Losing Your Evangelical Mind

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All right, let's turn our Bibles, please, to Romans chapter 12. Romans chapter 12,
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I want to talk to you tonight about the Christian mind and thinking. I'd like to address tonight the importance of your mind and thinking biblically, thinking properly.
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We live in a society that rarely thinks. It's an emotional -based society, and thinking is out of season many times.
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We don't run into thinkers these days. Harry Blamers said in his book,
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The Christian Mind, his thesis in chapter 1 was this. The book is called
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The Christian Mind. Here's his thesis. There is no longer a Christian mind. That's thesis.
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In other words, it's hard to think, so therefore Christians aren't thinking like they used to.
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They're not meditating upon Scripture like they ought to. IBM's founder,
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Thomas Watson, used to have a placard up in his office, and it said, Think. That was the placard of a corporate
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America office. Think. It's funny, but it's very true.
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There's a saying that goes like this. Use your brains. It's the little things in life that count.
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We don't want to do that. We want to be engaged with our minds. Deep thinking, critical thinking, godly thinking.
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We live in a society today that has soundbite theology.
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I read a little bit this week, and it said we've gone from 42 seconds in soundbites, down to 9 seconds, down to 3 seconds.
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We decide elections based on makeup. We divide everything into two categories,
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Republicans and Democrats, and you can't think in between. Henry Ford said, thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably why so few engage in it.
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George Bernard Shaw said only 5 % of people think. Only 15 % think they think.
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The other 80 % would rather die than think. Ralph Waldo Emerson, I don't subscribe to his theology, but he did say, what is the hardest task in the world?
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To think. An anonymous said, the probable reason some people get lost in thought is because it is unfamiliar territory to them.
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Alan Bloom wrote a book called The Closing of the Mind. The mind's closed. And it seems weird because our society always talks about be open -minded.
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Be open -minded. Hedonism, selfishness, creates idle minds.
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I think it's a wonderful plan by Satan to get people not to think, because after all, don't you use your mind, or shouldn't you use your mind to worship?
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Listen to Deuteronomy. Don't turn there, but just listen for a moment. Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our
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God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.
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So think about that. With all your heart, soul, and might. Remember those three. Heart, soul, and might.
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In Deuteronomy 6. Now see if there's a difference when Jesus quotes that passage.
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Listen. And one of the scribes came and heard them, Mark 12, arguing, and recognizing that he had answered them well.
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Can you imagine Jesus talking to these people, and they knew that he answered them well. They asked
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Jesus, what commandment is foremost of all? Jesus answered. Now remember, back in Deuteronomy, we've got heart, and soul, and might.
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Three. Love God with the totality of who you are. Right? For the
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Jew, you would say, for emphasis, God is holy. Holy, holy.
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God is so holy, you say it three times. That was a way to emphasize something.
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You'd like to emphasize something another way, you could say it this way. There are six things the Lord hates. Yes, even what? Seven. He hates the seventh thing the most in Proverbs 6.
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Or you could say something, for emphasis, three different ways. He's holy, set apart, and different.
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So here, loving God with your heart, with your soul, and with your might means all you've got.
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Emphatically. But, what does Jesus do? He says, in Mark 12, the foremost is,
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Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.
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What was Jesus doing there? We've gone from three to four. We've gone from heart, soul, and might to heart, soul, mind, and strength.
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Is Jesus adding to Scripture? Well, what was implicit in Deuteronomy 6?
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That is, heart means mind. For us, heart means emotion. Oh, don't, don't, don't be led by your heart.
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For the Jew, to be led by your heart was to be led with your mind slash heart. Remember, we don't do
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Star Trek illustrations here, so here's one right now. Heart would be, back in those days, be led by your mission control center.
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Be led by your bridge. Remember they were on the bridge? Some of you are looking at me like, we start off the day kissing, and then now we're to Star Trek.
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So what was implicit in the language of the Hebrews? Loving God with all your heart, which meant your mind too.
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It just doesn't mean emote, although we are a total person of one with mind and emotions.
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What was implicit in Deuteronomy, now Jesus makes explicit when He gives the Greek. So to love the
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Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. It was in Deuteronomy, but just implicitly, and now
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Jesus brings it out because everyone in here ought to love God with their minds.
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Doesn't that sound funny? In our society of just emotions and relating, how does this feel to you?
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I guarantee you that if you come to me and say, Mike, how do you feel? I'll say, this is how
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I feel. I think you're asking me, what do you think? For instance, Mike, you know, there's this, tell me about the whole two service things,
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Mike. How do you feel about that, Mike? Well, I guess you're asking for my emotional response, how do
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I feel? Actually, I feel really bad about it because who wants to preach twice and go through all the machinations?
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But if you're asking me really, I think you mean to ask me, how do you think about this, Mike? What are your thoughts?
