Nov. 26, 2017 To Be Like Christ by Pastor Josh Sheldon

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Nov. 26, 2017 To Be Like Christ Romans 12:1-2 – Part 2 Pastor Josh Sheldon

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We'll turn again, please, to Romans chapter 12, Romans 12, and last week we began this section of this great book that is thought of as the practical after 11 chapters of fairly dense theology and teaching and seeing some of the deep things of the
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Lord, but most primarily this gospel that saves and what God has done for sinners in Jesus Christ, 11 chapters presenting that to us.
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Finally we get to chapter 12 and get to be told what then we must do.
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And last week we just focused ourselves on chapter 12, verse 1, this morning, chapter 12, verse 2, because these two verses together really are the preamble to all this practical living before we get to the precepts, to the do's, we still have this to set ourselves into in order to go into the do's, if you will, correctly.
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So verse 2 of chapter 12 will be our text, but let me begin reading in chapter 11, verse 33, and I'll read down to chapter 12, verse 2.
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This will set the tone properly for us. Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways.
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For who has known the mind of the Lord and 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 and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever, amen.
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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 worship.
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Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
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This is God's word to us. So verses 1 and 2 in chapter 12 give us this wonderful safeguard against any sort of a rote or a slavish just doing of things, sort of a checklist approach.
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You notice the Pharisees who stood on the street corners praying and saying, really, look what
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I do, or look what I do, emphasis on both words, whereas the
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Christian says, look what God has done. Look what God has done in his son,
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Jesus. The emphasis on him, on God. And we're at chapter 12, verse 1, our topic from last week, tells us to actively and constantly and determinedly worship
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God as living sacrifices to him. Therefore, offer your bodies as a sacrifice, your whole self, all you are, all that that encompasses, as a living sacrifice to God.
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Now verse 2 tells us the way of it. It tells us how to get there.
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And these two verses, 12 .1 and 12 .2, they control all the stuff that we must do that follows in chapter 12, verse 3, all the way through 15 .13
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of this book. Now last week we spent some time on the sheer wonder that you or I could be anywhere even close to what verse 1 says, that our worship of God by living these sacrificial lives, by offering up all of ourselves as a spiritual worship to God, that that could be holy and acceptable to him.
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Now we come to the way of it in verse 2. In three parts, really, first, what we don't do, or better, what we don't allow to be done with us.
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The second part is what we do. And third, there's a promised outcome, all there in this verse 2 of chapter 12.
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So let's find out how it is that we accomplish this living sacrifice that is holy and acceptable to God.
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How do we set our minds properly to enter into the rest of this chapter, all the way through chapter 15, verse 13, without making it just a bunch of precepts and things that we accomplish, thinking that we therefore, and in that way, have gotten good favor with God.
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So rather than having that mindset, having a mindset that is all the glory to God, all because of his gospel, that's what these two verses in chapter 12 prepare us for, the preamble, if you will, to the rest of the practical part of this book.
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What is it we don't allow? Well, quite simply, conformity with this world.
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Do not be conformed to this world. Paul uses a word for world that has a deeper meaning than just this place where we exist, just this terrestrial ball that's spinning around in our solar system.
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The word he uses is I own. I own, and it means an age or an epoch, which is usually how that word is translated.
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It's used to describe the things that this world can impose upon us, the way of thinking that characterizes this world or society at large.
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That's how Jesus used it in Matthew chapter 13, verse 22. Remember that parable of the seeds?
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The four seeds or the seeds that fell on the four soils? In chapter 13, verse 22, our
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Lord says, the cares of this world, this I own, and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word.
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And that's why that one saint or that one person who heard the gospel failed, because the
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I own grew up all around him, and Jesus characterizes it as weeds. This world grew up around him, but the
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I own, the way of thinking, the ethos, the scheme by which the world sees things.
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Second Corinthians chapter 4, verse 4, Paul uses the word the same way. He says, the
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God of this world, this I own, this way of thinking has blinded their minds.
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So what it means is a way of thinking and living that is in accord with the general ways of the world outside.
