Hey, Romans 12, no one is shocked by that. Romans 12, where we began the weekend, we end the weekend. As you guys are turning there, I just want to say thanks for just kind of adopting my family and I, even in walking around. A lot of you guys might gaga-bao with my kids and let them win a couple of games, that was really cool of you.
But just the conversations and the questions and engaging in an apologetics conversation, it's been really meaningful for me and my family, this feels like a second home to us and so thanks for just the, there's an insecurity I think, like as I get older and I'm like, that you feel, you might feel like you become like irrelevant and you recognize the word of God's always relevant. But as a crew, just, I feel welcome and I hope that you've been both challenged, but also you just feel that I love you very deeply. And on this side of heaven, we're not going to be gathered in the same room together. Again, after today, after tonight, and so I just want to say thanks and I appreciate your engagement.
It's been really, yeah, it's meant a lot to me. So Romans 12, here we go, beginning at verse 9. Okay, so what's happening here is Paul gives us, this is kind of a cohesive thought. For 11 chapters, Paul says, look how much you're loved, look how much you're forgiven, look what you've been saved from, the wrath of God being poured out.
Jesus Christ is absorbing that, how so? Because God demonstrates his love for us and this, we are so sinners Christ died for us. There's going to be tension inside of your life. Romans 7, why do I do the good that I should do?
Why don't I do the good things that I ought to do? Who can rush me from this body of death? Romans 8, 1, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Jesus, it gets better.
We become adopted and become sons and daughters of the king of the universe. That's amazing. Romans 10, confessing your heart, his grace, and that you will be saved. And some of you made that proclamation for the first time last night.
So that's 11 chapters of amazing value that Christ has taken away our sin. He has allowed us to respond to his grace and his mercy and his work on the cross with the proclamation of faith. And that's Ephesians 2, 8, 9. It is by grace you have been saved through faith, not of yourselves, not by works, so that no man can boast.
And then Paul goes, but listen, once you recognize how deeply you've been saved, your life needs to look different because now God's in control. And if Romans 10, he truly is now Lord, Kurya's in the Greek, he's now the king of your life. Guess what? The king's got some expectations of you.
And those, when you fulfill those expectations as he start loving you, no, are you then saved? No, you're saved before that. You are saved prior to that when you make that confession of faith and trust in him. But certainly having the Holy Spirit now live inside of you will change you.
So after giving the really great news, Paul then flips and says therefore, brothers and sisters in view of this mercy, you need to offer your body to living sacrifice, this holy and pleasing to God. He's setting up this upside-down kingdom. Christianity is an upside-down kingdom. Whatever you naturally would do, Christianity calls for the antithesis of it.
So Paul just levies it out one by one. This is how upside-down your life is going to be if you're a Christian. Your love must be sincere. Sincere's from two words that originally were in the Latin, meaning without wax.
People used to make pots and then they would break the pieces of pottery, and then they would use wax to put them back together and they would sell it to you as if it had never been broken. Because if you buy a piece of pottery with wax in it, when it bakes in the sun, the wax melts and then your pot breaks. So you were kind of like a con man. You would take a broken pot and you'd go, oh, this is a great piece of pottery, but you used wax to glue it back together.
Then after you sold it, you ran away, they went home and put it on their front doorstep in the ancient year Eastern. Hey, Keith. And by the way, Israel's the same line of latitude as Baker's Hill, California. So it's hot.
You've been there before? You ever baked the egg in the sidewalk? Welcome to Baker's Field. Smells like cows.
Fantastic. We all breathe in the same smog for 20 years. Valley Fever is a real thing. Anyway, so you have the people putting the pottery in the front doorstep, and then the sun comes out and bakes it and your pottery falls apart.
So if you were a potter and you were above reproach and you were an honest potter, you would mark your pottery as sin-ser-ay. No wax, no cover-up, no pretense, no fake, no fraudulent. It's all real, sin-ser-ay. There's no wax here.
You're not going to see one thing and experience another whenever the heat is on. This is who I actually am. This is what Paul says. Love must be without wax as a Christian.
You don't pretend it's not fake. Then he gives this very important little Hebrew couplet where he says, hate what is evil, cling to what is good. Hate what is evil, cling to what is good. And now he's going to kind of expound on that.
That's basically his thesis statement. Now he's going to talk about how upside down your life is going to be if you follow Jesus. You're going to be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.