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But common parlance today is what? It's not, what do you think of a situation? It's, how do you feel?
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And God wants us, of course, to feel. Who likes feelings here? Steve, who sang the song,
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Feelings, whoa, whoa, whoa, Feelings? Morris Albert. You know, if you'd like to ask Steve a question about pop culture, he has it down.
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You should hear us on No Compromise Radio. It's like, you know, who wrote the song in 1973, Top of the Pops, and Steve just, he's got it, he's got it right there.
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Morris Albert. Is that Herb's friend? No relation. No relation, okay. It was
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Herb Albert. Oh, it was, see? I'm telling you. So, when it comes to the mind, to use the commercial, your mind is a terrible thing to waste.
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No wonder Satan wants you to not think, to not use your mind. Because if God wants you to love him, of course with your emotions,
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I like emotions. But your emotions need to be driven by the train engine of thinking, proper thinking.
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Because if you're feeling something from bad thoughts, it's not going to work.
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So we're after your mind. And tonight when you're here, I think of the people who come out to hear the Word of God, and who love expository preaching.
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This morning, I thought to myself, people want to know with their minds what's right and what's wrong.
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Even to think about the word repentance. What does repentance mean? Metanoia. It means to change your mind.
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Meta, after, noia, thought. It's an afterthought in its language, but the terminology really means to change your mind.
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To think rightly about God. To think rightly about sin. To think rightly about the world. The system.
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Judicial justification. We want to think rightly. And God requires you, believe it or not, and I know that you believe this tonight because you're here.
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You're the Sunday night faithful. God requires critical, abstract thinking for victorious
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Christianity. Abstract thinking. Thinking about concepts like sin and death and substitution.
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God wants you to think. I can say it this way. Christianity is a thinking man or woman's religion.
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So what's happening here in Romans chapter 12? To give you a little review, and Harry did this last week,
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Romans chapter 11 ends with a great crescendo of praise. Look down in verse 33.
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Paul has been dealing with all kinds of doctrine, the creeds of Christianity, for 11 chapters and few imperatives.
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You might find one in chapter 6 if you look hard enough. But it's mainly facts. It's mainly indicatives.
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It's mainly thinking properly. And then he says at the end of all this, after he's talked about sin and salvation and sanctification and security and sovereignty, and you know these verses, but I'll read them again because they're so wonderful.
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They're the right response to the mercies of God. Oh, the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God.
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How unsearchable are His judgments and how unscrutable or inscrutable His ways. For who has known the mind of the
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Lord? Or who has been His counselor? Or who has given a gift to Him that He might be repaid?
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For from Him, through Him, to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever.
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God, in other words, is God by definition and ought to be treated as such.
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And if you really believe chapters 1 through 11, it will change you. It will affect you.
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It will change your behavior. I guarantee you if I want your behavior changed, then
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I need to have your mind influenced. Changing your mind will influence your behavior. That's why we preach to the mind.
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That's why we preach to the mind. And through the preaching to the mind, the Spirit of God attends, and then it changes your affections.
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We are after your mind so that you have a greater affection for the Lord Christ Jesus. Not just so you know more, not just so you have this big brain.
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I remember my mother, since we're telling mother stories, it was probably 1973, and she took us on about a three -hour drive to a place where they were attending some children who were called water babies.
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And they had huge heads, probably this big, and could not lift their heads off the pillow. And she had us go there to help us make crafts and minister to them.
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And certainly if we only fill our minds with doctrine, then we become people that are just uneven.
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Something's wrong. It's like some circus mirror that we look at, and our bodies are really little and our heads are really big.
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But we still have to have our mind influenced so our affections change. You're not going to have your affections change without your mind being influenced.
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And so the very first thing Paul does after 11 chapters of doctrine is, the first change
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I want you to make is the way you think. He's after your mind. Before he even talks about love that we learned about last week, or anything else, how to submit to government,
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Christian liberty, he says, I want you to think differently. How do you live out your faith?
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It starts with right thinking. Ideas have consequences.
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Francis Schaeffer would say, how then should we live? I think to be more accurate in Romans chapter 12, how then should we think?
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When someone first becomes a Christian, what do you say to them? They first become a Christian, they know about sin, substitution, divinity of Christ, deity of Christ, eternal sonship, resurrection, and you had to sit them down.
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I said, you know, Jim, Scott, why don't you take that brand new Christian and sit him down here and tell him what's important.
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Where would you start? Well, you might say, let me tell you about this, let me tell you about that, baptism.
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I think Paul starts, interestingly, with the mind. So let me give you six ways to think
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Christianly tonight from Romans chapter 12, about one to eight or so, I don't know how far we'll get, how to think
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Christianly. And I don't think Christianly is a, Christianly is not a word, but it is tonight.