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The cares and riches of this world, this age, can dominate us. We're surrounded by them, and if we give them the priority and importance that is generally accepted, then what will happen?
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Well, as Jesus said in Matthew 13, verse 22, using the word just that way, it will choke out the growth of the word within us.
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Our focus will be on that instead of on him. We will care more about that than studying the word.
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We will be following the ways of this world, this I own, rather than studying the scripture and memorizing the
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Bible and applying it in our lives. That's what it means to be choked out. The reference from Second Corinthians that I read, 4 .4,
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it attributes the spiritual blindness that is common in the world to the God of this world, to the
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God of this age, this I own. In all these uses, Jesus in Matthew 13, Paul in Romans 12, our text this morning,
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Second Corinthians 4 .4, we're directed to something very interesting. We dare not miss this.
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We shouldn't miss this. Dare not is maybe a little too strong. Don't miss this, that we're directed to consider this world.
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He says do not be conformed to this world, not their world back then, not just the world, but this world, this present evil age, as elsewhere it's called, the one that we live in, where we exist, where we now in God's providence,
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Acts 17, have our being. We would not want to be conformed to the
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Greco -Roman world in which Paul and his churches lived. Nor would we want to choose, say, the
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Canaanite world to which God delivered his people. But when God did that, when
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God delivered his people to Canaan, to Israel, he gave them an instruction very much like what we have from Paul in Romans 12.
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In Exodus 23, they are commanded, you shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do as they do,
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Leviticus 18 .3. You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which
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I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes. Do you hear that forward echo?
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Do not be conformed to this world. Ever has this been God's call to his people.
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To not be in that compromised position where the world is that which is informing our decisions and our way of thinking, our whole worldview.
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Our reaction to everything is based upon that. This worldview, this way we have of looking at everything.
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And what the scripture says, Israel, so many thousands of years ago going into Canaan, to Rome a couple of thousand years ago when
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Paul wrote this letter, and to us a couple of thousand years after that.
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Do not be conformed to that age, to that scheme, to that way of thinking.
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In our world, this age, during this time, the gods that we must not follow are pretty obvious and they're pretty rampant, and I have no interest this morning in going into a long list of them.
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You know who they are. You know of which I speak. Anyone who follows the news at even a cursory level is well aware that this world, this age, this way of perceiving everything from life itself and how it came to be to what constitutes right and wrong.
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It's all directly contradictory to what God's word says. It's all opposed to him. It's all anti -God.
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So there's much out there to not be conformed to. And to hearken back to the parable of chapter 13, which
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I quoted that one part from Jesus. What are we being careful of? Not letting those weeds of the world, the
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I own, the cares and deceitfulness of this age, Jesus says, grew up around them.
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And to use that parable in what we're speaking of here, it's don't let those weeds grow up.
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Watch out as they're coming on. Make sure that we're not assimilating this view.
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To be conformed to something is to be molded by it. It is letting the world shape our opinions, attitudes, and ultimately our behavior.
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What Paul insists is that the ways and thoughts and values of this world are not, they cannot, they must not be the blueprint for us.
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Not non -conformity for the sake of non -conformity. When we do that, we just become polemical.
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We just become obnoxious or argumentative, and our lives become polemics against things.
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Not just becoming non -conformist for the sake of non -conformity. That was what the hippies or most of the hippies of the 60s were.
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Just joining into something that didn't really stand for anything, it just wasn't the normal flow of things.
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They were non -conformist for the sake of being a non -conformist, which is not what Paul's speaking of here.
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He's speaking of not conforming, because to conform to that is to staunch, if not stop completely our growth into the image of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. It is to corrupt the beauty and the purity and the consistency of ourselves as living sacrifices to God.
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Peer pressure is an incredibly powerful force. It really is a major force in our lives.
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John Stott points out that we are by nature, and he means by nature the way God wove most people together, we are by nature imitative creatures.
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And the psalm that Jesus read supports that and warns about that, says those who worship them become like them.
