1 00:00:09,600 --> 00:00:13,280 Our teaching scripture this morning comes from the book of 2 00:00:13,280 --> 00:00:16,840 Romans, chapter 12, verses one through three. 3 00:00:18,560 --> 00:00:22,400 I appeal to you, therefore, brothers and sisters, on the 4 00:00:22,400 --> 00:00:26,800 basis of God's mercy, to present your bodies as a living 5 00:00:26,800 --> 00:00:32,080 sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable 6 00:00:32,080 --> 00:00:36,440 act of worship. Do not be conformed to this age, 7 00:00:36,440 --> 00:00:40,480 but be transformed by the renewing of the mind, so that 8 00:00:40,480 --> 00:00:44,480 you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and 9 00:00:44,480 --> 00:00:49,760 acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me, I 10 00:00:49,760 --> 00:00:53,680 say to everyone among you, do not think of yourself more 11 00:00:53,680 --> 00:00:58,080 highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober 12 00:00:58,080 --> 00:01:03,280 judgement, each according to the measure of faith that God has 13 00:01:03,280 --> 00:01:06,400 assigned. God bless the reading of the 14 00:01:06,400 --> 00:01:10,880 Word. How are you guys doing this 15 00:01:10,880 --> 00:01:13,320 morning? Good. 16 00:01:14,720 --> 00:01:16,200 Somebody's doing good. I love that. 17 00:01:21,240 --> 00:01:24,520 Three really quick stories to set the scene. 18 00:01:25,880 --> 00:01:30,440 The first story you may have caught in the news is about the 19 00:01:30,440 --> 00:01:32,680 Phillies. Karen, did you anyone ever? 20 00:01:32,840 --> 00:01:34,200 Do you guys see this in the news? 21 00:01:34,200 --> 00:01:36,960 So a few weeks ago, there's a story making its rounds on the 22 00:01:36,960 --> 00:01:42,200 socials with video footage of a woman at a Philadelphia Phillies 23 00:01:42,200 --> 00:01:46,800 game who escalated a situation when she and another fan both 24 00:01:46,800 --> 00:01:50,080 went for a home run ball bouncing around in the stands. 25 00:01:50,480 --> 00:01:53,640 And what seemed to sort of unfold is an otherwise normal 26 00:01:53,640 --> 00:01:57,400 baseball reality where fans sort of scramble for the home run 27 00:01:57,400 --> 00:02:02,200 ball that's hitting the stands. But the Philly is Karen, as the 28 00:02:02,200 --> 00:02:05,360 Internet had named her. Unfortunately, her her real name 29 00:02:05,360 --> 00:02:07,560 is not Karen. That's like a meme kind of 30 00:02:07,560 --> 00:02:10,080 thing. So somehow thought that she had 31 00:02:10,080 --> 00:02:13,280 been swindled out of the ball because she touched it first. 32 00:02:14,760 --> 00:02:17,520 And not wanting to further escalate the situation further, 33 00:02:17,520 --> 00:02:20,960 the man who had just handed the ball to his son released the 34 00:02:20,960 --> 00:02:23,680 ball into the hands of the woman and tried to sort of move on. 35 00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:27,080 But of course, the cameraman kind of lingered on the scene 36 00:02:27,080 --> 00:02:29,960 and the Internet did its thing and it made the news all over 37 00:02:29,960 --> 00:02:32,400 the world. Turns out it was this kids 10th 38 00:02:32,400 --> 00:02:36,640 birthday and she basically stole the ball. 39 00:02:36,880 --> 00:02:39,840 This middle-aged woman kind of lost the plot, right? 40 00:02:40,600 --> 00:02:43,640 And, you know, these are not the kinds of things that tend to 41 00:02:43,640 --> 00:02:46,720 really linger with me. But I found myself thinking 42 00:02:46,720 --> 00:02:49,960 about this woman for days. Like, I sort of wondered what it 43 00:02:49,960 --> 00:02:52,480 was like for her to bring the ball home, to watch herself on 44 00:02:52,480 --> 00:02:55,880 the news, to go on her evening after dinner, walk in the 45 00:02:55,880 --> 00:02:58,880 suburbs, to watch her neighbors sort of, like, point out to her 46 00:02:58,880 --> 00:03:02,520 in that sort of embarrassing way, knowing that, you know, she 47 00:03:02,520 --> 00:03:05,760 had just blown up the Internet. And I found myself wondering if 48 00:03:05,760 --> 00:03:08,960 she had the kind of friends around her who might try to care 49 00:03:08,960 --> 00:03:12,480 for her a little bit, like, hey, girl, get a little bit of sleep 50 00:03:12,480 --> 00:03:15,400 or, you know, maybe some therapy, you know, like, you 51 00:03:15,400 --> 00:03:19,000 just blew your life up in some ways on the Internet. 52 00:03:19,000 --> 00:03:21,560 And I and I imagine that she was probably having a moment 53 00:03:21,560 --> 00:03:25,920 watching sort of her worst behavior on the television or in 54 00:03:25,920 --> 00:03:29,320 her Twitter feed, watching the very worst of her behavior on 55 00:03:29,320 --> 00:03:32,840 display for the world and wondering what it might be like 56 00:03:32,840 --> 00:03:36,320 for her, you know, after a couple glasses of wine to sort 57 00:03:36,320 --> 00:03:40,320 of sit with the fact that she had behaved in such a way. 58 00:03:42,320 --> 00:03:44,840 I mean, it was a 10 year old kids birthday, right? 59 00:03:45,120 --> 00:03:47,920 Did anybody see this? Is this just like showing up for 60 00:03:47,920 --> 00:03:49,520 me? OK, we got a couple people. 61 00:03:50,000 --> 00:03:52,040 I promise I don't have this much time on my hands. 62 00:03:52,040 --> 00:03:55,720 I usually don't like dive super, super deep into the realities 63 00:03:55,720 --> 00:03:57,520 that are happening on on the news feeds. 