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Because almost all my thinking tonight is going to be using these adverbs with the L -Y. How to think
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Christianly? Let me give you six ways to think Christianly right from Romans chapter 12, in light of all the doctrine that Paul has been pouring out.
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Oh, before I forget, here's your homework assignment for the week. Read Romans in one sitting.
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Figure out some time. Unplug the TV. Turn off the radio.
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Pull up with your little snuggie, blanket, just you and Mary, you and me and a dog named
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Boo, right Steve? Who sang that? That is scary.
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And read the book of Romans. That's how it should be read. Of course we can do exposition and all that, but you'll just see the flow, you'll see the thoughts.
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Read the book of Romans one time through. How do we think Christianly, number one?
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To think Christianly, you must think logically or rationally. So I'm going to give you adverbs on every one of these.
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Think logically or rationally, verse one. How to think
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Christianly? You think, number one, logically. Right thinking is how we start off with our relationship with the
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Lord. Verse one. And, of course, these are verses you all know, but it's good to be reminded. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual, or reasonable is a good translation, or logical, it's got the language of thinking, worship.
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It is reasonable for the owner to ask you to respond to him in a certain way.
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It is logical that if chapters one through eleven have described who
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God is and who you are and what He's done for you, then there should be the logical outflow of living in light of those first eleven chapters.
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It's not crazy to think God bought me with the price, with the price of His Son, His own
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Son. And you can look at Romans chapter eight language where God gave us His Son, how the
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Son intercedes for us. Is it not logical to say, then, I should live for such a
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God? I should serve such a God? Actually, you know what? It would be crazy to do the opposite. It would be insane to have a
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God forgive you all your sins and place them on His own Son who never sinned and who saved you by His own free will, by His own good purposes, by grace alone.
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If you were not to think properly, to live properly, to do what verse one says, it would be worthy of insane asylum.
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Straight jacket. This is crazy. God has done that for me. How do
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I respond? There's nothing illogical to this. This is very rational.
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Based upon the mercies of God. Now take a look at that in verse one there, by the mercies of God.
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What are those mercies? The mercies of God are chapters one through eleven. You could close your eyes and just say,
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I'm going to kind of go through chapters one through eleven in my mind and rehearse them. All that God has done.
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By the way, that's a good way to think rightly when you're in a bad mood, when you're responding wrongly, when you're in a trial.
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To just sit back and think, you know, I'm going to rehearse the greatness of God. I'm just going to float through those things.
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That's why I like to outline Romans the way Dr. Zemeck outlined it. Chapters one, two, and three.
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Sin. Just how sinful was I? What did I deserve? Chapter 3b and 4 and 5.
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Salvation. Righteousness is credited to my account. I'm justified. God did it by His own goodness because of what
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His Son has done. I was so sinful, yet He saved me. And then chapter 6 and 7. Sanctification.
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How God is progressively making me more into the image of Christ Jesus. Chapter 8.
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Security. There's nothing that can be done in heaven or on earth that I can do, that anyone can do.
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God can't even lose me as a Christian. I'm secure. And then the sovereignty of God in chapters 9, 10, and 11.
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And you start pondering. I mean, I can do it with this congregation like this. Some night just sit down and read
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Romans 9. And say in light of Romans 9 what God has done. How should
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I act? Should it affect me in any single way? Should my mind think differently based on what
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God has done? Those mercies. And you notice the text. By the mercies of God. It's not singular.
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This is an intensive plural. The mercies of God. Not one, but many. So Paul says, let's go to logic class.
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Since God has done this for you, what do you think the right response is? So if I could work it this way.
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This is going to be very simple. If I said fill in the blank. 1, 3, 5, 7, blank.
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How would you fill in the blank? Lobo. No, that would be wrong. It would be 9.
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How about this? Sin, salvation. What would be the next blank if you were thinking
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Romans -like? Service. How about this? Heidelberg Catechism.
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Guilt, grace, gratitude. That's how you define the
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Heidelberg Catechism, which essentially says Christianity is we were guilty, God graced us, and we respond with gratitude.
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It's logical. It's right thinking. The Father of mercies does this for us, and we want to respond.
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It's kind of a therefore moment. I urge you therefore. President of Princeton Seminary, when it was good,
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John McKay said, Commitment without reflection is fanaticism in action.
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But reflection without commitment is the paralysis of all action. We study doctrine, and then we want to serve.
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Heidelberg Catechism, question one. How many things are necessary for you to know that you in this comfort may live and die happily?
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If you'd like to die happily, how many things do you need to know? You go to the hospital.
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You're going to minister to somebody in the hospital, and they're on their deathbed. What do you need to tell them? What are the things that they need to know about to die happily?
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Heidelberg Catechism, there are three things. One, how great my sins and miseries are. Two, how
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I am delivered from all my sins and misery. Three, how I am to be thankful to God for such deliverance.