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Even the Apostle Paul refused himself as an example by which we should conform ourselves except insofar as he followed
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Christ. When David had
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Saul at his mercy, his men spoke in a worldly way. Do not be conformed to this world.
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The men around David spoke for the world. Here is the day of which the Lord has said to you, behold,
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I will give your enemy into your hand, and you shall do to him as it shall seem good to you.
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Sounds very biblical, sounds very holy, very sanctimonious, doesn't it? This is what God said.
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There he is. Kill him. And what did David do? He cut a piece of evidence, a piece of his cloak off to show
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Saul that he had had him at his mercy and that he had spared him. And why did he spare him?
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He spared him because he is following not worldly ways which would have taken revenge or at least put an end to his rival and taken the throne right away, but instead trusting
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God and following his word and not striking his anointed, which at the time,
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Saul, as bad as he was, he was God's anointed king. When Peter heard of the cross in Matthew 16, what did he do?
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He took Jesus aside. He rebuked him. He said, far be it from you, Lord, this shall never happen to you. Speaking for the world.
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Because I don't want to see this. I want a leader. I want a rabbi who is grand and who
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I can be proud of and I can show him off. And the world will look at him and be impressed.
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Not the cross. Not an ugly, ignominious, disgraceful death. Far be it from you,
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Lord, this shall never happen to you. And what does Jesus say to him? He says, get behind me,
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Satan. The God of this age that we spoke of a moment ago from 2 Corinthians 4. Get behind me,
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Satan. You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.
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And there we have a very interesting thing that Jesus just said there.
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And it gets right to the point that the Apostle Paul is making. The mind. The mind.
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The way we think. The thoughts we assimilate and where they assimilate from.
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Where do they come to us from? Where did Peter's come from? But we don't have to guess at it.
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Jesus Christ made no errors ever. He had in mind the things of this world.
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Following the God of this age. This I own. And Jesus says, that's not the way of God.
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Set your mind on the things of God. The two mindsets.
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The one of this age and the mindset of the Christian. They're like oil and water.
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They don't mix. They're completely incompatible. The one has to be incomprehensible to the other.
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It's not just here in Romans. It's all over Scripture. Galatians 6 .3, for example.
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It stands opposed to this world. This I own. This way of thinking that says something like,
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Believe in yourself. Be proud of you. Go for it. Grab this life with both hands and shake out of it everything that you can get.
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But what does the Word of God say? If that's this I own, this worldly way of thinking, what does
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God say to us? To those who've been redeemed by the blood of our Savior? He says,
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For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Have this attitude.
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Philippians 2. Christ Jesus, who humbled himself following God's Word, following God's ways,
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His decree, humbled himself even to the death of the cross. James 1 .26,
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as a body blow to the worldly way of thinking, this I own, says, If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless.
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You all need to take a good look at what the world, what this world lives and breathes and be certain that that is not the mold by which we are being cast.
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Paul says, No, do not let that happen. This I own cannot be that plan by which you proceed.
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It has the wrong goals. It has the wrong way of thinking. It has the wrong everything.
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Well, that's first. That's first. Beware of what we're conforming ourselves to and to be warned that, as John Stott says, we are imitative creatures.
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We look for something to follow. That's not just the wisdom of a man.
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Psalm 115 says, and there's other Psalms that say the same thing and the prophets said it, Those who make them and worship them shall become like them.
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We will end up imitating them. We need to be careful what we let in. And this, what
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Paul says here, is not just be careful what you let in and just let this part in but be more wise over here and be discerning over there.
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He's just saying, No. It's worldly or it's godly. It's from this
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I own or it's from the Holy Spirit and the word that he's given us. But second, in this short verse, what comes in the place of non -conformity?
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The Lord commanded, Do not be conformed. Well, what do I do? Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
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And here's why Paul chose I own for world. He's after the mind. He's after the mind.
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The god of this age has blinded their minds. Jesus says, You don't have your mind to Peter.
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Your mind is not on the things of God but on the things of this world. It's the mind where the battle is fought.
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His interest is in not this physical earth where we live but the world view we have while we live here.
