deep enough. Now, I wanna remind you today that the Apostle Paul, who we're gonna be looking at in Romans 12, if you have a Bible, I want you to find your way to the book of Romans 12. If you don't have one, then there's probably one accessible to you no matter what campus that you're on. I always wanna encourage you, by the way, just as a heads up, reminder for everybody, this is church and we study the Bible here. This church is a church that opens the word and studies it. I don't say that to shame anybody, some people come from different backgrounds where they actually can just, it's kind of like a drive-thru. You just kind of check in and check out. There's not much there for you. Not much in terms to eat. But we open the word, and we look at it and we understand it, and we try to take it in and receive it, and be washed by it. So I don't say that to shame anyone, I just say, hey, if you come to this place, to this church, bring a Bible with you. Whether it's in your hand like mine, I like the paper copies, because they don't give me any notifications. But if you like the digital version, then that's fine too. Whatever it takes, just get the word of God in front of you, and you're like, well, but you're gonna be showing it to me on the screen. No, I'm not. Never again. This stops right now. No, I'm gonna, I'm gonna. But it's no excuse, because this screen can't come home with you. Learn your way around the scripture. Now, I've just given you enough time to find the book of Romans, because those of you who didn't know where it was could look in the table of contents, and figure out where it is. And the reason I bring this up is because Paul was very serious about the idea of transformation. Paul helps to remind us that the idea of transformation is imperative in the Christian life. And here's what Paul writes in Romans 12, beginning in verse number one. He says, "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world," watch this, "but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing and perfect will." Now nearby the house that I grew up in and nearby the house that I now inhabit in Georgia, is a mountain that is called Kennesaw Mountain. Here's a picture of it. That's it in the background, right. It's not the tallest mountain in the whole world, right. If you went into the Adirondacks, many of those mountains are taller, but it is indeed a mountain that is there in a place that kind of has ridges and hills, and some kind of smaller mountains. It's a place where in 1864, general Sherman on his Atlanta campaign was coming through there with Union forces, and he would be fighting in that very place on a battlefield, general Johnston, who was from Tennessee, who was with the Confederate forces. Now, because I told you the year, and because I used two terms, you know exactly what war this was. What was it?

- Civil War.

- The Civil War. Now, here's what's interesting about the Civil War. A civil war means that there are opposing forces from the same nation that are warring against one another. That's what a civil war actually is. And what Paul does when he describes what is happening in transformation, is that he tells us that transformation has a battleground. Here's what I would summarize it. The mind is the battleground for transformation. The mind is the battleground for transformation. You see, what Paul says in verse number one, he says, "I'm urging you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship." He's asking us to lay our whole lives down, but he's asking us to do that in view of God's mercy. Now, it wasn't very long ago, a number of weeks ago that I actually preached on the idea of God's mercy. And here's what I would say to you, that all through the book of Romans, when Paul is writing to the church at Rome, he talks about the mercy of God, and how all encompassing the mercy of God is, how extensive it is. That while you and I, as sinful people, were condemned and separated from God, and we had no hope, because the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. God has made, by his mercy, he has made provision for those of us who have sinned and come short of the glory of God, who are separated from God, who are determined to be condemned, because we have not received the grace that God has offered to us, that God has mercifully reached out to us in the person of his Son, who was born of a virgin, who lived a sinless life, who went and died on a cross to satisfy the justice of God against sin, and who rose from the dead on the third day, conquering sin, hell, grave, judgment on our behalf so that now by faith in him, we can be transformed, we can be made new, we can be recipients of mercy. And here's what Paul said. In view of God's mercy, it's all encompassing. Your response should be all encompassing. Offer everything about you to God. That's what Paul says. Offer all that you are. Your response should be all encompassing, because God's mercy is all encompassing. And so offer all of yourself as a living sacrifice, Paul's obviously using Old Testament sacrificial imagery here, and he says, "Offer yourself as a living sacrifice fully pleasing to the Lord." But then when he does that, he actually gets very specific in what he's talking about, because he talks about offering our whole body, so to speak. It doesn't just mean our physical body, it means everything about us. But then he gets very specific, and he highlights a specific area that needs transformation. The mind. That's what he highlights very specifically here, the mind. Now, the mind, and if I could speak anatomically, the brain is an extraordinary organ in the human body. It's really remarkable. I actually looked at some information that the Dent Neurological Institute, here locally, put out about the remarkable nature of the brain. I'm not gonna go into all of the detail there, but let me start this way. Let me show you this picture. This is not a picture of a brain. Does anybody know what this is a picture of? It's the Milky Way, right? Some of you realize that's the Milky Way. What's great about the Milky Way is we know about how many stars make up the Milky Way. That's, by the way, if you don't know what that is, that's the galaxy that earth is in, okay. It's really, really, really big. That's my scientific explanation of the Milky Way. Super humongous. Do you know how many stars make up the Milky Way? 100 billion stars. 