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So Paul says, you had great sin, there's a great Savior, and so now use your mind and serve. That's going to be the plan.
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So let's do a self -diagnosis. If you say to yourself, when it comes to serving and doing everything else we're going to talk about in a minute, if I'm not doing that, what does it tell me about your appreciation for what's gone on in chapters 1 -11?
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Living holy for the Lord. Take a look at the text. To present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God.
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Friends, it's easy to give money to God. It's easy to give time to God. It's easy to have charity given to God and His people.
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But this is for yourself. Bob and I were talking earlier this afternoon. Who was it,
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Bob, that says God plays for keeps? R .C. Sproul. God plays for keeps.
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And since He's done this for you, we respond with, I've got one life to live.
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Full bore. Present your bodies. The tense is finally, decisively, like a marriage commitment.
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I do. You've done this for me, God? I do. In front of everyone, will you, you know, for sickness, who knows what to say for those vows.
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I think my vows actually were from Ruth and Naomi that we used. I thought they were biblical marriage vows, but it turned out to be vows between two women, and I ended up saying them before Kim and the whole congregation of six people.
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John Calvin said, He means not only our skin and bones, but the totality of which we are composed.
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He adopted this word that He might more fully designate all that we are for the members of our body are the instruments by which we carry out our purposes.
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So, these hands and these feet and this body is the instrument I have to serve God, and so that instrument that I have to serve
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God must be wholly devoted, wholly dedicated to God in light of all the things
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He's done for me. A living sacrifice.
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And this sacrifice is not assuaging the wrath of God. In other words, it's not propitiatory. It's a sacrifice of praise.
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By the way, this living sacrifice is actually the opposite or the positive side to deny yourself.
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If to deny yourself and say no to self and crucify self and slay self is the negative side of the coin, the positive side is live wholly to God.
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Live all out for God. My father would say full throttle. We used to have these little mini bikes, and how do you get a mini bike to go a little faster?
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What do you have to do to it? Robert? That's right, but you can bore it out a little bit to get a little more oomph there, and you bore it out to just go full blast.
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In light of everything that God has done, I'll teach you to look down at your Bible when I'm talking, right? I'm like, what?
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One man said, this is harder than martyrdom, because martyrdom, it just takes a second, and then you're dead.
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But this is a whole life of commitment. You wake up tomorrow, another day where you say, out of gratitude,
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Lord, I want to save you. Oswald Chambers calls this giving up my right to myself.
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I'm done with myself. Hoyt said, one could die in a moment of time, but this calls for more, as living all that he is and does for all time is now presented to the
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Lord. Isn't that really what salvation is? Isn't that what baptism is? God, you've saved me,
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I'm yours. I will follow you and do whatever you want. A Christian woman said to a minister, will you please tell me in a word what your idea of consecration is?
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How would you answer that? Bob, what would your answer be, consecration? I forgot what it was like on Sunday nights where we ask questions of people, and then they have to answer.
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This is fun. You should do this on Sunday morning. Well, this particular pastor held out a blank sheet of paper, and said, it is to sign your name at the bottom of this blank sheet, and to let
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God fill it in as He will. Jim Elliott said, the man who got martyred for his faith, he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.
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And it's logical. You see the text? Which is your logical service of worship. God is worth it, therefore worship.
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That's where we get the word worship. He has worth. Now this kind of thinking, by the way, destroys the secular -sacred bifurcation.
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So secular -sacred bifurcation means, I go to work, that's secular. It doesn't really count for God.
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But on church and for moving ministry, that counts for God. But the way the Puritans would see it,
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Leland Rykin in his book, The Worldly Saints, has a good account. They saw everything from kitchen duty, to nursery duty, to plowing, to agriculture, to work in the local church, as this acceptable service to God, unto
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Him. There's no secular -sacred distinction. People say, well,
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I'd like to be motivated for ministry. I just am not motivated for ministry anymore. I'll give you motivation for ministry. Romans 1 -11.
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Doctrine. Systematic theology. IBS class. To understand the greatness of God with your mind.
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And then it changes your affections. And then you have a holy affection to God. One Reformer said,
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Paul's entreaty teaches us that men will never worship God with a sincere heart or be roused to fear and obey
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Him with sufficient zeal until they properly understand how much they are indebted to His mercy.
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I think Isaac Watts got it right. Seeing this at my funeral. When I survey the wondrous cross, love so amazing, love so divine, it demands my soul, my life, and my all.
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Number two. How do we think Christianly in light of our salvation? Number one, we think logically.
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Number two, we think defensively. Or maybe you could say protectively. Protectively or defensively.
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That's how we should think. Let's see what Romans 12 -2 says. As we're continuing this topic of how to think
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Christianly. How does a Christian think? He's going to tell us what to shun here.