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The filter through which all circumstances are pressed and the conclusions that we thus arrive at.
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So these two work together like this not conforming and being transformed. The more we refuse conformity with the world's ways, the more we immerse ourselves in God's.
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The less we become like that, the more we become like Christ. The verb be transformed is in a passive voice.
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It's something that acts upon its subject. And Philip's paraphrase, it catches the sense of it very well.
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It says, Do not let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold but let God remold your minds from within.
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Now, I kind of shudder a bit whenever a sentence has the word let or allow and God in the same sentence.
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But you get the point here. Let God remold your minds from within. It's here that human responsibility intersects with divine provision.
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You see, we present ourselves to God as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to Him. We resist conformity.
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That's our part. And God by His Holy Spirit transforms us. And a lot of this harkens back really to chapter 8 and verse 29 where it says that God predestined us to what?
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To be conformed to the image of His Son. This is a life lived in conformity with Christ.
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His image. God's Son and our Savior. A life like His, without reservation, dedicated to God and all that God stands for.
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And here is how it's accomplished. Nonconformity with this world and inner transformation from the way we think to the way we act.
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Romans 8 -29, this is God's decree for the Christian. Predestined.
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When did predestination occur? Well, Ephesians 1 -3 would say before the foundation of the world.
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Predestined for what? To be molded into the image of Christ. And one day when
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He calls us to Him or He returns and calls the whole church to Himself, we will be like Him.
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Not in holiness or power or divinity or any of that stuff, but as John says, we shall be like Him for we shall see
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Him as He is. And when does this conformity happen? When does this process of being conformed into the image of Christ that God predestined you for, if indeed by repentance for your sins and faith in Christ, you have
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Christ. Then predestined for what? To be molded by God into His image.
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You see, this process, if you will, the process is kind of too small for what this is really about, but it works for now.
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This process, it doesn't wait until God calls you to Himself either through death or through Christ's return while we're still living.
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It begins now. And this is what Paul's talking about here in Romans 12. This very process of being molded into Christ's image, conformity to as He is doesn't wait for the hereafter.
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It's for now. It's for this world, as Paul so carefully emphasizes.
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Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed. Be transformed into what? The way we think?
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Well, not just become smarter, not just become quicker in algebra, but to think like Christ.
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To think God's thoughts after Him. Commentators are divided on whether there's any significant difference between the words conformed and transformed.
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If you read up on that, a lot of commentators say that they're synonymous, that Paul is using this
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Hebraic way of making a point by repetition, by using synonyms, different words that emphasize the same point and so strengthen that point.
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Then there's others that say that each word has a special and unique meaning that informs what Paul is going after here.
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I want to take a short look at these two with you. Just a short look. And then we'll come to a conclusion.
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Conformed is used only here in Romans 12 2 and then again one more time in 1
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Peter 1 14. And Peter writes to the church as obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.
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It means be conformed to, be guided by something. In both 1
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Peter and Romans 12 the thing we're warned away from is again this worldly way of thinking.
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This twice used word has something in the middle of it, a midfix. And that word is schema it means outward appearance or form or shape.
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That's the midfix. And the prefix is which means together.
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So the sense of it is sort of together with this blueprint or scheme this outside world, this
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I own, together with that do not be conformed. Peter says our former way of thinking and all it led to was ignorant, it was unfruitful.
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Don't be molded by that any longer. Those days are over. And Paul says much the same when he says that this world must not, it cannot be the mold by which our thoughts are formed.
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So conformed is only used in those two places. 1 Peter 1 14 and our text this morning
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Romans 12 2 Transformed is also a rare word.
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One of the problems with rare words is that they're rare. I mean obviously. And if they're not used very much then we don't have a lot of examples to analyze them, to find the nuances to get the range of meaning and grammatical usage.
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On the other hand when an inspired writer uses such a word, a rare word, I'm convinced that he did so knowing that his original readers would notice that, know that it was a rare, an unusual word, and they pay special attention.
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So this word transformed is only found four times in our Bibles. Just four times.
