in the text this morning. Father, we thank you so much for today. We thank you for your love, your mercy, and your grace that you've lavished upon us that not only do you call us to serve you, but there are times where you make that service very light. You even allow us to serve amongst people that we really like in places that we really enjoy. So we are just so very thankful for how good you are, how kind you are. And Father, we also know that there are times where you lead us through some very difficult challenges that are hard and soul-stretching and require lots of tears. And you're still good, you're still kind, you're still sovereign even in the midst of those things. And so we just ask today that as we look at this text, you'll be with us, you'll help us learn what you want us to learn, that we would be transformed by the power of the Spirit into the image of Christ and that we would be like Christ who honestly sought to do your will and to do your will to the fullest extent. We just thank you and love you for him and it's based upon him and his work that we say amen. So one little thing about me, now that you've given me the card and appreciate it, I'm going to share some things about myself now. And you have an opportunity to take back the card if you'd like. But one of my guilty little pleasures in life is watching YouTubers who travel. And they have travel vlogs. And they go all over the world. It's a weird thing. I don't myself quite understand it, but man do I love it. And I follow several of these guys as they go around the world. There's one guy I'm watching right now who is in Afghanistan and he's traveling Afghanistan. And he's just showing some of the people and some of the food and some of the culture. Now, he's in a little bit of a pickle. He's really good at storytelling, so right now we're on a cliffhanger, all of us subscribers going, wonder what's gonna happen. So he's stranded in a town in Afghanistan where nobody speaks English. That's where the story leaves off. He's talking through Google Translate, and he wants to go to this particular town, but I guess in Afghanistan, there are two towns with the same name, one's in the north and one's in the south. He wants to go to the south. So he keeps on telling people, I want to go to such and such a place, and they go, okay, well, yeah, no, it's just like 15 minutes away, we'll go. And he goes, no, not that one, the other one, through the treacherous road, through the mountains. And they all said, are you sure? He's sure. And he goes, yeah, that's where I want to go. I'm filming. Well, nobody's taking him. And so what ended up happening to happen was he has to go to the Taliban and ask permission for him to travel freely. So he has like this, what the kids call this side quest, right? Like he's got to do a journey before he does a journey. And he's got to go and he's got to ask permission. And the story left off, the video left off with, He got permission and the Taliban is going to take him through the mountains and it's super dramatic. So super excited about that. I'll let you know what happens next Sunday when that video drops. But. The reason I bring that up is because I often think of the Christian life a lot like that, when we're trying to determine God's will. There's a lot of things we gotta do before we get to the point of determining what's God's will for our life. It's almost like there is a journey to just discovering what God's will is, and then there's then the journey of doing what God's will is. And today, we're gonna talk about that. In one sense, we could say that today's text is dealing with this daily reality of the mechanics of how to determine God's will, the mechanics of how we learn what's pleasing to the Lord, and what kind of state our heart needs to be in in order to properly receive that. So today we're gonna be in Romans 12 verse two. We're gonna be in the second part of verse two. Really wanted to go slow here and talk about some of these really important subjects. And just from Romans 12 to the second half, I want to show you three things. First thing is this, what I think the text talks about, is transformation by yielding. We're going to talk about this yielding process, this what we do when we yield, and the fact that God God the Holy Spirit, God the Father, God the Son, Christ, is intimately involved in transforming us and making us into the image of Christ. We do not do self-renovation. We yield to what God is doing, and by that we are transformed. Second, what we're going to see in the next part is the means by which this transformation takes place. God's the agent and he does this, but the means is through renewal by meditating. And we'll talk about meditating, I think it's an important important thing for us as believers to deal with, not like the world meditates, where they try to empty their mind. Some of us, that's a really easy task, because there's not a lot up here already, but the believer does not sit in a room and try to empty our mind or try to repeat mantras over and over and over again, and when we get then a thought that flies into our mind, go, oh, that's what God's telling me. That's not what we're doing. What we're doing is we are properly understanding scripture and thinking about that proper understanding and thinking about the theological implications and the personal implications and what does that mean in my circumstance and how does it fit here and you're kind of just soaking in it and marinating in it and filling your mind with scripture. That's what we do, and there's gotta be that reset. And so we renew our mind. And then last, direction by discernment. Once again, there's a lot of people who have a lot of crazy ideas of how to find out God's will. Here, Paul is gonna just tell us, it is based upon discernment of a believer who is walking by the power of the spirit and whose mind is filled with the scriptures. From that position, you can discern the direction you should go. So, let's look at this really powerful text. And let's, allow me to start in verse one, I'll read to verse two, I'll finish verse two. It kind of is all connected here. So Paul says, 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. 