64 00:03:57,520 --> 00:04:00,040 But for some reason this one kind of caught my eye. 65 00:04:00,040 --> 00:04:04,920 So that's the first story. Second story is the workaholic 66 00:04:04,920 --> 00:04:09,520 father. When I was in my mid 20s, maybe, 67 00:04:09,600 --> 00:04:12,680 you know, 5 or 6 years into marriage, two kids running 68 00:04:12,680 --> 00:04:16,920 around in diapers, I was trying to make an early career shift, 69 00:04:17,000 --> 00:04:21,839 you know, early 2000's, the coffee industry was booming and 70 00:04:21,839 --> 00:04:25,280 I decided to, you know, put up my apron and take my philosophy 71 00:04:25,280 --> 00:04:27,040 degree elsewhere. Thank you very much. 72 00:04:27,640 --> 00:04:30,840 It was my first job outside of college and ministry. 73 00:04:30,840 --> 00:04:34,640 And I remember that it was a Friday evening and I was sitting 74 00:04:34,640 --> 00:04:38,600 in this little red chair that we had in the living room and my 75 00:04:38,600 --> 00:04:43,520 first born child was playing on the floor, giggling and dancing 76 00:04:43,520 --> 00:04:46,040 and laughing. And here I was, like, cranking 77 00:04:46,040 --> 00:04:48,600 out a couple of more emails right before dinner. 78 00:04:49,800 --> 00:04:53,080 And there was this moment where, you know, she is just full and 79 00:04:53,080 --> 00:04:54,920 boisterous. And she looks up at me and she 80 00:04:54,920 --> 00:04:58,920 just like, with just the most honest sincerity, says to me, 81 00:04:58,920 --> 00:05:01,720 you know, of course, vying for my attention as I was sitting 82 00:05:01,720 --> 00:05:03,960 there in my laptop. She just looks at me. 83 00:05:03,960 --> 00:05:06,360 And then she comes and she puts her hand on my knee. 84 00:05:06,640 --> 00:05:11,800 And with genuine confusion, she says to me, Daddy, why aren't 85 00:05:11,800 --> 00:05:16,120 you playing with me? And you know, it was one of 86 00:05:16,120 --> 00:05:18,240 those moments. And you know, I'm not just 87 00:05:18,240 --> 00:05:20,280 talking to the parents. Almost all of us have these 88 00:05:20,280 --> 00:05:24,040 moments in our lives where we know that whatever is unfolding 89 00:05:24,040 --> 00:05:26,120 right here in this moment is really important. 90 00:05:26,120 --> 00:05:28,880 It touched something really deep in me. 91 00:05:28,880 --> 00:05:31,040 It was it was one of those moments that I know did 92 00:05:31,040 --> 00:05:34,840 something to me because in my mind's eye and my imagination, I 93 00:05:34,840 --> 00:05:38,320 can take myself back to that moment with almost photographic 94 00:05:38,320 --> 00:05:42,360 memory. Daddy, why aren't you playing 95 00:05:42,360 --> 00:05:48,400 with me? This, this question, spoken out 96 00:05:48,400 --> 00:05:52,080 of the mouth of your first born in the early years of parenting, 97 00:05:52,080 --> 00:05:55,720 felt like it had been shot with an arrow of truth seeking right 98 00:05:55,720 --> 00:06:01,640 into my heart. And my reply to her was I, I 99 00:06:01,640 --> 00:06:05,280 don't know why I'm not playing with you. 100 00:06:06,600 --> 00:06:09,400 And I closed the computer and I got down on the floor and I 101 00:06:09,400 --> 00:06:11,800 began to play. But man, the damage had been 102 00:06:11,800 --> 00:06:17,000 done. I I felt so exposed because I 103 00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:22,280 actually didn't have a good answer to why I wasn't playing 104 00:06:22,280 --> 00:06:25,680 with her. And more importantly, why was it 105 00:06:25,680 --> 00:06:33,360 that I had been working so compulsively for like a long 106 00:06:33,360 --> 00:06:35,000 time? Since as long as I could like, 107 00:06:35,040 --> 00:06:39,960 since I was like 8, like I could just, I could just feel that 108 00:06:39,960 --> 00:06:43,160 sort of sense of like I've got a problem that I need to deal 109 00:06:43,160 --> 00:06:46,560 with. So the first story is a public 110 00:06:46,560 --> 00:06:48,480 story. You can go and you can Google 111 00:06:48,480 --> 00:06:51,120 that on the Internet and you can fall down that rabbit hole. 112 00:06:52,280 --> 00:06:55,280 The second story about the workaholic father, that's 113 00:06:55,280 --> 00:06:57,400 personal. That's part of my story. 114 00:06:57,400 --> 00:07:01,040 It's part of what God has been healing in me for the past 20 115 00:07:01,040 --> 00:07:03,440 years. And I just want to say to you 116 00:07:03,440 --> 00:07:08,280 that without a life with God, I am sure that I would have become 117 00:07:08,280 --> 00:07:12,440 one of those fathers who gave themselves to work and climbed 118 00:07:12,440 --> 00:07:16,360 some corporate ladder and lived with the regret of not spending 119 00:07:16,360 --> 00:07:20,560 enough time with his children. I would have become that. 120 00:07:21,680 --> 00:07:26,920 And men, I just am so grateful that I did not become that. 121 00:07:29,360 --> 00:07:33,440 Thankfully, God and His grace has healed and continues to heal 122 00:07:33,440 --> 00:07:37,040 so much in me related to my relationship with work. 123 00:07:37,040 --> 00:07:39,200 And let me promise you, it's not quite done yet. 124 00:07:39,200 --> 00:07:41,760 There are still things that I am working out. 125 00:07:41,760 --> 00:07:44,400 I'm looking at a couple of my friends that know this about me. 126 00:07:45,640 --> 00:07:49,760 I'm still working out this relationship that I have with 127 00:07:49,760 --> 00:07:53,640 work and I'm aware that it will last until the day that I die, 128 00:07:53,640 --> 00:07:57,240 that God is going to be healing me over and over and over. 129 00:07:58,840 --> 00:08:03,480 So the third story is 1. I wonder if you might have. 130 00:08:03,480 --> 00:08:07,400 It's a universal story. And by that what I mean is that 131 00:08:07,400 --> 00:08:13,320 I bet that every single one of us has some moment in your life 132 00:08:13,320 --> 00:08:16,240 where you look at the way that you've been thinking or the way 133 00:08:16,240 --> 00:08:20,160 that you've been behaving. And after a little bit of time, 134 00:08:20,600 --> 00:08:24,680 you take a step back and you say to yourself, what was I 135 00:08:24,680 --> 00:08:27,600 thinking? Anybody ever had this moment 136 00:08:27,600 --> 00:08:31,160 where you just, you know, you just you just wonder like what, 137 00:08:31,160 --> 00:08:34,480 what in the heck was going on? Like, you dig your heels a 138 00:08:34,480 --> 00:08:37,240 little too hard in conversation with your spouse or your 139 00:08:37,240 --> 00:08:39,840 roommate and the whole evening blows up. 140 00:08:40,280 --> 00:08:42,320 Any, anyone have this ever happened? 141 00:08:42,559 --> 00:08:45,800 OK, a handful of us and you wake up the next morning and you're 142 00:08:45,800 --> 00:08:48,040 like, what got into me? What was I thinking? 143 00:08:49,720 --> 00:08:54,120 Or someone needs the last cookie out of the bag and puts the bag 144 00:08:54,120 --> 00:08:58,320 back into the pantry, guessing what I'm talking about, right? 145 00:08:59,080 --> 00:09:02,360 And you go in for the cookie that you think is in the bag, 146 00:09:02,360 --> 00:09:05,000 but the bag is empty. And you grab the bag and you 147 00:09:05,000 --> 00:09:07,120 want a cookie. And you have this sort of 148 00:09:07,120 --> 00:09:10,760 irrational level of irritation that rises up in you. 149 00:09:10,760 --> 00:09:12,720 But of course you don't let it out because that would be 150 00:09:12,720 --> 00:09:16,040 ridiculous. Or maybe you do let it out and 151 00:09:16,040 --> 00:09:18,920 it is ridiculous and you wake up the next morning and you're just 152 00:09:18,920 --> 00:09:22,440 like, man, why was I so engrossed in getting that 153 00:09:22,440 --> 00:09:24,440 cookie? And why am I so upset about it 154 00:09:24,440 --> 00:09:29,040 being an empty bag in the pantry, for example, by the way? 155 00:09:30,640 --> 00:09:32,480 But you asked yourself this question. 156 00:09:32,480 --> 00:09:37,160 What was I thinking? So this question and this story 157 00:09:37,360 --> 00:09:39,520 is the story of the human condition. 158 00:09:39,520 --> 00:09:42,920 It's a story that the apostle Paul talks about in this really 159 00:09:42,920 --> 00:09:45,440 long letter to the churches in Rome. 160 00:09:45,440 --> 00:09:48,640 And there's this section of that story that Parker touched on a 161 00:09:48,640 --> 00:09:52,120 few weeks ago where Paul is really honest with his readers. 162 00:09:52,120 --> 00:09:56,520 And he essentially says, look, friends, there are all kinds of 163 00:09:56,520 --> 00:09:59,880 things that I wish I didn't do and yet I find myself doing 164 00:09:59,880 --> 00:10:03,120 those things and there are a whole another set of things that 165 00:10:03,120 --> 00:10:06,520 I really want to do and yet I can't get myself to do. 166 00:10:07,000 --> 00:10:08,840 And I just don't really understand myself. 167 00:10:10,400 --> 00:10:13,280 And then he gets to this section in the letter, which is our 168 00:10:13,280 --> 00:10:16,880 teaching text for this morning. And I and I think could help 169 00:10:16,960 --> 00:10:21,080 shed some light on the three stories that I shared, the 170 00:10:21,240 --> 00:10:23,960 public story, the personal story, and the one that I think 171 00:10:23,960 --> 00:10:26,680 has probably surfaced in your mind as we've been talking. 172 00:10:27,120 --> 00:10:31,240 The apostle Paul says this to the churches in Rome. 173 00:10:31,240 --> 00:10:35,080 He says, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers and sisters, 174 00:10:35,080 --> 00:10:39,560 by the mercy of God, to present your bodies as a living 175 00:10:39,560 --> 00:10:44,200 sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual 176 00:10:44,200 --> 00:10:47,760 worship. Do not be conformed to this 177 00:10:47,760 --> 00:10:52,800 world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that 178 00:10:52,800 --> 00:10:56,640 you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and 179 00:10:56,640 --> 00:11:01,520 acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me, I 180 00:11:01,520 --> 00:11:05,600 say to everyone among you, not to think of yourselves more 181 00:11:05,600 --> 00:11:09,840 highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober 182 00:11:09,840 --> 00:11:13,440 judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has 183 00:11:13,440 --> 00:11:17,000 assigned. Lots going on there. 184 00:11:17,000 --> 00:11:22,400 But this morning I want to zoom in on Paul's appeal to our 185 00:11:22,400 --> 00:11:29,040 transformation and the kind of sober judgement, sobriety, that 186 00:11:29,040 --> 00:11:32,800 the apostle Paul is inviting us to consider with our life. 187 00:11:32,800 --> 00:11:33,880 Are you? Are you guys with me? 188 00:11:34,520 --> 00:11:40,320 OK, SO3 parts the pattern, the passions and the transformation. 189 00:11:41,280 --> 00:11:45,760 And first up is the the pattern. He says do not be conformed to 190 00:11:45,760 --> 00:11:50,680 this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. 191 00:11:51,600 --> 00:11:54,040 For much of the letter up to this point. 