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So we can reach the right goal. Romans 12 -2. You know the passage. Do not be conformed to this world.
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Ongoing tense. Continuing tense. Don't ever be. Don't let it start. If it is started, stop it.
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Stay away from having your mind conformed to this world. The world has an agenda.
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It's not to set your agenda. Satan is alive and well trying to manipulate, trying to conform our minds to the world.
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One translation. Stop masquerading in the forms of this age. Don't be fashioned.
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By the way, I think you'll find this interesting and you'll see it as true. This is a passive. This is something that's done to you.
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I hit the ball. I'm the actor. The passive agent is the ball. The world can affect you.
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The world can infiltrate you. The world can get you to think the way it wants to think. And Paul says, don't let that happen.
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Stop it. It's like the cartoon that said, the only pressure I can't resist is peer.
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No. Satan has an agenda. By the way, the more you turn on, and I'm not anti -TV and the whole, you know, fighting fundamentalists and TVs, you know, or satanic instruments.
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Or am I? No, I'm not. But the more you soak in the media, I'm telling you, they have an agenda.
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What's their agenda? Don't be satisfied with what you have. That's what marketing does. That's what advertising does. It creates dissatisfaction.
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So the more marketing you take in, the more all this other stuff you take in, you just have to be wise. And if you're watching and if you're looking, because we're not legalistic, you just have to be ready.
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These people have an agenda. When you go to Harvard School of Divinity, they have an agenda.
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I don't mind agendas. I have an agenda. My agenda tonight is to get you through the Word of God to think Christianly.
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But the world has an agenda. It's a system. Spirit of the age. And by the way, this has nothing to do with drinking and smoking and dancing.
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This has to do with philosophies. This has to do with the thought system of the world, the value system of materialism and hedonism.
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A way to think. Relativism. Power and career and sex as the end all.
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Not things given to God for us to enjoy as we live in this life. I think probably the best thing here is,
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Paul is saying this, think to yourself that this world will affect my thinking if I'm not careful, so put a guard up.
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And with Christianity, it's put on and put off, or stop this and start that. So let's go to number three. The third essential way that you should think
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Christianly is to think proactively or offensively. So number one, logically.
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Number two, defensively. Now, offensively, it's the flip side and it's found in the rest of the verse. You don't want yourself conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.
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That's right where R .C. Sproul gets his program name. That by testing, you may discern what the will of God is, or what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
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Don't be transformed. What's the Greek word for transform? That's where we get the word metamorphosis.
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Metamorphosis. These scriptures will change the way you think about everything.
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They reprogram your mind. You begin to think God's thoughts after him the way he thinks.
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You read 1 Kings, for instance. It is historical theology. It's a history in a theological fashion.
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The Spirit of God begins to change our thinking through study and meditation of the scripture. Forbes said this,
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Life is simply a matter of concentration. You are what you set out to be. You are a composite of the things you say, the books you read, the thoughts you think, the company you keep, and the things you desire to become.
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Now, he's not a Christian as far as I know, but there's a lot of wisdom in there, a few theological belly flops, but a few good points as well.
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What is a theological belly flop? See, who sang that? 1969. Friends, I don't know about you, but let's just make it as practical as we can.
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Get back to S. Lewis Johnson. Throughout the week, 168 hours in a week, how do you keep your mind renewed?
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Let's just think about it very easily, practically. Do you start off the day by opening up your
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Bible? You have to start off your day by opening up the Bible? You don't have to thrive at five, but you get up in the morning and you open up your
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Bible. Why? Because no Devo's, no breakfast kind of word of life thing? Not necessarily, but for me,
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I have so much coming at me through the day that I like to start my day off with a good dose of this is how the world really is.
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This is how to think biblically and properly. And almost every day I start off reading something about Christ and the
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Gospels, just thinking this is the King I serve. This is the Master to whom I report.
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And then I read some Psalms or Proverbs or some of the Old Testament. It just depends on what's going on.
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And I'm trying to get my mind to think right. I'm trying to hide the Word in my heart so that I don't sin against God.
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There's nothing legalistic about if you don't start off the day with this, this is going to be trouble. I'm talking about generally, how do
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I have my mind transformed? If I'm not careful, I can say to myself, you know what? What do these sports hacks say all day about Boston sports?
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And I just listen all day. I could listen all day, every day. I could learn how to speak another language. But I say to myself when
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I get in the car, sometimes I listen to that, sometimes I don't. Patriots lose, I don't listen. Patriots win,
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I do. And I say to myself, I need to listen. I like to be on the bicycle and have headphones on with preachers.
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I say to myself, okay. Every Sunday morning, Kim knows every Sunday morning before I preach, who do I listen to before I preach on Sunday morning?