100 billion stars. Now watch this. Do you know how many neurons are in your brain? 100 billion neurons. Neurons are actually information transmitters in your brain. Some of you are going, like I was shocked if I had three. You have a hundred billion neurons in your brain, and attached to those neurons are trillions with a T and an R, trillions of transmitters that are called synapses. The synapses are what fire and help to transmit information. And by the way, that information inside of your brain can travel between 250 to 300 miles an hour. Like it's going crazy, right? It's a remarkable thing. In fact, our brain works so quickly that on an average day, between 12,000 and 60,000 thoughts come through it, because of everything that's firing. Some of you're going, I'm more on the 12,000 side, and some of you're like, well, I'm on the 60,000 side, right. Whatever it is, that's what's happening inside of your brain. Now, what's interesting about that is even though you have between 12 and 60,000 thoughts a day, 95% of those thoughts are repetitive, and 80% of those repetitive thoughts are negative. Interestingly enough. And do you know what's also, like your brain moves at such speed that if you were to take the power of the brain, and convert it to wattage, your brain could light up a light bulb. So those of you who've been told by your friends, not the brightest bulb, yes you are, even your brain that you might say is a little dimmer, can still power a small light bulb. It's a remarkable thing and it reminds me of what the Psalmist said about our creation, "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, I know that full well." We are remarkably intricate in our design. But Paul says that this extraordinary thing that we have, called our mind, listen to this, he said it needs renewing. Do you know why he said it needs renewing? Because it sounds like something went wrong. Well, it did, and it does. Because sin has affected every single human being, it means that even our minds have been now products of that corruption, and it needs, we are in need of a renewal in our very minds. Something went wrong. In fact, Paul, when he's talking in the book of Romans, is not just now coming to the idea of our mind, and its need to be renewed, because he's already been telling us, that's why there's a therefore in the very beginning of the verse in chapter 12 verse number one, "Therefore," in other words, in light of all that's come before this, he talks about the need for the renewal of our mind. Watch what he says in chapter one, "For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God, nor gave thanks to him. But their," what? "Their thinking became futile, and their foolish hearts were darkened." Paul's there talking about the way in which the mind of the unregenerate person works. In Romans 7, he notes this, those of us who are believers in Jesus, he said, "I find this law at work, although I want to do good, evil is right there with me, for in my inner being, I delight in God's law, but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me." You see, Paul says, even though there's a renewal that happens, there's a new mind that we have, that there's still a corruption in our sinful nature that is making war with us, this civil war, so to speak, that's going on in our very minds. In Romans 8 he says this, "The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God." You see, what Paul is reminding of us is this, prior to regeneration, prior to us being born from above and made new, our minds are actually hostile to God. But even after we've been made new, there is still a battle for our mind, because of our sinful nature that still remains, that we haven't been completely freed from at this exact moment. But I'm not leaving you with bad news, I want to give you some good news, because Paul, when he wrote to the church at Corinth, he said this to them in 1 Corinthians 2, "For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" Watch what he says. "But we have the mind of Christ." What a remarkable statement, we have the mind of Christ. And then what Paul writes to the church at Philippi, in chapter number two he says this, "In your relationships with one another, have the same mind, or the same mindset as Christ Jesus." Some of you may be thinking to yourself, this sounds a little bit like it's contradictory, right. We said we have the mind of Christ, but we're also commanded to have the mind of Christ. Well, it's not a contradiction, here's what it's a reminder of. It's a reminder that we have it, we just have to use it. We have the mind of Christ, but we are commanded to use the mind of Christ that he has given to us. And how do we do that? Well, Paul, in these two verses tells us kind of how we do it. He kind of shows us how we don't, and then says, here's how we do this. He begins this way in the very first part of verse number two in Romans 12. He says, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world." Now, listen