In a culture of get rich or die trying and it's all about you, you're going to honor your brothers and sisters above yourselves. Never lack and zeal. Keep your spiritual fervor serving the Lord. It doesn't mean always have such a high emotion about serving the Lord.
It's a spiritual fervor. Some days you're going to wake up and go, I don't feel like going to church. Stop letting your emotions guide your life. Your emotions are an excellent thing about a car dashboard.
Some of you guys are driving, but you all can understand the concept of it. Your emotions are a great check engine light, but a terrible GPS system. Your heart is a great check engine light. It can tell you when something's wrong, but it shouldn't direct you on where to go next.
The heart is a great check engine light and a terrible GPS system. But our culture says, follow your heart. Why is that problematic? Because Jeremiah 17 verse 9 says, your heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.
Who can tame it? Let's put it this way. If what your heart in your life has steered you towards and if you just think about the decision is that your heart alone made in your life, you're probably going to see a trail of dumpster fire decisions in your history. If your heart was coming to apply for the role of captain of your life, you should look at its history and go, I'm not trusting you.
You like to run us into ditches. You're not in control of anything. This is what Paul says. Don't lack spiritual fervor.
Serve in the Lord. Be joyful in your hope. Patient in affliction. Faithful in prayer.
When he's saying patient in affliction, the number Paul gets his head locked off in 64 AD. The church is under persecution. You've got a bunch of different ones. You've got Claudius with the expulsion of the Jews.
Then you get the Diocletian persecution and Nero's persecution. All of Rome is set on fire and Nero blames Christians so that all of a sudden overnight there was a deep bigotry persecution and even execution of Christians. Jesus who Paul's writing to, a persecuted church. And what do you do with that?
He doesn't say, hunker down and get mad at the world. He says, be patient in your affliction and faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord's people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. This is backwards from culture. And if someone has something to rejoice about, you don't get jealous.
You don't want up them. And you guys may want your friends group. That every time you've got a story, they somehow have a better one. You meet someone famous and they met someone more famous.
You score to touchdown and they made a touchdown with one handed catch. You're like, homie, let me have my thing. This is what Paul's saying. If someone does something to rejoice about, don't want up them.
I can't tell you after my wife passed away. I need to tell you this because I was remarried in 2023. So somebody's been watching me walk around with my wife, Carolyn, now. And then like, who's that?
Relax, friends. We were married in 2023. And so overnight she adopted me as a husband to am five kids. And so she's made of better stuff than I am.
So that's what you've seen walking around. Anyway, things are going great. Not that you asked, but I'm just feeling them. Yeah, thanks.
Bless you, persecute, bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those. More with those who mourn. Again, after Paige died, Christian, sometimes we participate in comparative grief.
You've got something hard in your life and someone else is like, well, that's hard. But guess what I went through. That's not what Christians do. You don't want not people, both in rejoicing or in grief.
You let them grieve. You mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Don't be proud.
Be willing to associate with people of low positions in your schools, in your churches. They're nerdy, weird kid that no one likes. That's your people. Those are your people.
Those are your people. Those were your called to. I'm not called to them. I don't go to your school.
That's your calling. Do not be conceited. That means to think of yourself more highly than you ought to. And how could you?
There's 11 chapters of the only reason you live and move and have being is because of the grace of God. How could you be conceited about that? Verse 17, do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone.
If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live a peace with everyone. Look, some people are just going to have your ticket in life, man. Some people, you're just a burn their saddle. You're going to meet some people and they hate to size your guts and you don't know why.
So does the Bible say you've got to get them to like you? No. As far as it depends on you, live a peace with everyone. There are certain people who the moment they met you, they decided they didn't like you.
And there's nothing that you can do to fix it. It's as far as it depends on you. If people don't like you because you're a jerk, that's on you. If people don't like you because you follow Jesus or because they don't know anything about you, let go.
As the great theologian Elsa once said, let it go. When she was on the North Mountain back in 2019 or whatever that was. All right, shut your mouths. I don't care.
Did you say no? What do you got, Disney's story? Technically, you're in high school. I have a reason to have watched Frozen.
You don't. Okay. Live a peace with everyone. Oh, this is talking about us.
This is us. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. You're so wrong and I'm so sorry.
Here we go. Okay. Verse 19. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath.
That's an important line. God even says, look, when someone wrongs you, when someone says something vitriolic or hateful about you, when someone bullies you on the internet, you don't get back at them. Here's what God says. This is an important line.