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Scottish guy. Of course, Mr. Scottish guy. Steve, who wrote that? Sinclair Ferguson.
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Because he has a reverence for God and there's a holiness and there's none of this kind of lowbrow stuff that somehow
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I'm involved in tonight. If Sinclair was here, boy, he'd be so disappointed. So think about the world is going to influence me.
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It's one thing to say, I'm going to stiff arm the world and I'm going to protect my family and I'm going to surround my family with good things.
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But you've got to be positive as well. It's like the thing that you say to yourself for your family.
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For instance, family, we want to protect our family. But one of the best ways you protect your family is to say, you know what?
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The world is not the number one enemy, child. Schools are not the number one enemy. The media is not the number one enemy.
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Satan is not the number one enemy. The number one enemy of our children is their own sinful hearts.
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Because you can't run anywhere from them. How do you deal with sin in your life and in your hearts?
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And so we begin to put our mind and we say, I've got to fill my mind with something. So you should say to yourself, this is again,
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I'm going to just be as practical as I can tonight. Maybe I should take an IBS class. An Institute for Biblical Studies, so I can learn more about it, so I can say no to the evil.
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And the Christianity is, say no to this, put off, and then put on, how much time do
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I influence my mind with? For me, I was a sales rep in the car, and I just listened every day to three to four hours of MacArthur Preach because I'm in the car.
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I might as well, versus listening to these pop songs that Steve has memorized.
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I personally want to do something good. Colossians 3 puts it this way,
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Set your mind on things above, not on the things that are on the earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
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Now this is not legalism. This is not do this or else. I just want to have a strategy.
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Satan has a strategy. The world has a strategy. I should have a strategy. Here's what I thought.
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For 29 years, I lived for myself. I pleased me. I was king. I was God.
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And now, my dad died at 55. My mom died at 66. I could die tomorrow, or I could die at 95.
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But I've got one life to live. And you say, well, what is this going to mean?
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Well, if you go back and look at Romans 1 -11, it's going to mean it could cost you everything.
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It's all or nothing. You're either in or you're out. Colossians 3 goes on to say,
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Let the Word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
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That's how our minds are renewed. Pour in the
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Word of God. Number four. We should speed up here. Number four. Think sensibly, or think soberly.
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So, how do we think Christianly? Logically, protectively, proactively, and sensibly.
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We think with sound judgment, or soberly. Verse 3. We're getting some more focus.
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It was general, and now you're seeing the lens tighten in. We had the shot scene, the whole stage, and now the camera's moving in on a particular character.
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We're seeing a little more clarity here. We're moving from general to specific. Think soberly.
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Verse 3. How many words do you find in this verse that have something to do with thinking? See if you can find out as we read them, or as I read them.
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For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober thinking, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
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If you had to pick a key word in that verse, what would it be? To think. Absolutely.
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Four times. Think. Think. Think. Literally, it could read, For I say to everyone among you, by the means of grace given me, not to overthink beyond what is proper to think, but to think so as to think soberly and sanely.
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All it's going to say here, you have to think properly. How do you know you have a renewed mind?
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A renewed mind thinks properly, and it thinks properly and soberly about itself.
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Not self -conceited. Not thinking we're so great. I don't like jokes.
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This isn't a joke, per se. But it is Sunday night, so I feel a little more liberty.
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A man who had a high opinion of himself stepped on a coin -operated scale that dispensed a card giving his weight and comments about his personality.
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After reading the card, he handed it to his wife and said, Here, look at this. She took it and read aloud,
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You are dynamic, born leader, handsome, and much admired by women for your personality.
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Giving it a second look, she added, Hmm, I see it's got your weight wrong, too. Here's what
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Paul is saying. You've got to think rightly about yourself, and that is with humility. If you really know what
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God has done, and you know you, if you know you like I know me, just how much plumage do we want to show off to people?
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We are nothing. We are less than nothing. We are depraved, fallen people that God has rescued and adopted into His kingdom.
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And Paul is saying, You get done looking at the doctrine of justification, the first thing you should say is,
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I'm a nobody. I deserve nothing. And Paul says, That's the way you think.
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Don't think more highly of himself than he ought to think. And that's what we're prone to do.
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We think we're better than we are. That's what pride says. And Paul is going to talk about service here in just a minute.
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And it's one thing to serve when we want to, but we don't want to be treated like servants or slaves.
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That's exactly the way we should think. We are no ones. There was a very humble man who prayed, and then there was a very puffed up prideful man.
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So the prideful man asked for prayer from his mature, humble friend. Would you please pray for me that I might be nothing?
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And his old, wise friend said, Brother, you are nothing.
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Take it by faith. I thought that was pretty good. This is like no compromise.
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We just laugh at our own jokes. Sound thinking.
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What is sound thinking? I'm nothing. I'm no one. God owns it all, and I owe Him all.