carefully. The translation here, when you kind of hear this idea, first of all he is talking about the world, right. The world here is not referring to the earth, don't conform to the pattern of the earth. In other words, your life needs to somehow turn into an oval that rotates on its axis, that's not what he's talking about. What he's talking about when he uses the term world here, is the spiritual system set up to oppose God and the things of God. That's a reference to the world. It's a spiritual system set up to oppose God, because the word world is used in a number of different ways in the scripture itself. And in this context it's talking about a spiritual system set up to oppose God. So he says, "Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world." There's another translation for that that's really good and helpful and insightful that says this, "Do not be pressed into the mold of the world." That's a good way of referring to it. Now you guys know that I have a granddaughter and then I've got a grandson on the way, in just a couple of weeks actually. Looking forward to that. One of the great joys of being a grandfather is that there are points in time where you get to play with things like this. This is Play-Doh, and Play-Doh is awesome. The great thing about Play-Doh is that it's been around a really long time. You know that it's a great kid's thing, because it's been around since I was a kid. Some of you're older than me, and you played with Play-Doh as well. How many of you played with Play-Doh in your lives? Alright, that's like almost everybody. Some of you are like, I would never touch that. It's up to you, to each his own, but I'm just saying you're missing out. And in part why you're missing out, confession time, I wanna see a show of hands on every campus, 'cause I can see you at every campus. I wanna show our hands at every campus. How many of you ever in your young life ate just a little bit of the Play-Doh, right. I heard it was salty. I'm kidding. I ate like a lot of Play-Doh. It explains a number of things in my life. I used to like, I mean, sometimes Saturday morning it would just be like a buffet of Play-Doh. I'd be like, this is, I'm thirsty. This stuff is salty. But here's what I've learned. You take something like the things that they give you, they give you these molds, so to speak, that you can utilize with Play-Doh. And what the world wants to do is the world wants us to fit into the mold that it places us in. But the interesting thing is, is that the mold of the world, listen to this, is built on lies. It's built on that which is standing in opposition to God. You know, things like, I have to perform to be acceptable to God. And you get shoved into that, and here's what happens. It shreds you. It just shreds your life, because it's, truthfully, it's a lie. It's not what you're to be built upon. Or maybe you've got this that says, you know what? I need to just keep getting and getting and getting, and acquiring and acquiring and acquiring and acquiring and acquiring and acquiring and acquiring. And you know what it does? It shreds you. Because you were built to be a person of generosity like your Father, like the God who made you. And all of a sudden your heart starts looking very different than what it should look like, because it's built on lies. You know what the unfortunate thing is in our culture, is that we're actually, as parents sometimes, forcing our kids into the mold of the world. What we're doing is we're maybe not saying it to them, but what we're saying to them is that your love from me will be based on your performance for me. And you know what it's doing to them? It's shredding them. It's shredding their hearts. It's evaporating so many things inside of them. You see, what we have to realize is that this has just been built on lies, and what we would want instead is to be people who are now not being forced into the mold of the world that ends up shredding us, but that we can be a mold in the hand of a loving God, who can actually shape us, and he may press on us and he may flatten out some stuff and he may pull some things away and push them down just like this. But what he's doing is he's contouring us, and he's shaping us in his good hands to be like his Son. But see what the world wants to do is it wants to shove us into its mold that's built on lies, and all it does is it shreds our very hearts. But we've got a God who can take what is shredded, and he can start to do this, and he can remake it and he can say, okay, yeah, I still see there's a little bit of mess in there. I got it, but don't worry, I'm gonna start working that out. I'm gonna start moving that in a different direction. That's what we want for our lives. And Paul says, kind of starting on what I would call the defensive side, he says, "Do not let the world press you into its mold." Don't let it shove you in there, because it's built on lies and it's not good for your soul. So how do you do it on the positive side if that's the case? Well, he says that to us in Romans 12:2, "Don't conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed," what? "By the renewing of your mind." Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. In other words, your mind needs to be renewed and reformed in the truth. You'll have to take in the word of truth so that you can be reformed, instead of letting the lies of the world that have sat in your mind, and have corrupted your mind, and have told you stories that are not true, that are shredding your very heart, let your life be reformed in the hand of God through his word, by the power of his spirit, and replace the lies with the truth. 