He has a father to you. I got it. I saw it. I got it.
And he says, leave room for my wrath. So when you go back and go, uh-uh, hear that. God goes, you just took out my space. I had room for my wrath and God's wrath is better than yours.
Right? Because it's not set over a computer screen. God sees. He judges people.
He does his job. But we're so bent out of shape when everyone gets the better of us or hurts us and doesn't get their revenge. Here's what God says. Vengeance is mine.
You leave it to me. Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. On the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him.
If he's thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you'll keep burning coals on his head. Right? What?
It's really irritating to someone who's bullying you. When they come up to bully you and you, they're like, give me your sandwich. And you're like, what about my chips? They're like, I'm insecure and angry.
Right? They don't know what to do them. They're like, and now you're being helpful. You go home and they're like, have a chalkboard from the movie, beautiful mind.
They're like, I don't understand. Why do they? Doesn't make any sense, right? And the other bullies in their cohort or all their mama's basement too.
Like, I don't know. I can figure it out. That's your job. Your job is to love people who are being jerks to you until they go, I just got to ask you the question.
What are you smoking? What is wrong with you? And you go, vengeance is the Lord. That's not who I am.
I'm not here to get you. I'm here to win you to Christ. That's my job. You would frustrate your whole schools.
And this is what Paul's saying. None of these things are possible without the work of the Holy Spirit in your heart. That's why chapter 12 begins with this. This is a kind of a cautionary tale to all of us.
If you're not aware of Jesus, don't worry about this section of scripture. The scripture seems to indicate if you do this on your own merit and according to your own will and in your own spirit without being transformed by Jesus, it's like rearranging furniture in a burning room of your soul. It's not going to make a difference. But if Christ has captured your heart and the Holy Spirit isn't dwelling in you, these things become both possible and God honoring.
Christ did not come to make bad people a little bit better. He came to make dead people alive. In that life that he's given us, John 10, 10, the thief has come to steal, kill and destroy, but he's come to give us life capital L abundantly. This is what it looks like right here.
Paul summarizes it in the most explicit way possible. He just gives you a bullet point list. You want to know what Christianity is? Hate evil things, cling to good things.
Be devoted to one another. Put one another above yourselves. Don't be conceited. Don't be proud.
Don't hurt your enemies. Love them. If your enemies hungry, feed them. If they need clothes, close them.
If they need visitation, go visit them. It's an upside down kingdom. Well, how could we possibly do this? Chapter 12 verse 1, therefore I urge your brothers and sisters, if you have God's mercy, it all plays back to the 11 chapters of God's grace and love for us.
That's what makes it possible. Here's what I want to do as we wrap up here. The actual exposition of the text is the majority of what we're going to talk about. What I want to do in summation is one of the most important questions that I think we can ask as we wrap up a weekend like we've just had.
That's full of a lot of big questions, difficult conversations. For a lot of us, we kind of have this, if our spiritual life were a word to be charted, our life kind of looks like this, right? This is like your first human-like camp in like seventh grade. And then you go back to your old life and you go back to your old way of living with the same friends and the same habits and the same addictions and the same groups with the same gossip.
Then you go, summer camps coming up, and then summer camps over and you're like, wah, wah, wah, here we go back. And so what you've created is you almost don't even trust yourself because you walk away from a weekend like this and all the evidence from your life says you're going back to the way things were, baby. And Satan loves that. The enemy loves that you're so committed to your pattern of life that you've quit on the whole concept because you remember how intense your commitment was in eighth grade and how intense it was freshman year.
And the number of software year when it really made a difference and nothing changed. And in junior year when you were like, this is the year. And now you're senior and you're like, I don't even know. It's not even worth making these big commitments because I just keep going back to the same thing.
When I'm talking to someone and I get to be a youth pastor for 10 years and working in in ministry with high school or specifically 11th and 12th graders, that was my area of ministry, this was one of the most common things. They'd get back from camp and they would go, Chris, I fell into my old habits and I would go, you know what? Let's put it on the board. What do you mean old habits?
And then they would go, well, before camp, I was hanging out with Brittany and Stephanie, you know them. They left the gossip. So I would gossip with them. And then I was dating this guy and he really didn't treat me very well, but it was kind of transactional.
I gave him attention. He gave me flowers. So I looked important on Valentine's Day. It was kind of a transaction that we had.