192 00:11:54,040 --> 00:11:56,520 So we're about halfway through the letter, and for much of the 193 00:11:56,520 --> 00:12:00,440 letter up to this point, Paul has been building a framework to 194 00:12:00,440 --> 00:12:04,360 try to set out in front of the churches in Rome how he has come 195 00:12:04,360 --> 00:12:07,080 to understand the life and the death and the resurrection of 196 00:12:07,200 --> 00:12:09,440 Jesus. And he's doing so in light of 197 00:12:09,440 --> 00:12:12,920 the fact that the story of the Scriptures has thus far 198 00:12:12,920 --> 00:12:17,680 primarily been a story of one group of people, one nation, the 199 00:12:17,680 --> 00:12:22,080 Jewish people, descendants of the patriarch figure Abraham, 200 00:12:22,680 --> 00:12:24,560 that we read about in the Scriptures. 201 00:12:25,240 --> 00:12:28,240 It's a story about their relationship with God. 202 00:12:28,720 --> 00:12:32,360 And yet what's becoming clear to the apostle Paul as time goes 203 00:12:32,360 --> 00:12:35,240 on, as he thinks about the teachings of Jesus, as he 204 00:12:35,240 --> 00:12:39,280 watches the Holy Spirit expand the church, which we read about 205 00:12:39,280 --> 00:12:43,040 in the book of Acts. What Paul has a keen insight to 206 00:12:43,040 --> 00:12:46,120 is it's really clear that what God was doing with this one 207 00:12:46,120 --> 00:12:49,840 person that we read about in the Scriptures or this one nation, 208 00:12:50,800 --> 00:12:55,840 he's actually intent to expand that throughout all peoples, 209 00:12:56,560 --> 00:13:00,120 crossing the barriers of race and gender and nationality and 210 00:13:00,120 --> 00:13:04,120 socio economic status. It's meant to go to everyone. 211 00:13:04,120 --> 00:13:08,720 And so Paul is crafting his letter in the book of Romans in 212 00:13:08,720 --> 00:13:11,160 a way that can appeal to everyone. 213 00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:16,360 And he's thinking to himself, what could I possibly talk about 214 00:13:16,960 --> 00:13:22,720 that everyone could relate to? And believe it or not, he he 215 00:13:22,720 --> 00:13:27,240 begins with some version of this universal experience that we all 216 00:13:27,240 --> 00:13:30,440 have. Like, what was I thinking? 217 00:13:31,880 --> 00:13:35,160 What's going on inside of me? Why did I behave in that way? 218 00:13:35,320 --> 00:13:38,800 And now his way of, of putting it to the Romans is much more 219 00:13:38,800 --> 00:13:42,000 complex than this, of course. But what he's appealing to you 220 00:13:42,360 --> 00:13:46,280 is this universal experience that we all have, that there are 221 00:13:46,280 --> 00:13:50,680 so many times that we behave in ways that we ourselves come to 222 00:13:50,680 --> 00:13:53,200 realize are just. It's not that great. 223 00:13:56,520 --> 00:13:59,120 Somebody should have said, Amen. I thought, where's Erica when 224 00:13:59,120 --> 00:14:03,480 you need her, right. This is how CS Lewis articulated 225 00:14:03,480 --> 00:14:07,160 this in his classic Mere Christianity, He says. 226 00:14:07,440 --> 00:14:10,040 These, then, are the two points I wanted to make. 227 00:14:10,480 --> 00:14:15,480 First, the human beings all over the earth have this curious idea 228 00:14:15,480 --> 00:14:19,040 that they ought to behave in a certain way and cannot really 229 00:14:19,040 --> 00:14:24,080 get rid of that idea. Secondly, that they do not in 230 00:14:24,080 --> 00:14:28,440 fact behave in that way. They know the law of nature. 231 00:14:28,440 --> 00:14:31,880 They break it. These two facts are the 232 00:14:31,880 --> 00:14:36,560 foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and about the 233 00:14:36,560 --> 00:14:41,520 universe that we live in. Essentially, Lewis is giving 234 00:14:42,000 --> 00:14:45,280 sort of a summary of the apostle Paul, which is this universal 235 00:14:45,280 --> 00:14:49,040 experience that there are things that I say and things that I do 236 00:14:49,040 --> 00:14:51,560 and the things that I wish that I could do or stop doing. 237 00:14:51,800 --> 00:14:55,720 And I find myself pretty confused at times when I step 238 00:14:55,720 --> 00:14:59,400 back and I get some perspective and I watch the way that I have 239 00:14:59,400 --> 00:15:02,800 been thinking or behaving and I'm just like, what is going on? 240 00:15:05,120 --> 00:15:08,200 So, friends, whether we are failing to be the person that we 241 00:15:08,200 --> 00:15:11,920 want to be in public and getting cancelled on the Internet, or 242 00:15:11,920 --> 00:15:15,240 whether we're failing in private and missing out on the kind of 243 00:15:15,240 --> 00:15:17,480 life that we know that we really want. 244 00:15:17,480 --> 00:15:21,640 What Paul is saying is that there is some really good news 245 00:15:23,160 --> 00:15:24,840 you guys ready for, like the good news. 246 00:15:25,520 --> 00:15:30,880 OK, There is a way of orienting to the life and the death and 247 00:15:30,880 --> 00:15:36,240 the resurrection of Jesus, of being empowered and indwelt by 248 00:15:36,240 --> 00:15:40,680 the Spirit of God, and of being renewed from the inside out such 249 00:15:40,680 --> 00:15:44,480 that the shape of your life begins to be transformed. 250 00:15:47,880 --> 00:15:54,200 That's the good news, that you can experience transformation in 251 00:15:54,280 --> 00:15:58,760 all of the places that you don't understand about your life. 252 00:16:00,400 --> 00:16:05,880 He appeals to us and he says do not be conformed to this world. 253 00:16:06,400 --> 00:16:10,040 Other translations say do not be conformed to the pattern of this 254 00:16:10,040 --> 00:16:14,080 world, which brings out the sort of fuller sense of the original 255 00:16:14,080 --> 00:16:17,720 Greek here which has baked into this word, this idea of a 256 00:16:17,720 --> 00:16:21,360 blueprint or a schematic diagram. 