 Your mind needs to be renewed and reformed in the truth. You'll have to take in the word of truth so that you can be reformed. Instead of letting the lies of the world that have sat in your mind, and have corrupted your mind, and have told you stories that are not true, that are shredding your very heart, let your life be reformed in the hand of God through his word, by the power of His spirit, and replace the lies with the truth. This is what it looks like to renew our minds. See, some of us, it's kind of difficult because we've had these lies stuck in our heads for a long period of time, and we can't get rid of them. There's only one way to get rid of them. Let me see if I can illustrate. If you would do me a favor, I want you to focus on the this number, 1,987. Everybody do that for a moment. I mean, if you've gotta close your eyes and visualize 1,987, do that. Maybe you wanna say it to yourself softly under your breath, 1,987. Does everybody have a picture now of this particular number, 1,987? You have it? Are you locked in on this number right? Can you see it? Are you visualizing it? 1,987. Now here's what I want you to do, I want you to say this to yourself. Listen, 1,987, you better go away right now. I'm not gonna listen to this, 1,987. You better get right outta my brain, 1,987, and you better do it right now. I renounce 1,987 right this second. How's that working out for you? You can't get rid of it. Let me ask you to do something else. In your mind, two plus two gives you what? Four? Four. Two plus two is four. And now multiply four by itself. Four times four is what?

- 16.

- 16. Four times four is 16, right. So two plus two is four, four times four is 16. What number's in your mind right now? 16. You replaced what was previous. Some of you won't even remember the number that we started with. Many of you will, but some of you have replaced it in such a way that you're like, I know it was 1000 something, something, something, but you may not be able to go back to it because you have replaced that. Now here's the thing. Listen, this isn't some new agey concoction that I'm trying to talk about. This is something that is in the word of God. It is what Paul talks about in the idea of how we replace lies with the truth. Listen to what he said in Ephesians 4. He said, "You were taught with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires, and to be made new in the attitude of your minds, and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." This is a picture, by the way, this is a picture of the principle of replacement. We are taking off the old, and we are replacing it with the new, because of what God by his spirit is doing in us. And we are, as a result, renewing our mind. And then watch this. This is how this begins to work out. Paul talks about it very specifically when he continues in verse 25. "Therefore each of you must put off falsehood," and do what? "Speak truthfully to your neighbor." Do you see the replacement? "For we are all members of one body." Then he says this, "In your anger, do not sin." So sinful anger put away and then he says do this, "Don't let the sun go down while you're still angry, and don't give the devil a foothold. Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer." So he says, put that away and do what? "But must work, doing something useful with their own hands that they may have something to share with those in need. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, instead it should be only what is helpful for building others up, according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." Do you see what Paul's doing here? He's saying this is what you put off, and this is what you replace it with. This is an important. He does this in other places in the scripture. Overcome evil with what? Good. We are replacing evil. We're not just shouting about evil, we're not just going, oh, evil. We are replacing evil with good. This is what it looks like to actually renew our minds. Write this statement down, transformation happens when we replace lies with truth, and act in the power of the Spirit. This is how transformation happens, friends. It happens when we replace lies with truth, and we act in the power of the Spirit. That's a very important key phrase there, because that's what Paul talks about. He talks about not just, we've replaced one with the other, but it's our actions in our doing because of a different mindset that we do this. Now let me ask you a question, do you have a plan in place in your life to see your mind renewed? Because here's what I know, you don't realize the depth of corruption in your own mind. You don't realize the level of toxins spiritually that have entered your mind. So do you or do you not have a plan to get after the renewing of your mind in Christ Jesus, to allow the mind of Christ to be lived out, to think Jesus thoughts after him, and then act by the power of the Spirit in regard to that. Because here's what I'll tell you. If you don't, and some of you're watching online, you know, at various campuses. If you don't have, listen, if you don't make corporate or collective worship a priority, but you average what the rest of the United States averages, once a month for those who call themselves regular attenders because we've allowed other things to press us into the mold. There's other things more important for us. And so sports is the king. It must be everything. Dance and theater must be everything. All of our other stuff must be everything. Here's what you're doing. Here's what you're doing, you should be making a priority for the collective worship of God together because of how it changes us, and because the word of God is being sown into the hearts and lives of those that are here. It's imperative that we have a plan. If you don't have a plan to be in a community group, you should make a plan to get into a community group so that you can talk about how to work out the reality of the word of God in your life among brothers and sisters that can help you do that. If you don't have a plan personally to spend time reading the word, you need one. You're like, well, I just don't know that much. Listen, the spirit of God wants to shape you as you spend time in his presence around the word, and wants to transform your mind so that you would grow in wisdom. And if you need some help along that line, we can help you, thechapel.com/biblereading, or reading plan, I'm sorry, thechapel.com/readingplan will give you resources, you can choose from different plans in terms of how you go