Sure, he's kind of a noob. Sure, he's kind of awful. Sure, all my friends hate him. Sure, he's pulling away from Jesus.
But at least I'm entertained. And here's what I've been doing as far as church goes. Every time anyone hurts my feelings, I take six months off because don't do the crime because it's time. And I'm going, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoo, oh, whoa, whoa.
expressing itself in our relationships to other Christians to our neighbors and even those who hate us. So what does this mean for us? I love that phrase. Christian love, cultural love is sentimental.
I love you. I love you. I don't do anything about it. It has no effect on my life, on my bank account, on my schedule, on my mental preparation.
I love you that way. I just love you. It becomes free. I can say it's anyone that I want to.
Christian love is not free. Christian love is sincerity. It's costly. When everyone's like, I love everyone.
No, you don't. Do you know how much effort it takes to love someone well? A lot. You can't borrow what Miley Cyrus calls love.
Look at her life and go, I want what she has. Do you? You want to write a song that's all about how you can buy myself. Well, you're gonna have to because you're single.
It's not about ability. What happened? Okay, relax. My point is not.
My point is not that there's anything intrinsically wrong with singleness. My Lord and Savior was a single man. It's not about that. It's about why are we taking cues from people whose lives themselves are dumpster fires instead of looking at the creator of love.
And here's what Paul says who interacts with the risen Jesus himself. Love is gonna cost you. It's not mere sentiment. So here's intention.
Here's the questions I want you to ask yourself. I'm gonna give you three things and I want you to process this internally. Why am I giving this? Because the definition of insanity is repeating the same action again and again and expecting your results to become different.
So walking out of a weekend at Hume and going, this time I really mean it. Like you didn't really mean it last time. But if you keep just leaving it in the intention sphere, nothing's gonna change. What do I mean by intention?
Your intention has to change. Which means it's the way of thinking. That's what he talks about here. Changing your mind, renewing your mind.
Here's the three things when it has to do with intention. Set in the course of your life while in Christ. What is this? Scripture must be above you, not below you.
That's a really practical thing that right now you can go from here on out. I'm just gonna do what his word says. That's an intentional commitment you need to make. That's an intentional commitment you need to make.
That when you and the scripture disagree, you're gonna be wrong and the scripture is gonna be right. The second thing is you need to have authorities above you. People who are further on, Paul sets up through Christ sets up the church as having a sort of a structure by which you can be underneath the guys and guidance of people who are further along in ministry than you are. Further along in the spiritual life than you are.
Church is not something we invented to have like AP version of Christianity. It's the beginning of the church. Jesus said it. This is what he says in Matthew 16.
He says, the truth of Jesus Christ being the Messiah. Jesus looks at his disciples and he says, on the truth that I am the Messiah, I'm gonna build my church and the gates of hell will not stand against it. You need to have authorities above you. And third, you need to recognize that God's glory is your ultimate meaning in life.
These are just internal shifts in your head. And some of us have never made these shifts. These are the new commitments you need to make. These are internal ones.
These are intentional ones. What wins? You were scripture. Is there any authority in your life that you submit to of a spiritual authority?
And the third thing is to recognize is my ultimate purpose that I'm rich, that I'm famous, that I'm well liked, or that I bring God glory. The second thing, the second eye that we're gonna use is called incision. So first way of intention. You've got to want it.
You've got to change some of your thinking. The second thing is incision. If you know what incision is, it means to cut something out or to remove something. So the second eye, if you want to change from your normal pattern of going home and falling back into the same routines, I want to ask you these questions.
That is all predicated on this bigger one. What needs to come out of your life in order for you to follow Christ more closely? What needs to come out? I'll give you three suggested recommendations.
Some of you need to end relationships that aren't interested in your eternity. Some of you need to end relationships. I don't mean you think of relationships as a boyfriend and girlfriend. I don't.
Friends are in that picture. People have influenced or in that picture. Some of us need to end relationships if they're not interested in your eternity. Like we said before, you don't have a soul.
You are a soul. Which means if someone in your life just wants to be around you because they think that you're funny or that they want something from you physically or that they're engaged in a relationship, even a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship because of some sort of body transaction you commit with them. That person's not interested in where you spend the next 50 trillion years. They're only interested in what you're gonna do for the next 50 days.
You need to say, Girlbye. You need to be done. Be done. Your friends have already told you this.