257 00:16:22,240 --> 00:16:25,280 Paul says that there's a there's kind of a pattern to the way 258 00:16:25,280 --> 00:16:28,280 that the world works, the way that the humans functions. 259 00:16:28,280 --> 00:16:32,760 There's the schema that everyone is following that we can all 260 00:16:32,760 --> 00:16:36,120 relate to. The pattern is that we all find 261 00:16:36,120 --> 00:16:39,000 ourselves behaving in ways that we wish that we didn't. 262 00:16:39,960 --> 00:16:44,440 And the way that Jesus says this is by asking people to imagine 263 00:16:44,440 --> 00:16:48,840 this really broad Rd. Imagine like a four lane highway 264 00:16:48,840 --> 00:16:53,960 wide road, and almost everybody that you can imagine is walking 265 00:16:53,960 --> 00:17:00,040 down this four lane highway Rd. But Jesus says this way leads to 266 00:17:00,880 --> 00:17:04,240 destruction. And then there's this other 267 00:17:04,240 --> 00:17:09,520 really narrow path and a few people choose to walk this path, 268 00:17:09,520 --> 00:17:14,119 which is the way of Jesus. And this leads to life. 269 00:17:16,280 --> 00:17:20,720 Paul is appealing to us in this letter of the Romans to get on 270 00:17:20,720 --> 00:17:25,480 the narrow pathway. Be transformed by the renewing 271 00:17:25,480 --> 00:17:30,920 of your mind, he says. But friends, listen, here's 272 00:17:31,040 --> 00:17:35,200 here's some more good news. His appeal is not just some 273 00:17:35,200 --> 00:17:38,440 version of try harder to be good. 274 00:17:40,880 --> 00:17:45,880 It's something more like this. Allow yourselves to receive from 275 00:17:45,880 --> 00:17:49,040 God the gift of being transformed. 276 00:17:51,240 --> 00:17:54,640 Allow yourself to receive from God the gift of being 277 00:17:54,640 --> 00:18:00,240 transformed. So the way that Paul wrote this, 278 00:18:00,240 --> 00:18:05,960 he's able to say it this way, it would have caused his his 279 00:18:05,960 --> 00:18:11,120 readers to both understand that I am going to participate in 280 00:18:11,120 --> 00:18:16,760 this transforming work of God and I am going to passively 281 00:18:16,760 --> 00:18:21,600 allow myself to be transformed. So for you grammar nerds out 282 00:18:21,600 --> 00:18:27,080 there, Paul puts this particular word that is translated be 283 00:18:27,080 --> 00:18:30,880 transformed in what he is called the middle passive tense. 284 00:18:30,880 --> 00:18:34,400 Which means that Paul is not appealing to his readers to take 285 00:18:34,400 --> 00:18:37,800 on the work of transforming themselves, but rather he says 286 00:18:37,800 --> 00:18:41,160 position yourself, which is an active role to receive the 287 00:18:41,160 --> 00:18:43,120 transformation, which is a passive role. 288 00:18:45,280 --> 00:18:46,800 Has anybody ever gotten a massage? 289 00:18:49,040 --> 00:18:52,360 Isn't it the most amazing thing that you can possibly some of 290 00:18:52,360 --> 00:18:57,040 you are like, Nope, no one comes back from getting a massage 291 00:18:57,080 --> 00:18:59,240 thinking that they've just knocked it out of the park with 292 00:18:59,240 --> 00:19:02,280 that massage. Like, man, I just did a really 293 00:19:02,280 --> 00:19:05,920 good job massaging my back. First of all, it's impossible to 294 00:19:05,920 --> 00:19:07,440 do that. But if you've ever gotten a 295 00:19:07,440 --> 00:19:09,800 massage, you know the feeling. You get up off the massage 296 00:19:09,800 --> 00:19:13,520 table, you look at the person who's just spent an hour working 297 00:19:13,520 --> 00:19:16,240 out the last six months of stress from your shoulders and 298 00:19:16,240 --> 00:19:18,600 the hips, and all you can think about is when is the next time 299 00:19:18,600 --> 00:19:22,760 that I get to do this? No one is ever thinking of 300 00:19:22,760 --> 00:19:26,360 themselves as the one who accomplished the result. 301 00:19:29,800 --> 00:19:35,520 But you did book the appointment and you did show up and you did 302 00:19:35,520 --> 00:19:40,800 lay down on that table and you did tell them exactly where to 303 00:19:40,800 --> 00:19:43,920 apply the pressure. Are you guys getting with me 304 00:19:43,920 --> 00:19:47,040 here? Allow yourself to receive from 305 00:19:47,040 --> 00:19:49,240 God the gift of being transformed. 306 00:19:51,520 --> 00:19:52,920 So how does how does this happen? 307 00:19:53,360 --> 00:19:58,000 You might be wondering? Well, Paul says it happens 308 00:19:58,480 --> 00:20:03,560 through the renewal of our mind and this brings us to Part 2, 309 00:20:03,560 --> 00:20:07,920 which is the passions. The passions the one of the 310 00:20:07,920 --> 00:20:12,640 earliest pastor of theologians to begin to think about the 311 00:20:12,640 --> 00:20:16,360 question of how do we participate with God and 312 00:20:16,360 --> 00:20:19,680 allowing ourselves to be transformed was a man named 313 00:20:19,680 --> 00:20:23,280 Evagrius. Now Evagrius was from the region 314 00:20:23,280 --> 00:20:27,200 of of Pontus, and he was appointed A Deacon by. 315 00:20:27,680 --> 00:20:31,640 One of the early fathers named Gregory of Nauseansis. 