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. So we're going to be in the second part, but remember last week we talked about this do not be conformed. we see the opposite command. One is a negative, do not be conformed. Now we're going to the positive which says be transformed. What's interesting about both of these commands is that both of these commands are in a passive. And basically grammatically what that means is is that something else is causing that to happen. And so in a sense we could say the command is to not let the world conform us, But let God transform us. Both of those are in the passive. They're a passive imperative. This means that something else is doing that shaping. And so here we are as a believer. and notice that we are caught in the middle and what's happening, there are things that are pressing against us and we either yield to one or we yield to the other, right? That's basically it. We're yielding to something. We're yielding to either what we used to be and the flesh and the world and its temptations, which I might argue might be our actual default. And, or we can present ourselves to Christ and be transformed by that. And so there's these two pressures, there's things that are pressing into. And so in a sense, we gotta yield. We gotta yield to one or the other. And as a believer, we really are The only people on the face of the planet who really do have what we might argue is a choice, because we're no longer slaves to sin. We no longer can only do sin. Now we have a new mind, and a new master, and a new capability. So now, as a believer, I have this unique opportunity to actually say yes to what is right, based upon the power of the Spirit, and no to what is wrong. Now, this might upset some of us because, I'll be honest, if I think about all the times I sin and I realize I had an opportunity to say no, as a believer that means, uh-oh, I willfully chose not to follow the Lord and to yield to the power of the Spirit. So this word, transform, there's a lot of, I'm sure you've heard a lot of different examples of this word. We get the English word metamorphosize from or metamorphosis. I'm pretty sure you've probably heard of specifically in this text of what is God doing? Well, it's much like a caterpillar who puts himself inside of a cocoon and then after time of struggle emerges as a butterfly. We call that metamorphosis. And that's what the word means, and in a sense, that is a really good example of what's happening. The idea of transform here, it means to change in essence. It has the idea of, I used to be one thing, and now I'm something new. Right? And in the context here, it's, I used to be Caleb under the wrath of God, slave to sin. Now, I am Caleb, indwelt by the power of the Holy Spirit, who is shaping me and molding me into the image of Christ. That's what it is. I'm being transformed. I'm becoming more and more like Christ. And that's the work of, the transforming work of what's happening. And, There's a little bit of a debate here on who is the agent, who brings about this transformation. Well, it is very clear, I think, from scripture, very clear from scripture, that transformation is not something that you and I accomplish just by tapping our heels together and saying there's no place like home. We can't just will it into existence. We are not saved by grace and perfected by legalism. That's not the sense here. But there are some who really do believe that this transformation is a you thing. You need to transform yourself, and the only way you do that is by spending a lot of time in the Word, and if you mess up, well, that's because you're not in the Word as much and good as other people who are, and it's really you who are the problem, and it's you who need to transform yourself. The Bible never teaches that. Now, does it teach responsibility? Of course it does, and we'll talk about our responsibility. But it is fundamental to our understanding of salvation and of the Christian life that the The person that transforms us, renews us, that makes us into the person of Christ is God Himself. He who began a good work in you is faithful to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus. So the command here is not for you to renovate Went over to Greg and Carol's house. They've remodeled, renovated, looks beautiful. They painted some of the walls. They even painted the ceilings different color. I thought that was pretty cool. That was awesome. That is not what we're doing on the inside for us as believers. What's happening is God is doing all of this transformation. It's probably more like Krista and I with the parts in his basement. We just, we