Your small group leader's already said it. Now I'm echoing what your youth pastor's already said. Girlbye. Okay?
You need to end them. Why? Because here's what you think, friend. Just track with me on this.
When I say this, here's what you think to yourself. Well, that's true for most people, but you don't know my friends. He's really coming around. If you give him enough time, he's gonna start following Jesus one of these days, right?
Like flirt to convert sort of action. Missionary dating kind of stuff. Like that's not gonna work. So listen.
I don't have much time. Stop talking. Don't have much time. I know.
Ooh, he said flirt to convert. All right. Relax. Everyone calm down.
I gotta get out of here. Why do we think that? Here's what when Paul writes about that concept, here's what he says. Here's this Hebrew idiom he starts this with.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 33, he starts with this phrase. Do not be deceived. Bad company corrupts good character. Why would you start?
What was that? Someone eat something? She's shitting me doing that in jabble. Paul uses that phrase very selectively.
The other place that appears in the New Testament when he says, do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. Why? Because there's a generation of people who think they can mock God and they're gonna get away with it.
Why does he say, do not be deceived? Bad company corrupts good character. Because when I said you need to end relationships, you think you don't. That's what Paul's speaking to.
That little voice in your head that says not you. Do not be deceived. That's deception speaking. Bad company corrupts good character.
Always. Necessarily every time. If you trust the word, which was part of our first intention. Second thing is this.
You need to remove scenarios that lead you to sin underneath incision incision. You need to remove scenarios that lead you to sin. Here's what Matthew five says. This is extraordinarily intense teaching from Jesus.
If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown in hell. We need to avoid scenarios that are leading us to sin. For some of you it means it's the group you hang out with after school.
They're all indigossip. They're all into some sort of chemical substance. And you can't be around them while still worshiping and following Christ with everything that you have. You need to end that scenario.
And the third thing is integration. That's the third eye. We've got intention, scripture above ourselves, recognizing that our life is for his glory. Then we need to practice incision.
What do you need to cut out of your life that's gonna pull you away from Jesus? And the third thing is integration. This is what Paul says, hate what is evil but then cling to what is good. What are the good things you need to cling to if you want to finish this race in Christ that Paul talks about?
Number one, and it could stand on its own, but I'm just gonna say it. It's so important. And I always thought that pastors, this was like the most rudimentary thing they could say. Nothing could be more important in your life.
Connect yourself to a local church and stay there. Connect yourself to a local church and stay there. Don't church shop for the next 25 years of your life. That doesn't grow you.
Don't leave a church every time the pastor says something that offends you. If he says something on biblical, run. But if he says something that hurts your feelings, friends, what did you think he was gonna do? Just come in high five, all of your sin?
That's the nature of the scriptures. Hebrews 4 talks about, the word of God's like a double edged sword able to separate sin. And you from flesh from bone and marrow. Who told you it was gonna be fun?
Sometimes it hurts. That's how you know what's working because God disciplines those that he loves. Number two underneath integration. Find a mentor to help you on this journey.
The New Testament talks about this all the time. Find someone further along the journey than you. Not your friend who's the exact same age as you where you go when you call it church because you guys have Bible study at Starbucks and Saturdays. That's not church.
That's not church. That wasn't God's intention for church. That wasn't where the Paul set up church. There's no authority.
There's no eldership. There's no understanding of what's proper in true scripture. There's no oversight. There's no church discipline.
That's not church. This is what Paul calls people. First Corinthians 11. Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ.
Disciples are made not born. The Christian life is much more caught than it is taught. Find someone. If no one, this is probably the diagnostic question.
Is there someone in your life who doesn't give a rip about friendship with you that's able to ask you hard questions the kind that you don't want your friends asking you? Is there an older Christian in your life that if you were like, that's it. We're not talking anymore. They would go, no.
I'm running out of 17 year old friends. What am I gonna do? You need someone older than you? Because they're gonna tell you the stuff that you're pregnant.
Because they're gonna tell you the stuff that your peers aren't gonna tell you. Because they're not collecting 18 year old friends. Like, I just love all my buddies. No.
You need someone older than you looks at you and goes, I don't care if you like it or not. This is what the scripture says. This is part of our discipleship process. I've had a number of guys in my life right now.
Dr. Ebel, Jack Hamilton. These Ebel with the B, not V. I always get confusing people.