316 00:20:32,920 --> 00:20:36,600 I love how they just said where they're from, like, like John of 317 00:20:36,600 --> 00:20:38,920 Clintonville. We should just start, you know, 318 00:20:39,680 --> 00:20:41,760 that's you trademark. Yeah. 319 00:20:41,760 --> 00:20:44,720 So. So Gregory of Nauseansis 320 00:20:44,720 --> 00:20:49,160 appoints Vagrius a Deacon. Gregory himself was one of those 321 00:20:49,160 --> 00:20:52,000 guys who labored in the theological work that surrounded 322 00:20:52,000 --> 00:20:54,120 the the Nicene Creed. So I'm just trying to give you 323 00:20:54,120 --> 00:20:58,040 some contextual kind of parameters for like what is 324 00:20:58,040 --> 00:21:01,080 actually happening. Vagarius was basically at the 325 00:21:01,080 --> 00:21:04,720 center of the life of the church as anyone could have been. 326 00:21:06,600 --> 00:21:10,560 His growing reputation as a brilliant preacher and rising 327 00:21:10,560 --> 00:21:15,240 theologian was in full swing when he encountered a full on 328 00:21:15,240 --> 00:21:17,560 crisis with his own interior life. 329 00:21:17,560 --> 00:21:22,360 He be he became aware of his own passionate infatuation with a 330 00:21:22,360 --> 00:21:27,640 married woman in Constantinople this close to having an affair. 331 00:21:30,680 --> 00:21:34,120 So his career as a pastor was like rising up and to the right, 332 00:21:34,120 --> 00:21:36,600 but emotionally on the inside, he was falling apart. 333 00:21:37,720 --> 00:21:40,440 So imagine like a present day pastor with a freshly signed 334 00:21:40,440 --> 00:21:43,440 book contract in hand, riding the wave of popularity. 335 00:21:43,840 --> 00:21:48,000 And rather than ignore the only noticeable to him, unsettledness 336 00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:51,600 in his own soul, he did what we wish every person in ministry, 337 00:21:51,600 --> 00:21:54,040 leadership facing these kind of temptations would do. 338 00:21:55,160 --> 00:21:56,760 He immediately left the ministry. 339 00:21:57,160 --> 00:21:59,880 He fled the city, and he found the help that he needed. 340 00:22:00,440 --> 00:22:04,200 This is who we're talking about. And through his own relational 341 00:22:04,200 --> 00:22:09,520 network, he reached out to a woman who was known to be an 342 00:22:09,520 --> 00:22:12,800 elder in the church, a leader in the church at the time, and her 343 00:22:12,800 --> 00:22:18,520 name was Melania. The elder Melania had divested 344 00:22:18,520 --> 00:22:20,880 all of her wealth and established several Christian 345 00:22:20,880 --> 00:22:22,840 communities in the region of Palestine. 346 00:22:23,480 --> 00:22:26,040 And so a vaguerus went to go spend time with Melania. 347 00:22:26,040 --> 00:22:28,600 And Melania basically spends some time with a vaguerus and 348 00:22:28,600 --> 00:22:32,600 says, look, buddy, you've got more work that you need to do on 349 00:22:32,600 --> 00:22:34,760 the inside of you than you have realized. 350 00:22:35,720 --> 00:22:38,440 I want to encourage you to pay attention to what's happening 351 00:22:38,440 --> 00:22:41,320 there. And so she encouraged him to 352 00:22:41,320 --> 00:22:44,280 move towards paying attention to all of that stuff. 353 00:22:44,640 --> 00:22:47,400 And a vaguerus gave himself to that work. 354 00:22:47,400 --> 00:22:51,280 I mean, he essentially became one of the earliest 355 00:22:51,520 --> 00:22:57,040 practitioners of what we would today called psychology, the 356 00:22:57,040 --> 00:22:58,960 study or the science of the soul. 357 00:23:00,280 --> 00:23:02,760 Imagine friends living in a world where none of the 358 00:23:02,760 --> 00:23:06,080 frameworks or the theories of psychology that we have were 359 00:23:06,080 --> 00:23:08,200 around. Just just let yourself think 360 00:23:08,200 --> 00:23:11,120 about that for a second. You're a human being in the 361 00:23:11,120 --> 00:23:13,800 ancient world, which means that there are all sorts of things 362 00:23:13,800 --> 00:23:16,960 that are going on inside of you, and there's really no one there 363 00:23:16,960 --> 00:23:22,160 to talk to about it. Fears, anxieties, sexual 364 00:23:22,160 --> 00:23:27,160 fantasies, overwhelming bouts of anger, unhealthy attachments to 365 00:23:27,160 --> 00:23:30,720 food or how much was in the cupboard or the overindulgence 366 00:23:30,720 --> 00:23:34,400 of wine on a regular basis. Imagine that there's no one 367 00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:37,480 around to talk to about those kinds of things that are 368 00:23:37,640 --> 00:23:41,240 circulating inside of you. You know, like the simple 369 00:23:41,240 --> 00:23:44,280 observation that, you know, maybe you're kind of obsessed 370 00:23:44,280 --> 00:23:46,920 with how much food is in the cupboard because when you were 371 00:23:46,920 --> 00:23:52,000 five, there was a famine. And now you can't stop checking 372 00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:55,280 about how much storage you have and how long it's going to last. 373 00:23:55,560 --> 00:23:58,520 So this kind of thought would never have come to anyone's mind 374 00:23:58,520 --> 00:24:01,120 in the ancient world. They're they're, they're their 375 00:24:01,120 --> 00:24:05,600 best guess for why you were angry or sort of a little 376 00:24:05,600 --> 00:24:09,400 listless or moving around in the world like so angry that the 377 00:24:09,400 --> 00:24:12,160 cookie got stolen. Their best guess was because you 378 00:24:12,160 --> 00:24:16,680 had too much blood. And so they would just like tap 379 00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:18,880 a vein, drain some blood and hope for the best. 380 00:24:19,200 --> 00:24:22,760 That was sort of like your mental health regime back in the 381 00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:24,520 ancient world. So there were no theories of 382 00:24:24,520 --> 00:24:27,440 attachment. There's no young in psychology. 