about reading the word of God. There's options there to be able to help you. But let me say this, why do we need to renew our minds? Like what's the point? Why is Paul pressing on this idea of transformation of our minds? Watch this, he tells us in verse number two. Here it is, "Don't conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing and perfect will." It is amazing to me when I have people talking to me, "I just really wish I knew God's will," but they have no plan to see the transformation of their mind. And when you have no plan for the transformation of your mind, how do you think you're going to ever be able to understand and test and approve the will of God? You're not. And here's the thing, those who know the will of God, because they know how God has revealed his will through his word, will understand that part of the will of God for the world, is that his people are ambassadors, are priests, are witnesses, because we have a world that is in need of being transformed by the life-giving gospel of Jesus Christ, and we need authentically transformed people who understand that where they go, the light of Christ goes, and that they can bring that light into their workplace. They can bring that light into their school, they can bring that light into their home. They can bring that light into the social spaces that they find themselves in. We need authentically transformed people, not people who've just had cosmetic surgery spiritually, who know a few, they know some church lingo, they know some church language, they know some words to the songs so they feel good. Oh, hey brother, good to see you this morning. Hey sister, how are we doing this morning? You know some of that, but there's not an authentic depth of transformation. Or you're just a church spectator. You just show up and you suck off the life of the body as much as you can without contributing anything to it. And you get outta here as fast as you can. It's a check-in, check-out. You're a consumer. That's not what God is looking for. He's looking for authentic transformation because of what, listen, because of what he wants to do in us, and what he wants to do through us in the world that we live in. You live in a neighborhood, you live in an apartment complex, you live in a dorm, wherever it may be. God wants to take you, because of the light of Christ in you, and he wants to use you. He wants to take authentically transformed people, and do great work through them. That's why we need to renew our minds, because we can test and approve the will of God. Now, maybe for you, maybe you've got a longing deep inside of you that has been like, I want to see a difference in my life. I want to be different. And maybe church is new to you, and this is kind of a brand new thing, but you're like, you know what, I've lived for lies long enough, and I've realized the frustration in that and I've got a longing to see something different. But here's the thing, your mind has been programmed to tell you this, and it's a lie. It's this, "I can't change." That's the lie. You can change, because Jesus is still transforming lives. I promise you. You're like, oh man, look, I showed up here. I'm barely sober from last night, and I came to church 'cause somebody brought me. I can't change. Really? Why don't you look at Nate's story and tell me what you think afterwards.

- I'm Nate. I'm 22. I've been following Christ for about a year now. Before that, I was doing whatever I wanted to do. Going out every weekend, parties, drinking, smoking, even other drugs. I didn't really do anything without, you know, getting high before. I remember conversations with people in high school who would tell me about Jesus, and I was like, the book's fake. It's not real. You know, you're worshiping something that's not there. I had a buddy ask me to go to church with him back last year in March. He was just like, "Hey, like, I think this would be really good for you." And like my idea around it at first was I wasn't really going to believe I was just going, 'cause I needed some type of structure in my life. And honestly, going to church on a Sunday made me feel better, you know, feel better about myself. And that's kind of what I was looking for at that time. But it was still very much, I was out until four o'clock in the morning on a Saturday, and then I was going to church in the same clothes that, you know, I was out partying in the night before. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was just trying to kind of fill a void, and it was not working. There was just one point where it was just like a turning point. I had a rugby game out in Saratoga, and I was taking a little break from drinking, you know, I was like, that was my thing. I was like, I'm just gonna take a. I'm gonna take a break for a little bit of time. We ended up playing a great game, and next thing you know, we go to the thing after and I have one drink, and then one drink leads to two and then three and then four. And next thing, I know, I'm spending the night there with some of the guys. And you know, we ended up going out, and I ended up getting so drunk that I, they found me like passed out on the sidewalk, like downtown Saratoga. The police found me. Just tears started flowing. And in that moment it was just like, hey, like you gotta, like. You gotta pick one, you know. You either pick the world or pick God, because you can't keep doing both. I chose God. As I just continued to grow closer to God, he started to transform my heart to where those things didn't, they weren't appetizing anymore. You know, I didn't want to go out on a weekend, you know, I didn't want to, you know, get high anymore. I can't even explain like the overwhelming amount of peace that I have in my life. It's just been, you know, just continuing just to pursue God. And he just continues to keep, you know, pulling me closer. And it's crazy that like that was only a year ago, you know, a year ago they found me, you know, passed out on the sidewalk, and now I'm interning at The Chapel. I wanna be somebody that, you know, I could have used back then. If, you know, when I was going on the wrong path, like somebody could have stepped in and, you know, made a difference in my life just by telling me about Jesus. No matter what situation you're stuck in, no matter what strongholds you feel like the enemy has on you, like, when you give your yes to God, when you're obedient to him, like, he can transform any situation that you're stuck in. That's just what he does, and I've seen it, I've witnessed it.