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And two of them are to describe the same event which is Jesus' transfiguration.
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He says he was transfigured before them. This is the word that's used. The word for transformed.
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The other two are by Paul. Here in Romans 2 and again in 2 Corinthians 3 18 which
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I'll read to you. And we all with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord are being transformed, there's our word of course, into the same image from one degree of glory to another.
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For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. So what does this word mean?
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It means to change inwardly in fundamental character. To be transformed.
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In the transfiguration what the disciples saw was what? It was Jesus as he truly is.
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The veil of sinful flesh. He came in the form of sinful flesh. And that veil was removed for that moment and they saw him in all his glory.
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They saw the real Jesus. 2 Corinthians 3 18 is about us as believers in harmony with the inner working of the spirit being fashioned into that very image.
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That transfigured image. From within. As I said before this word is in the passive.
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It tells us it's something that is done to us. It's the working of a master craftsman. The Holy Spirit in us.
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Molding us into the shape of Jesus and that's the promise of Romans 8 29.
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Being predestined to conform to that image. That's that promise. And if you're a believer in Christ Jesus then
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God is working that promise in you now. In this world as we live in the here and now.
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This process. This transformation. This predestined decree of God is taking place.
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Jesus said in John 16 14 that the spirit will glorify him. Here in 2 Corinthians 3 and Romans he does this work of glorifying
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Christ by bringing pedestrians like you and me more and more into that very image.
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That's how he glorifies him. When sinners repent and sinners having repented and know the power of the
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Holy Spirit within do all to come into that very image and the more like Christ we become the more glory he receives as sinners more and more repent and become more and more like him.
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That's the process that's going on here. Romans 12 2 is telling us how
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God is accomplishing now Romans 8 29. There is in every believer the image of Christ.
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The perfection of humanity. He's the restoration of all that was lost in Eden. He is there within each believer according to Christ's word.
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He is in you if you are in Christ. And what does the spirit do?
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By transforming our entire thought process he molds us into that, into Christ.
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You know Michelangelo is said to have described how he made his masterpiece sculpture David something like this.
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He said it's easy you just chip away everything that doesn't look like David. So the idea is there's a slab of marble there and every part that doesn't look like what he's envisioning he takes off.
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Now the online quote investigator if you have a smart phone and you're checking it out you don't have to. I did it.
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The online quote investigator says that there's no evidence that Michelangelo actually said that.
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They didn't say he didn't but they said there's no evidence he did. But it fits my message so well and all the preachers
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I know use that at some point so I wanted to use it. But I'm not being silly.
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It really is that process where God is by his providence as we go through this life in this world chipping away from us taking away that part that is not
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Christ. As you offer your body, your entire person all your existence including and especially the way we think as an act of worship to God he then throughout our life and by his providence removes from us our ways of thinking and behaving that don't look like Jesus.