Not evil is Dr. Ebel. He's a 75 year old dude who just climbed Kilimanjaro and asked me hard questions about my life. That's part of God's game plan to turn us into the people that he wants us to become.
That's what I wanted to end with is that. Because I want to give you some time. It's a process this. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna have a band come out.
And they're gonna just vamp for a minute. Okay? They're gonna play a song here in a minute. But here's what I want you to do.
You don't have to. I can't make you. But I want you to look at those things. And I want you to run a sort of self diagnostic test.
And say, if I really want this to not be another blip on my emotional radar with Jesus, but the beginning of a new consistent relationship. One where I'm fully devoted to Christ. What, which of these intentions do I need to implement in my life? Then move on to incision.
What do I need to cut out of my life? And then integration. What do I need to add to my life? Why do I think this is so important?
Because when Paul talks about discipleship and Jesus talks about discipleship, that's the process by which we become more like Christ after we've been saved. They don't use kind language. Here's what Jesus says. Do you want me to my disciple?
You got to reject yourself, pick up a cross and then follow me. When Paul writes about it, he says this, every day I have to beat my body and make it my slave so I can finish the race in Christ. And we have been taught kind of an easy beliefism in the Western church that somehow you're gonna go home and just really mean it. This time and something's gonna change.
I love what I love what was said there by the theologian, right? This concept of Christian love and Christian discipleship is a costly and practical endeavor. It doesn't take place solely in the heart. There's ramifications in the flesh and in the will and in the volition.
You might have to actually delete someone's number and not call them anymore. And if we want our pattern to change and not participate in insanity, we can't do the same thing over and over again expecting something's randomly gonna change in your life. It won't. No one has ever backslidden just into sanctification.
No one has ever not paid attention to it and then qualified for the Olympics. These are training grounds. You have to discipline your heart and your life to follow Christ. It doesn't want to.
Galatians 5. Your flesh wants what's contrary to what the spirit wants for you and the spirit of God wants what's contrary to what your flesh wants for you. You have to discipline your flesh to make it obey Christ. To the power of the Holy Spirit working in your life.
We have to implement these things and not just hope that this time will somehow be different because we don't know. Just stomp your feet and assert it might be so. There's nothing more magical about this time around. There's nothing more cosmic about some sort of Holy Spirit movement where it's like, well, you don't worry.
You can go keep doing the same thing. What does the scripture say? Hate what is evil, clean what is good? He goes on to the book of Romans 13 to say this, make no concession.
Give no food. Make no provision for the flesh in your life. Your flesh wants to eat more and more sin. And so Paul says this, starve it to death.
Make no provision for the flesh and much provision for the spirit. So I'm going to pray for us. And when I say men, the band, you guys can vibrate me feel like it. They're just going to play for a little bit.
And I want you to take this list and at least write something down in each of those categories or pretend like you are. Some of you are going to be like, God, I'm writing anything. No one cares. Okay?
You didn't get me. It's not impressive. We get it. I did it too.
But if you want something to be different and you really take Jesus seriously, all of us can look at something. I can look at this list right now as a 37 year old follower of Christ and go, easy, easy, easy, things that I have to, my intention is to have to change. Encision needs that happen and integration must come to completion in my life. It's part of the discipleship process.
Your youth pastors can do this. Your smart leaders can do this because none of us are complete and you won't be until you see Jesus face to face. But let's gain plan with the power of the Holy Spirit, how Christ is working in our lives and weeding out the things that don't belong to make much provision for the Spirit that we may live a life fully devoted to Christ. Therefore brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God.
Do not be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is, is good, is pleasing, and is perfect will. Father, as we come to you in this time of honesty and openness, we pray boldly that your Holy Spirit living inside of us would bring conviction to our hearts. And we would pray a bold prayer, which is Holy Spirit as I think about these things, bring them to the surface.
I think more often than not, I'm afraid to ask that question because you're faithful to respond to it. But my prayer is that you would take the pens and you would take the hearts and you would take the minds of every student, even youth worker and youth leader in this room, even as a demonstration of we're not complete, we're not at the end. We're in the middle of this process by which you are turning us into a clearer picture of who your son is every day. May this list be complete, and then may we have the boldness to share it with the community of people who can hold us accountable, so that this isn't just another part of the same pattern repeated over and over again.
We don't want to conform to those patterns. We want to transform them by renewing our minds and changing our behavior to the power of your Holy Spirit, who alone can bring dead things back to life. We prayer this in your name. Amen.