- That's not a story from a million years ago, that's a story of what happened in the life of a young man who Jesus transformed. Jesus is still in the transforming business. You are not too far, you have not gone too far. He has the power to rescue you and change you right now. And so if that's your need, then I'm telling you, you've got an option in Jesus because of what he's done on your behalf through his death, for your sins, for his resurrection, for your justification, for the hope that you can have in being made new as a result of his work on your behalf. He can do it. He will do it. He's done it in Nate's life. He's done in my life. He's done it in a whole bunch of lives of the people that I'm talking to on every one of our campuses. So trust him in that. And maybe, as a believer, maybe you have not really had the plan you need to have for the renewing of your mind. And you've allowed it to become toxic. You've allowed it to become influenced, and you've bought into some lies. And what you need is you need to begin spending time regularly in the word of God, and letting the word of God wash over you by the power of the Spirit. And that you now, by the power of the Spirit, start walking in faith in the truth that God reveals to you in His word. Because maybe you haven't done that, maybe you haven't done it faithfully. You kind of rely on a once a week meal because you're gonna have robust teaching on a Sunday. And you're like, well, you know, I got my teaching for the week. It's really good to have the teaching side, but you need to continually feed yourself. You don't eat one time a week in your regular life, you shouldn't be doing that spiritually either. Give yourself to that discipline. Repent for where you need to repent, and turn to God and ask him, help me by the power of your spirit. Give me strength to be able to walk in this, and then walk by faith in it. Whatever he is asking you to do, I encourage you, whatever campus you're on, to do it. Transformation is going to occur when we, listen to this, when we replace the lies with truth, and we act in the power of the Holy Spirit. Let's bow our heads together for prayer. We'll be dismissed in just a moment, but if you're here and you're a believer, I would encourage you to draw a line in the sand, and do what God has asked you to do, whatever that may be. That may be to start a reading plan. It may be to get plugged into a community group, whatever that looks like, I'm asking you to do what he asked you to do. Or you may be here and never before have entrusted your life to Jesus. There'll be some men and women that are down front, they're heading this way right now. They would love to take a moment, pray with you, share with you how you can know Jesus, how your life can be changed, like Nate's life was changed, because Jesus is still in the transformation business. And we would love to see that happen. Just like our brother that got baptized, Dustin whose life was transformed. You've heard stories of transformation today. He's not done and he won't be done with you. Don't believe the lie that you can't change. You turn from sin and turn to Jesus, and he's gonna rescue you and save you, and make you new and teach you what it means to walk in faith and in trust. So come and take one of these men or women by the hand, and let them talk with you, and pray with you about what that looks like. Father, I do pray in the name of Jesus that you would write this on our hearts and that you would help us walk as people who are truly transformed so that, so that we can then understand and know, and test and see and prove the will of God. So that we can hear your heart through your word, and we can live as people who are sent, people who exist for others that are in our spheres of influence, so that they can see the transformation, they can see the power of Christ in a life to change it. 'Cause this world is covered in darkness, and we are to be people of light, bring the light of the good news of the gospel of Jesus' love and transformation. Would you help us to be those kinds of people. I ask now in Jesus' name. Amen.