383 00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:28,960 There's no one talking about the ego. 384 00:24:28,960 --> 00:24:34,040 None of that stuff was sort of in the for no one knew why we 385 00:24:34,040 --> 00:24:36,800 had so much chaos going on inside of us. 386 00:24:36,800 --> 00:24:38,840 Does this make sense? This is the landscape of the 387 00:24:38,840 --> 00:24:41,120 soul in the 4th century. I'm just trying to paint the 388 00:24:41,120 --> 00:24:44,440 picture for you. So a vagrius. 389 00:24:44,800 --> 00:24:47,360 He began to meet with the spiritual director. 390 00:24:47,360 --> 00:24:51,480 He formed a group of spiritual friends in his community, and he 391 00:24:51,480 --> 00:24:56,400 began to take notes about the kind of afflictive thoughts that 392 00:24:56,400 --> 00:25:00,240 entered his mind. And he interviewed his friends 393 00:25:00,240 --> 00:25:03,640 around him, and he asked them to share their own observations 394 00:25:03,880 --> 00:25:08,480 about the kinds of thoughts and outsized desires that his 395 00:25:08,480 --> 00:25:11,080 friends were navigating in their own souls. 396 00:25:11,080 --> 00:25:14,440 He was trying to get to the heart of those what was I 397 00:25:14,440 --> 00:25:19,400 thinking moments and he began to write about it and he began to 398 00:25:19,400 --> 00:25:23,560 build upon this idea of what the ancient Greeks called the 399 00:25:23,560 --> 00:25:26,680 passions. Now hang with me here guys. 400 00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:33,520 The passions are desires and attitudes and the sometimes 401 00:25:33,520 --> 00:25:37,880 obsessive emotions and thoughts that are artwork inside of us. 402 00:25:39,600 --> 00:25:44,640 So if you imagine that there's like a little place inside of 403 00:25:44,640 --> 00:25:48,800 you that is full of energy and desire and resistance, and God 404 00:25:48,800 --> 00:25:53,440 has made this place in you for life and vitality and goodness 405 00:25:53,440 --> 00:25:56,840 and love and courage to flow out, imagine there's like a 406 00:25:56,840 --> 00:25:59,520 little factory of desire at work inside of you. 407 00:25:59,960 --> 00:26:01,520 You got it. It's like churning. 408 00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:06,040 It's designed to be a factory of all of the thoughts and the 409 00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:08,280 feelings that push out into the world. 410 00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:12,160 But because of sin, a lot of that energy is dissipated and 411 00:26:12,160 --> 00:26:15,600 fragmented and disordered. And this disorder or this 412 00:26:15,600 --> 00:26:19,280 fragmentation of that little desire factory results in 413 00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:23,640 outsized emotional responses when we don't get what we want, 414 00:26:25,160 --> 00:26:30,720 like the baseball or not being able to resist the stuff that we 415 00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:33,560 don't really want. It causes us to place like a 416 00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:37,240 really high value on something that we necessarily shouldn't 417 00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:41,920 place a high value on, Like the workaholic father that's trying 418 00:26:41,920 --> 00:26:45,120 to find his worth in his accomplishments. 419 00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:52,600 You guys with me, these passions, all those fragmented, 420 00:26:52,680 --> 00:26:58,040 flared up versions of our desires, or the sometimes 421 00:26:58,040 --> 00:27:03,520 obsessive thoughts and emotions that are just like you guys, 422 00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:06,560 anybody with me? You guys, OK, we all know we 423 00:27:06,560 --> 00:27:10,800 have these, right? Or those intrusive thought 424 00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:15,880 patterns and the place from which they originate, says 425 00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:17,760 Vagrius. And the whole swell of 426 00:27:17,760 --> 00:27:22,040 theologians after him is what the ancient world called the 427 00:27:22,040 --> 00:27:26,080 mind. It's like the combination of the 428 00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:28,640 mind and the heart. It's in the Greek, it was, it 429 00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:30,560 would have been called this, the noose. 430 00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:34,520 It's the same word that the apostle Paul uses when he says 431 00:27:34,520 --> 00:27:38,800 be transformed by the renewing of your mind, by the renewing of 432 00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:41,440 that little factory of desire inside of you. 433 00:27:42,400 --> 00:27:47,640 Participate with God in allowing yourself to be transformed by 434 00:27:47,640 --> 00:27:53,280 the renewing of your mind. Friends, there is a deep place 435 00:27:53,280 --> 00:27:58,560 inside of us where our desires are born, and they come out as 436 00:27:58,560 --> 00:28:03,720 thoughts and emotions and urges and thinking and feeling and 437 00:28:03,720 --> 00:28:07,480 exerting one's will into the world is really good, by the 438 00:28:07,480 --> 00:28:09,360 way. So we're not trying to shut the 439 00:28:09,360 --> 00:28:12,040 factory down. Can you hear that? 440 00:28:14,520 --> 00:28:21,480 We're not trying to get you to feel less or desire less, but 441 00:28:21,480 --> 00:28:25,280 what the apostle Paul says is that this factory in the 442 00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:27,960 thoughts and the feelings and the urges that come from there 443 00:28:28,120 --> 00:28:31,520 is in need of transformation by the love of God. 444 00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:39,280 It's broken so that we can actually see what it is that God 445 00:28:39,280 --> 00:28:41,600 desires for our life. That's the result. 