said, hey, We're not, I'm not the guy to swing a hammer or hold a drill. Somebody's going to the hospital if I'm doing the drill. We need someone else who's qualified to transform this space. That's what happened. So here, it's the same thing. We are not qualified or capable to transform ourself. Someone else has to come in. And this is the work of God, this is the work of Christ. This is God's eternal intentions for us, that he is transforming us. And so, our role here, because it still is a command, our role is to yield to that transforming power. Now, that's a very difficult thing for us to do, to yield, to say, okay, You are going to do the work. You're going to do the work of changing me and so I let you. It's no longer my goals, it's now your goals. It's no longer... My motivations, it's what you want. And I am submitting to what you want. I'm submitting to your power. It's no longer my power, it's your power. I'm submitting to this, I'm submitting. Now, we will see here in a second the means of how we understand this transformation and how God does this. But understand that the goal of the Christian life is not your better life. It is not a You point to. It is that you are like Christ. That's the goal. That's what the Holy Spirit's doing. He is making you, conforming you to the image of Christ. You can't do that. Only Christ can do that. So we must yield. We must say whatever you want, how you want it, the way you want it, right? By the way, this isn't new. We've already seen this in chapter six. We see this in verse one. If we go back up to verse one, notice he says, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies. So it's the same command. In a sense, it's the same thing. It's saying, no, I'm not going to yield to this because it wants me to yield. I'm going to yield to this. These are the desires. These are the goals. So God's the agent in this, but what is the means? How does this take place? Well, notice the next thing. It says, by or through the means of the renewal of your mind. So, in a sense, God's the one who transforms, it's the Holy Spirit, and we gotta yield to that. And the means by which we learn what God wants for us, when we learn the attitudes we should have, when we learn the goals that we should have, there's issues in our life, the word, or the renewing of our mind, and I'm gonna show that I think it's renewing our mind in the scriptures, It's that, the Word, that clears our mind of all that other stuff that we have, all those other competing ideas and goals. That stuff gets washed out. And so this transformation happens by my mind being renewed, constantly thinking about the situation, my life, where I am right now, looking at God's Word, properly interpreting and filling my mind with God's Word. And that is my renewed mind. because now I have a new goal, I have new ways of thinking, I have new thoughts patterns. So I am transformed by God through the means of the renewal of my mind. This word for renewal of mind means, once again, something new. So I'm being transformed, made into something new, by having my mind renovated. Now we gotta understand this. Your mind always needs to be renovated. We all have thoughts and goals and desires and perspectives that we've introduced into the equation that stunts our ability to see what God wants for our life. This is the part that we do. So when I'm reading scripture, part of the thing that should be asked on a constant basis is, Lord, will you help me see these areas that conflict with what I'm reading so that I'm actually changing the way I think about things? If your mind and the way you think about theology has not deepened or been challenged in a long time, could I contend that maybe we're not reading the right way or you're not looking for the right things? So this renewal, this is something, this is our responsibility to renew. We are being transformed. What are the means of this? By renewing our mind. And I would contend that the only proper way to wash our mind clean of all of those worldly thoughts is by the pure word, the washing of the word. Now, this renewing, and notice another thing that he says here, he says the renewal of the mind. Here, some people get very, very intellectual when they talk about this. And I think Paul does use the word mind, so I think that's really what he has in his mind, is the intellectual process. But Greek is funny. Original languages are funny. And sometimes Sometimes we have a certain way of reading things as modern people. And so when we see something in English, we go, ah, yeah, no, I, yeah, no, I understand what he means. Where in the ancient world, they have a completely different understanding. So many times when a body part like this is focused upon, it's not to the exclusion of all the other parts of the person. So in a sense, what I'm saying is, yes, I think the mind is central in this process, but let us not forget that we also have a whole bunch of other things that are going on. We are not just thinking computers. We have feelings, we have will, we have emotion, we have goals, we have all this stuff going on inside. So when he says mind, I think it's all the immaterial stuff that's happening. All of that needs to be renewed. I'm a Hilbert, I'm pretty emotional. My emotions need to be brought into submission to God's word. There are times I desire to do something. There are times I desire to buy a guitar and don't tell my wife. I desire