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His chastising hand might show us our sin and by looking at our life and looking at it in terms of scripture seeing where we went wrong and repenting before God and determining not to do that again you can see the sculptor's hand has taken away that sliver of marble that looked like marble and not
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Christ. It's a process something like that. For most of us
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I know for myself there's a lot to remove and when I think about this metaphor this way of looking at this process
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I think I'd be lucky if there's so much as a pebble left by the time God's working on me if I started out as a massive mountain of marble and you took away everything in me that wasn't
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Christ I'd be lucky if there's a grain left but we're not hunks of stone the metaphor can fall apart pretty quickly we're not slabs of marble we're people we're people the sculptor takes away as he works but God adds as beautiful a work as David is we're better God is not chipping away to find something he's removing the dross from our way of thinking and with each stroke of his chisel there's a vestige of that old worldly conformity that falls to the ground consigned to the janitor's dustbin can we gauge this in ourselves can we look at this verse this whole process this whole way of thinking this conformity not being conformed to this but being transformed by the other not by our own but by Christ and his spirit how can we gauge this
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I'm just gonna put one simple way before you just one and it's satisfaction we can ask ourselves what satisfies me what satisfies my soul how deep does it go how much does it satisfy me what is it that brings me pleasure relief when do
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I sit back and say that was a good day's work I accomplished something worthwhile is it the things of this world is it the accumulation of more and more stuff
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I mean at some level stuff is ok 1st Timothy 4 .4 says that God created everything and it is not to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving and prayer so it's not just stuff in and of itself that's bad but when
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I say this accumulation I'm talking about the way the world drives us to always want more to not be satisfied with what we have your car's three years old but look at this new car that's you know you could have for so much per month or whatever the case is this constant drive to get more and more and more what satisfies am
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I most satisfied when I solve that problem at work or when I conquer this or that besetting sin in my life because the problem at work where to do all things hardly is unto the
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Lord we are to be good employees doing our absolute best to bring Christ honor because of that by our employment but brethren if we are being transformed into the image of Christ much greater must be our satisfaction when
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God takes away a sin when God brings us true repentance and puts us back on a right and a better path and we know that we are walking closer to the image of Christ and to the joys of this world and in God's kindness there can be much joy do they overshadow our joy in salvation that's just one way to look at this idea of am
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I being transformed am I making progress are we where we were five years ago we should be steadily more and more sensitive to our sin and more quick to repent before God and others if we've offended them and more consistent in our not returning like a dog to his vomit in other words being transformed and becoming more and more like Christ this process of Romans 8 -29 is for here and now brothers and sisters in the
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Lord it does not wait until we see
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Jesus now of course that's the culmination of things I think no matter what progress we make in the here and now the here and now is nothing compared to what it will be then we cannot become perfect in the here and now we all know that but the struggle towards it is a life long process the spiritual sacrifice of chapter 12 verse 1 the transformation of verse 2 third there's a promised outcome that's the third part of this message there's a promised outcome if we're not conformed but we are transformed
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God is doing it with something in mind of course he is he does everything with something in mind and it's this you will be able by testing to discern
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God's good and acceptable and perfect will the more we refuse the world's mold and are shaped by God's transformative work in us the more we will in this life discern
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God's will and his applicability in any circumstance and we will more and more easily put it into practice the process is that the more of the mind of Christ we assimilate the more readily we apply it and the more we apply it the more we discern its perfections this is about our capacity to make correct judgments mainly correct ethical judgments at any point an area where this world could hardly be more different from what scripture would teach us the ethics that God has in his word compared to the ethics of this
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I own Romans 12 3 and all the rest of it lead us to understand this as a corporate process remember we're imitative creatures again and again we learn that Christ saves and then places in community into a church
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John 15 the true branch is Jesus and the vines by analogy are gaining strength from him but we're in this together not a single branch but branches in a single vine which is
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Christ so in a very real way even though this is an individual command do not become formed but be transformed it's also very corporate we are either growing together or we're not read
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Ephesians 2 about the growth of the church together 1st
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Corinthians 12 Romans the rest of Romans 12 which we'll get to soon we do grow ourselves into this image of Christ but brethren we grow together and it's sort of a vortex where we come up together as a body into this image helping one another edifying one another encouraging one another rebuking one another when necessary all with that one image in mind that of Christ Jesus this is something far more grand than Michelangelo's David this is the promise in the now of the image of Christ in us not a beautiful sculpture but a beautiful savior this is participation now in the not yet participation right now in the what is to come in all that is coming
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Romans 8 -29 being conformed to the image of Christ it is God in the now making us ready for the then when
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Christ calls us to himself and the more now we think like then the more while it is now we'll be like then do you understand that?
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the more we are now like Christ the more now we will be like we'll ultimately be then when we see him as he is we began last week with the offering ourselves as living sacrifices that are holy and acceptable to God those to come to him by faith in his son are just that they are holy and acceptable is that because of our success?
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is that because we did something in our struggle against conformity to this world? no, it's not that it's because of the extent to which our minds have been transformed no, it's not that either it's not a checklist we don't have a chart that we keep is it because of the consistency and quality of our discernment of God's will and how much we are able to apply it?