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Number five. You're going to see where Paul goes here. How do you think Christianly? Number five.
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You think corporately. Not individualistically. Not atomistically. Not me, myself, and I.
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Not the way we just got done talking about not to think, but you think corporately. Logically. Defensively. Offensively.
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Soberly. Now corporately. Verses four and five. And Paul brings up the human body to help us understand just how to deal with one another with right thinking.
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The context is still all about thinking. Verse four. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function.
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So we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.
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Paul says the way you think properly, Christian, after you realize you're saved, is you think properly by saying,
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I am in a body of Christ, and I need to minister to other people. It's just not me. You minister to me.
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By the way, that's the way we thought before we were saved, wasn't it? It's just me. How do I get served?
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How do I get everything? I'm the focus. That's the wrong way to think. So now we think corporately.
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Now we think Christianly. Diversity in the body. Loving other people like we would want to be loved.
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We have unity. One body. We have diversity. Individually members of one another.
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We have to depend on one another. That's right Christian thinking. We complement one another.
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I don't mean with our words. You look good today, but I mean we complement one another. We're weak in this area.
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Someone else is strong and vice versa. We are not independent.
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We are interdependent. And now it comes to a head, verse 6, and it's our sixth way to think
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Christianly. We think... You know,
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I didn't have an L .Y. for this, so maybe you could help me. We think as God's stewards think.
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We think as a steward of God. Who could help me there get an L .Y.? Steve? Stewardly?
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You can't make up words like Christianly or Stewardly without my permission. That's my responsibility.
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Okay, let's think stewardly. Just for fun. Think stewardly. Try to say that on an airplane.
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So fly to Tendonlea. Verse 6 through 8. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them.
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If prophecy in proportion to our faith, if service in our serving, the one who teaches in his teaching, the one who exhorts in his exhortation, the one who contributes in generosity, the one who leads with zeal, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness.
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Paul says this basically, and I think you could get it. God has saved me, so I think
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I should think properly. He says early on in chapter 12, verse 1, God, you own me, and I'm going to serve you with my whole being, including my mind.
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And I'm going to watch out for what the world does. It's going to try to put me into its mold like Jell -O. It's going to try to make me be conformed, but I'm not going to do that, because I'm going to have my mind renewed, and I'm going to think proper thoughts, and I'm going to have my mind washed with the water of the
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Word. And after I think that way, then here's what I'm supposed to do. Ministry and life is not about me.
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I'm here to serve other Christians. And how do I serve other Christians? God has even given us spiritual gifts.
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If you're a Christian, you have at least one. And he lists a bunch here, to serve other people.
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Thinking Christianly thinks this way. God has given me a gift. I ought to serve other people. And I ought to serve other people with excellence.
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I was so thankful. Who helped the move? With the whole move? Many did.
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I heard it was one of our best moves ever. How many people showed up, Robert? Russell?
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Thirty -some people showed up. I hope people were watching. I hope some of the neighbors were thinking, it's like, you know, did the
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Mormons move in? I mean, what's happening here? What's going on? That's thinking Christianly.
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Where you say, you know, God has saved me, and I want to do something. I want to serve someone. And if the pastors won't allow me to serve, then
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I'm going to figure out something. I remember when I first got saved. It's weird, my ear is ringing. When I first got saved,
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I didn't know what to do. I wasn't really even part of a church, per se. At least, Calvary Chapel didn't have membership. We thought, you know, what are we going to do?
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I thought, there's homeless people that I always see when I'm working. I remember the first job I got in downtown L .A., the guy said to me, now listen.
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Before I tell you how to sell Duracell batteries, we've got the lay of the land downtown L .A., and here's what happens.
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When you go into a client's warehouse downtown L .A. at six in the morning, and you come back out to your car, and if there's a homeless person laying on your car, they're laying on your car because they want to stay warm.
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So you don't say anything to them. You just quickly get in your car, turn it over, and when they hear the sound of the car turning over, they'll roll off.
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I just thought... I have some Nebraska kids. I thought people walked around with shopping carts during the day and went back to their house at night with their findings.
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So naive. I have no idea what I'm talking... What was that leading for?
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Kim, help me. Thinking stewardly? Downtown L .A.?
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Oh, yes, thank you, of course! I just wanted to see if you guys knew. My ears are ringing.
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And so I bought jackets, new jackets, and put a New Testament in the jackets, and then when
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I met someone who was homeless, I said, here's a jacket, and by the way, here's who Jesus is. Because there was something in me.
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I'm not trying to say it to brag or anything else. There's just something in me that says, I deserve hell. I deserve to fry.
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I deserve to be tortured naked for eternity. Right? Like Jesus was tortured naked on Calvary for those hours on the cross, and all hell is condensed into those hours and placed on Christ.