to do those things, right? I have a will. My will needs to be held to submission to God's word. Not God's word to my will, not God's will to my philosophies or to my emotions. And so in a sense, this mind, this renewing of the mind is a renewal of the inner man, who I am on the inside, the real me. So the question is, how do we renew? Well, first of all, we have to understand that if God is the agent of transformation, the renewing of our mind has to start with God himself. It is impossible for me to renew myself without yielding and walking by the power of the spirit. In fact, let's just look at this. Let's look at what the book of Ephesians says. Let's go to Ephesians chapter five. Powerful stuff here in Ephesians 5. Let's just start in verse 17, because Paul is dealing with the same thing. We're already going to get to the will of God, but notice what he says in 17. He says, therefore do not be foolish, literally absent-minded. So you see once again this idea of the mind. but understand, notice once again, another cerebral word, another intellectual word that deals with intellect, knowing, what the will of God is. So this means that we can understand the will of God, that we can come to an understanding of what God wants for our lives. And then he says, and do not get drunk with wine, for this is debauchery. Complete, completely being out of control. Do not do that, but be filled with the spirit. So this word filled is being contrasted with what? Well, it would be the debauchery. It would be with the wine. And so the idea is just like wine would control somebody. Somebody who has too much wine, or too much beer or too much of a substance, that substance controls that person. Recently, I went to a Seahawks game, saw lots of people who were under the influence of beer and of alcohol. They were completely different people when they walked in from when they walked out. There was something controlling them, right? So this word fulfilled is actually that part of the believer. So I'm not to be controlled by those things, by wine, but I'm to be controlled by what? The spirit, the spirit. I am to yield to him your way, not my way, your goals. You are going to radically control me. This does not mean that the way that he controls us is like we're drunk with wine. There are people who believe that. If somebody ever tells you that, don't listen to them. Because they'll roll around in the aisles acting like they are drunk. That is not what Paul is saying here. He's clearly saying the opposite. All you have to do is just read them the next verse and you'll understand, yeah, this is not a drunkenness. It's not like we're supposed to be hyped up. No, no, notice what happens. When one is filled with the Holy Spirit, what are some of the consequences of this? It's addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. You see what happens when one's controlled? What happens? I start talking in psalms and hymns, I'm seeking to encourage, my entire focus is thanking God, and so, that's what's happening. Now, keep in mind what the Holy Spirit does here, right? Yielding to the Holy Spirit, yielding to the power of the Holy Spirit. Just keep in mind what happens. I would also like you to keep your finger here, and then let's turn to Colossians. Colossians chapter three. And notice in verse 16, it says, and let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or in deed, do in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Now notice, there's a lot of things that happen when I'm yielding to the Spirit and when I'm letting the Word richly dwell within me. You see? It's God, the Holy Spirit, working through what is written in the Word. So when we talk about renewing, I'm thinking spiritual thoughts that come from the Holy Spirit. How do I know those thoughts? The Word. And notice here the word let richly dwell. It's not just let it stay inside you, right, to live, it's to richly dwell. Meaning, in a sense, you're kind of handing over the deed, as it were, and saying, yeah, do whatever you want. I am sure that when Greg and Carol were renovating, they did not ask me what I would want in their house and the types of things I would like to decorate with and what colors they should paint their house and what kind of flooring they should use and what kind of laminate they should use and cabinets they should use. But imagine for a moment if I did. Let's say I go over to Greg's house while he's putting in his brand new flooring. I knock on the door and go, I don't like this color. I think you should do a different color. What would his response be? Tough, you don't live here. But imagine if he said, okay, you can live here, and you get to determine the colors, you get to determine what the floor is, you get to determine this, you get to, that's richly dwelling, right? I don't get to just live there, I'm taking over. That's what we need to do with the word, is we need to let it take over. And the way that we do that is by filling our mind with scripture. There's one really important passage that I love, and I see examples of this all the time, because I live in a place where there's a lot of water, there's a lot of rivers, and there's a lot of trees. So we get to see an example of this, but go with me just quickly to Psalm 1. Here I think David really, really just explains this really well to us. All right, so notice, and just notice the overlap between Psalm 1 and some of the things that we're reading in Romans 12. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. So how does David start off? You wanna be blessed? You wanna be spiritually happy? Don't listen to sinners and scoffers. Do not conform to what? Them, their standards. Do not conform to the world. Now notice verse two. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night. You see, I'm not listening to this, but I'm listening to this. But David introduces something that's really important here. I wanna show you two things. One, he delights. He enjoys the book. Do you enjoy the book? Do you enjoy your time in the book? Now, I know a lot of us have devotionals that we read, and those are fine. I'm not trying to poo-poo those, but let me just ask this real question. How much time have you spent seriously just reading the Bible? No commentary, no one else's thoughts, you're just reading, and you just enjoy, oh, how great this is, oh, this is great, oh, wow. Now there's other things that happen, but do you delight in the book? I think this is part of this. And then notice it says, and in his law, he meditates day and night. The word for meditate here is to fill one's mind with thoughts. So as we're meditating, whether you memorize the passage or you're looking at it on your phone or whether you're listening to it while you drive, audio book, I don't really think the medium matters. What I think matters is, When you spend some time listening to a thing or you see a thing in the scriptures, are you sitting there going, I wonder what that means? Why did he say that there? Why did he use the word the? Why did he use that word? Now it's so much easier as well to go and search the original languages. Before you had to get a really big book that weighed like 800 pounds. Three guys need to get out and you need to get your strong concordance and you put it on the table and the table would buckle and then you'd have to like look at the really small print and find these numbers. Now there's apps that do that for you. But when's the last time you looked up an original language word? When was the last time you did that? And he went, huh, that's really interesting that he said that word. It's really interesting that he said that. Why did he say that? Why is he saying this to them? And what does this mean for me living right here? How can I put this into my life right now? And how does this fit into my larger understanding of the world and of God's word? That's what meditating is. It's not just thinking about it over and over again. It's not just mere memorization. I remember when I was a kid, my dad had a men's study where it was a Bible memory study. It was a great study, I really enjoyed it. But we would all be memorizing stuff and then we would come together and we would quote the things we'd been memorizing. And I would go because my dad said, well, if you have a verse memorized, I'll buy you breakfast. So, yeah. my motivation for memory was not necessarily that I wanted to grow close to the Lord Jesus Christ, it was free bacon. So, and what was amazing was, I always had like, I had like seven, and I'm sure my dad figured this out, but I had seven verses that I would quote each, like I'd quote one verse, and then it would go through a rotation, and then the eighth week I would quote that first one again, right? So I had like these seven verses. He probably caught on, but I think he was just happy I was there. Didn't help me at all. Didn't delight in it. It was rote memory. My motivation for the goal was something free. It wasn't that I could grow closer to the Lord. It wasn't to renew my mind. So back here in Romans 12, when he says, let yourself be transformed by the renewing of your mind, spending time in God's word, properly understanding it, there is now a result. And notice the result here. Notice. that by the testing you may discern. So in the Greek, the testing you may discern is all one word. But you see that word that, this is a consequence, a result. So the result of transformation, letting transformation happen through the word of God is resulting in what? That I can prove. what the will of God is. I can discern what the will of God is. I can look at my circumstance, I can look at the principles of scripture, and I can say, this is what I think God wants me to do right now. This does not mean that God is going to tell you the future. That is not what it means to discover God's will. He's not going to tell you the future. What is he going to do? He's going to give you the basic principles and the empowerment to step out in faith and do what he's asking you to do right now. And a believer whose mind is yielding to the Spirit and filled with Scripture will look at circumstances and go, that's what I need to do. Now, there are times where we have to make some pretty big decisions. And we spend a lot of time, and we get a lot of advice from people. That's good, you need the church to help in some of these things. But it ultimately comes down to the question of, are you walking by the power of the spirit? And is your mind already filled with the word? And are you looking at your decision based upon what the word says, with these new goals? So, in a sense, we could say, when it comes time for those big decisions, You should be practiced up by making a whole bunch of little decisions and you should already have this mechanic in place. I can determine what God wants. I can determine what God