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no that is not either what makes our sacrifice holy and acceptable to God why is our sacrifice in the first verse holy and acceptable to God well it's all because of Christ it's all because of Christ Jesus in this gospel it is he in whom we by extension resided when he suffered
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God's wrath at our sins Ephesians 1 says we are blessed because we are found in Christ we are accepted because we are found in him we are chosen to be in him before any success or any failure on our parts but before the foundation of the world this is what it says in Ephesians when we deny worldly conformity and step into godly transformation we are participating with God by growing into his son
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Paul doesn't say try to be holy and acceptable he says our offering is holy and acceptable and far from making this lackadaisical or nonchalant this should boost our confidence because even knowing our efforts can never bring us to the full stature of Christ we have the assurance that our sacrificial lives are holy and pleasing to God because of Christ in whom by faith we are very much like what it says in the book of Hebrews about coming boldly to the throne of grace excuse me do we come boldly because we are bold no we come boldly because we are confident in him who brings us to that throne why is our sacrifice of ourselves holy and acceptable to God because we are in Christ it's much like the idea of our righteousness if you believe in Christ Jesus if you have repented of your sins and gone to him in faith
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God attributes to you he imputes to you the righteousness of Christ himself not a righteousness that you grow into not one that expands as you become more holy nothing like that it's a righteousness that at that time
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God judges you to have because you have the righteousness of Christ himself and it's like that in this sacrificial idea it's holy and acceptable a fact a state of being because it is in Christ that we make this lifelong sacrifice this is an encouragement to us because you cannot fail to be holy and pleasing to God you cannot fail because Christ doesn't fail we can fail, we can mess up you and I will blunder here and there we'll disobey these other things we'll display our ignorance about that situation that came up and God will in his chastising love show us our faults and then lead us to the way we should walk but none of this changes the fact that our spiritual sacrifice of ourselves in all these things is to him good and acceptable and perfect so when
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I talk about transformation and ways to gauge it don't make a chart out of it don't turn it into your job description remember that this is holy and acceptable to God because it's in Christ that we reside and Christ will not fail and it's
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Christ who brings us to God and it's Christ's image that we seek for this is all about Jesus Christ from him and through him and to him are all things to him be glory forever he says holy and acceptable pleasing to God I mean
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I'd be happy with good now and then but this is not based on us it's based on him he attributes to our spiritual worship these things this goodness this holiness this perfection because that's who
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Jesus is so let's close by asking ourselves what do you like who or what do you most imitate the psalm says we become like that which we worship
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Romans 12 1 and 2 says our whole life is to be for the worship of God and if that is the case then we then you are becoming like him and it's going to be a slow work the blows of the divine craftsman may sting and they may smart but only for a while and so I call us to tolerate his strokes learn why his chisel removed this distraction or that temptation from your way be prayerful when you consider why this or that sin was exposed because the
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Lord is fashioning you into his son Jesus he's removing the filth and the corruption and the whole ethos the way of thinking of this
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I own out there this natural man's way of thinking and he's forging in you in us a new man created by God in true righteousness and holiness he's making you he's making us fit for heaven the difficulties only tell us there's a lifelong process all of us each and everyone has so long of a way to go and each of us every single one who believes in Christ is being shaped by a good
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Lord who will take away from us all that is not also found in his son Christ Jesus see one day we will join the angels in praising
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God we will God only knows when we'll stand before him then when we are with Christ everything's going to be different sin will be no more not in us not around us around us the creation will have been redone to reflect
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God's perfections our bodies will no longer be subject to sickness or death or any of the ravages that sin brought because sin will then be no more we'll have glorified bodies just like Jesus we are part of that now we are part of that process now our lives lived out in constant worship and sacrifice to him our foretaste of what is to come one thing that won't change from now to then will be
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God's pleasure in us because our sacrifice now is good and acceptable and perfect and so it shall be then because it is
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Christ Jesus in whom and for whom and by whom and with whom we do this and so shall it ever be amen
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Heavenly Father again we thank you for this day you've given us we pray father that you continue with us as we continue with you in all this worship