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The sun won't even shine because of that judgment of God in the darkness. And that was supposed to be me.
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I just keep thinking, have you ever just thought, even just for a second today, I deserve hell, I'm going to heaven. What's the worst thing that can happen to you tonight?
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You get killed and you go to heaven. When I fly around the country or the world, or I do this or that,
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I'm riding my bike all the time. I'm thinking, first of all, I'm a dead man walking. I know
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I'm going to die. But second, I'm not going to die until it's determined that I'm going to die. And then I can't stop it. And by the way, when
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I die, you cry for a minute and then you think, you know what, Mike is in that place he preached about in heaven.
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That's exactly where he is. I mean, don't you like it that you're going to go to heaven when you die? I mean, what's the opposite to think in such a way where you're
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Ernest Hemingway and you think there's no way out of this and it's a gun to the head? That's where secularism ends.
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So when you get saved, here's what happens. The way you think is, of course, pour the Word into you, watch out what's going to be poured into you if you're not careful, and serve.
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Show me a Christian thinking rightly and I'll show you somebody who serves. With more than an attitude of, it's good enough for a government job.
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Just, you know, minor giving. Everyone is equipped to serve
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Christ Jesus. 1 Corinthians goes on to say, it does say, to each one is given a gift for the common good.
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We have an example of service in Christ Jesus. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.
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Jesus said in John 4, My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work.
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Matthew 20, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give
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His life a ransom for many. How neat is it in the parable where Jesus talks about the
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King and it says, the King will reply, I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.
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How would you like to serve the home family by moving, thinking it's like you were serving Christ Jesus? Whatever done for Christ, out of love for Christ is counted as if it's done for Christ, William Hendrickson said.
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Hebrews 6, God is not unjust. He will not forget your work and love which you have shown Him as you have helped
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His people and continue to help them. By the way, that's the verse usually put up above the kitchen because the kitchen ministry burns people out.
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It is hard enough to clean your own kitchen, let alone a bunch of church people. And so they usually put that above the kitchen,
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Hebrews 6, 10, I bet you it's over there. If you're serving today, congregation, thank you.
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Thank you for serving. Isn't it good to serve the Lord and say, you know what, Lord, this is for you. This is for your glory.
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If you don't serve, maybe you're new, you're getting into it, you want to serve, then we want to help you.
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We want to help you. And even if the elders are too busy, can't figure it out, if you really know how bad your sin is, and if you really know how great the grace of God is,
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I think you'll figure out something to do. I think you've got a mind to think of, how can
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I help other Christians? You certainly could pray,
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Lord, help me to be humble enough to serve. Help me to have the right attitude to serve. Give me opportunities to serve.
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Kim's grandfather makes it hard for me to live up to, and he had a little motto, and his motto to Grandma Evie was, here to serve.
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That's a difficult one to live up to. But that should be our motto in the local church.
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You should even plan to serve. You know, when I try to get together with people, we had some folks over to our house today, if it's not planned, it just never gets done.
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You know how that works? So how about your day timer? What's in your day timer that says, on this particular day, this is where we're going to serve.
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This is where we're going to bring our family and serve. Actually, Whitfield had a day timer, and he was asked, if Jesus is going to come back in two weeks, what would you do?
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What would you do differently if Jesus is going to come back in two weeks? And you know what he did? He showed him his day timer and said, this is what
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I would do. Planned out. Jesus is going to come back. I don't have to make any changes.
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That's wonderful. In my opinion, let's leave it no compromise style.
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The real mental illness in our society today is being a
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Christian who's saved, but not thinking about it properly and having no service to the local body.
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That's really crazy. You don't need any kind of lithium or Ativan or Prozac or Ritalin to cure that.
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You just need repentance that God freely, graciously grants. God is a wonderful, forgiving
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God. And so today, many of you, I look at you and I think you're the backbone of the church, so thank you.
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And if you don't have a ministry, you're not convicted that you should have a ministry, Romans awaits you this week.
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Think about it. Let's pray. Father, just one hour of thinking about Christ Jesus on the cross, just some time where we could get away and think about your great salvation in Romans, should really motivate us.
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And so I'd ask for your good pleasure in our lives that you would motivate us through your
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Word to serve others. Father, especially now as we go to two services, many things that we could do.
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Replace our complaining, if there is any, with service. Help us to look out for the good of other people, the visitors and people that need help.
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Help us to honor you by loving the brethren. Help us to please you, not because we earn salvation, but because your
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Son has earned it. We'd like to be wholly devoted to you. And Father, we have a great representative, a great substitute,
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Christ Jesus, the one who is fully devoted to you, a living sacrifice, a sacrifice who died for us, men and women who don't serve like we should.
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So thank you for our Savior. Thank you for this church body. And thank you that when you start a work, you're faithful to finish it.