wants for my life. Now, there might be times where we decide, I think this is where the Lord's leading me, I think this is God's will, and then as you step out, the Lord changes direction, because he doesn't want you to go there. That's fine. I don't think you did it wrong. That's just how the Lord leads. Remember in Proverbs, man plans his ways, but the Lord directs his steps. There are circumstances that happen in life where God moves us. He places us in places that we would never imagine being in. Sometimes it is awesome, like living in Astoria. Sometimes it's not awesome. It's hard, it hurts. A lot of nights where you don't sleep. A lot of nights where you don't eat. A lot of days you don't eat. You could look at a plate of bacon in those moments and go, I'm not hungry, which we all know is the definition of depression. But God places us there, right? And in those situations, I, if I'm walking by the spirit and spending time in God's word, I should be able to say, this is what the Lord wants for me, this is the type of things that he wants, this is the direction I'm going to move. He might move you, that's okay, that's his prerogative. Yours is to fill your mind with scripture. And notice, when you discern what God's will is, notice, as Paul describes God's will, that which is good, that which is acceptable, and that which is perfect. So here, in a sense, Paul is defining what God's will is. God's will is first and foremost good. It's good. It's good morally, it's good according to a standard, and it's good beneficially for the believer. It's good. What is he bringing about? Good, he's good, he's kind, he's just. And so when you determine God's will, guess what will happen? You will say, this is good. It's good, it's beneficial, it's the best. And then notice it's pleasing. Now this might seem strange to us to define God's will as pleasing to him, because you would go, well, of course it is. Like his will is what he desires. But think about this. When I'm determining God's will, In a sense, I'm asking, will God be pleased with me if I do this? If you do God's will, you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, God is pleased with it. He has to say this. Because some of us might say, well, I'm gonna do God's will, I hope he's happy with it. Know this. When you spend time, in God's word, working on your sanctification, doing the things that are found in the scripture, he is pleased. He's pleased. He likes it when we obey. He likes it when we step out in faith and say yes. And then notice it's perfect. It's sufficient. I can't add anything to it. I can't take anything away from it. I don't know about you, but there are some times when you're in the midst of making a decision, and you have what you think in your mind is the perfect outcome, and then an outcome happens, and you look back at that outcome and go, Oh man, I didn't even know this was on the table. I would so much rather, yes, this was the best thing. This was the right way to handle it. God led me through this. This is perfect. I can't take away from it. I can't add anything to it. The way that he has worked in my life and moved me in my life, this is perfect. The way that he did this is perfect. Now, sometimes we think of these as being big things, like moving to a different state or doing this, but I'm telling you, even in the little things, even in the little things, going to class now, the first time that I've had to take tests where the professor isn't watching me, do you know how hard it is to not cheat? Oh my word, the answers are literally sitting right there. And I have to say no. I think that's what God would want. He wants me to be honest. I think he would want me to learn Hebrew so I could understand his word better. I will not learn Hebrew if I cheat. I know that. I think it's his will for me to be honest. That's what's good. It's good to be honest. That's what's pleasing to him. It's pleasing to him. And it's perfect, right? Because when I do study, and I do take the tests, even if I get stuff wrong, I go, I did what God wanted me to do. I'm not as smart as I should be, I get it, but I did what God wanted me to do. I wouldn't change a thing about that. So what we're talking about here is we're talking about everything, every situation. So how do I know the direction that God wants me to go? It's through discernment. How do I get that discernment? By time in the word and by walking by the power of the spirit. This is the mechanics of it. I know that I'm a football guy, and I love watching football. And this last week, I got a chance to watch Bo Nix play. I had a lot of things going on, and I wanted to watch the quarterback for the Denver Broncos play. For all of you who don't know or don't care, the quarterback's the guy that throws the ball. So Bo Nix is the quarterback for the Denver Broncos. That's a football team in Denver, Colorado. Their mascot is a Bronco. They were playing another team. So Bo Nix, his responsibility was to pass it to his team. He did a really good job of completing the pass to the other team, which in football is a bad thing. So anyways, Bo Nix, the next morning I watched some sports shows and they were talking about, and some of the quarterbacks, some of the ex-quarterbacks were talking about why he threw the interception. To me, I initially go, this is because he threw it to the other team. Like, why did he do it? He threw it to the other guy. But what they were talking about was, they were talking about his mechanics. the way his feet were placed, the way his arm moved with the ball, where he released the ball, the way that he wasn't comfortable in the pocket. And one of the things really hit me, oh, mechanics are important. Understanding these things and having these things worked out are important so that when you're actually in the moment and you don't have time, you'll do the thing the right way because that's the way you've been practicing. And I thought, what a great picture here of this text of thinking about how do I know what God's will is? Well, there's a mechanics here. Do not be conformed to this world. Do not yield to them, but yield to God's word. Yield to the Holy Spirit. Spend time in God's word. Spend time asking important, deep, spiritual questions. Look, how can I renovate my mind with the text that is said? What needs to be cut out? What needs to be added in? And by that process of doing that, the mechanics of that, when it comes time, You already have it practiced. You don't have to sit there and go, I don't know how to do this. Because you've already done it lots of times. You know the mechanics. You know the posture. You know, okay, I have a big decision. I'm not gonna go around initially just asking people for advice. I'm gonna go to God's word. What does God's word have to say about my situation and the principles that are found here? So, it's my desire for all of us to do this, to say no to the influence of the world and the temptation of the world, but yield to the power and the influence of the Holy Spirit, that we spend time in the Word, we renew our mind with the Word, and that we understand the direction that God wants, not only for us individually, because each of us have individual things that are going on in our lives that God would want, but even as a collective body, we move in a direction. How do we know if we're going in the right direction? Well, we all have to be doing this individually so that when it comes time for us to do this corporately, we're all on the same page going, of course, this is what we need to do. This is what the Lord's asking us to do. So this may mean for some of you to stay at home, be the most godly mother or grandmother or grandfather that you can be, and you be that. You be that for the glory of Jesus. What does that mean? It may mean you're going out to a job. You are the best employee of that, right? What does that mean? That may mean I do this and I do it for the glory of the Lord, because that's the situation that he has me here right now. I'm gonna bring glory to God in the midst of this. Remember, each opportunity that's placed in front of us, each circumstance, is an opportunity for us to say yes to the Lord and bring him honor and glory. I also wanna say this, just because we got some young people in the room. It is not wrong to think about the future and what God has for you in the future. You should be thinking about that. Do not rule out that God is big and powerful and he can do incredible things through people who just say yes. And so maybe some of you are thinking, huh, maybe God's calling me to be a missionary, or maybe he's calling me to do this, or maybe he's calling me to do this. Maybe for some of the older kids, all the rest of us, maybe something's been tugging at your heart and you go, yeah, no, I get it, I think the Lord wants me to do, Lord wants me to be, if he wants you to do that, do it, all for the glory of God. And I encourage everyone to follow the leading of the Lord every single time. That's it. If the Lord's directing you that way, who is Caleb Hilbert to say, bad idea? As a church, we should celebrate every single time that somebody makes a decision to bring honor and glory to the Lord Jesus Christ. When they're walking by the power of the Spirit, they're looking at the principles of God's word, and they're stepping out in faith saying, yes. Every time that happens, we should be applauding. From the mom, to the person sitting at home, to the person walking on the trail, to the person driving cars, to the person talking to people at lunch, to the person who's thinking, what college do I go to, or what ministry do I have, or what this, or what's that, or what's this, each moment you're saying, yes Lord, I'm gonna do what you want, here I am, I'm a sacrifice, Help me be like Christ right now, this second, in this situation, in the circumstance that you placed me. And God is glorified, and we should applaud that. May the Lord help us and do all that we've heard today. Let's go ahead and let's pray. Father, once again, we are so very thankful for your word. We're thankful for your spirit. We're thankful for the fact that you transform us by your power, and that you do not leave that transforming to us. We just thank you for your work. We thank you for the church that you placed us in, for the brothers and sisters that we get to worship with each week, week in and week out. I pray, Father, that we would not only grow closer with each other, but that we were closer to you. Help us in our struggle with sin. Father, we all have that bear that we're trying to wrestle. Please help us. Please put a tranquilizer in that bear that we're trying to wrestle, that sin. We want victory. Please help us. We know that you can do that. We just thank you and love you for everything you've given us in your son's name, amen. All right, so there is.