446 00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:47,160 The passions are the categories and the groupings of these 447 00:28:47,160 --> 00:28:49,960 desires and thoughts and emotions in us that can become 448 00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:55,440 disordered and fragmented. And basically ever since the 4th 449 00:28:55,440 --> 00:29:00,440 century when Evagrius made his list, the entirety of the 450 00:29:00,440 --> 00:29:04,000 theological tradition and more recently the psychological 451 00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:08,880 tradition in the modern age has basically said it kind of checks 452 00:29:08,880 --> 00:29:11,760 out. This guy made a pretty good 453 00:29:11,760 --> 00:29:17,400 list. You guys want to see a vaguis 454 00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:19,040 list? You ready for it? 455 00:29:20,880 --> 00:29:29,280 OK, here we go. Gluttony, lust, greed, 456 00:29:29,960 --> 00:29:37,560 despondency, anger, acedia, Vainglory, and pride. 457 00:29:40,440 --> 00:29:46,320 And over the next eight months, not 8 months, good gosh, you're 458 00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:51,760 like, I'm out. Over the next 8 weeks, which is 459 00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:55,960 still a fair bit of time, we're going to take a deeper look at 460 00:29:55,960 --> 00:29:59,200 each of these 8 passions of the soul. 461 00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:05,160 And I know what you're thinking. That looks like a little bit of 462 00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:08,040 a heavy list. Are we really going to talk 463 00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:10,120 about gluttony and lust and pride? 464 00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:15,600 And we are. But here's what I want to say to 465 00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:17,520 you. If you have been around at all 466 00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:20,960 for any amount of time over the last couple of years, there 467 00:30:20,960 --> 00:30:23,240 hasn't been more than a couple of Sundays where you haven't 468 00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:28,640 heard someone from the stage talk about how much God loves 469 00:30:28,640 --> 00:30:35,480 you and is for you, about God's kindness and generosity and 470 00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:38,440 extravagant love. And over the next 8 weeks, as we 471 00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:42,080 dig into the interior workings of the way that these eight 472 00:30:42,080 --> 00:30:45,440 complex array of thoughts and emotions can work in us, we're 473 00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:48,640 going to continue to be reminding one another of the 474 00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:54,040 extravagant love of God for you. So we began our teaching liturgy 475 00:30:54,040 --> 00:30:57,440 just after the silence by reading the following words 476 00:30:57,440 --> 00:31:02,200 together in our time. You are infinitely loved by God, 477 00:31:02,880 --> 00:31:06,960 and God's infinite love is in the process of healing 478 00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:10,520 everything in you that clings to false things. 479 00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:15,360 The invitation of God is to allow God to be the divine 480 00:31:15,360 --> 00:31:21,080 physician, and the medicine of God is God's own love poured out 481 00:31:21,080 --> 00:31:23,960 into your heart through the Holy Spirit. 482 00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:28,840 I just want you to take note of a couple of words. 483 00:31:29,680 --> 00:31:37,280 Healing Physician in medicine, these, these lists of eight 484 00:31:37,280 --> 00:31:41,440 passions in the 6th century, they, they took on a slightly 485 00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:45,240 different turn and they eventually filtered down in the 486 00:31:45,240 --> 00:31:47,880 Western theological tradition, particularly in the Catholic 487 00:31:47,880 --> 00:31:55,920 stream as the seven deadly sins. And it's true there's some sin 488 00:31:55,920 --> 00:31:59,840 involved in all of this, just like give you the punchline. 489 00:32:01,480 --> 00:32:05,200 But the earlier tradition talks about this mix of afflictive 490 00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:11,920 thoughts and disordered emotions as a wound, which I have found 491 00:32:11,920 --> 00:32:15,480 really helpful. It can help us keep in view that 492 00:32:15,480 --> 00:32:18,520 the reality of sin has been dealt with on the cross. 493 00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:21,480 And there is a finality that finality to that. 494 00:32:21,480 --> 00:32:27,520 There's no condemnation for any of this in your life. 495 00:32:28,960 --> 00:32:31,280 And so if you're looking at that list and you're just like, I 496 00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:37,040 don't know that I'm going to come, what I want to say to you 497 00:32:37,760 --> 00:32:41,160 is that whatever sin has been a part of your life or will 498 00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:43,680 continue to be, it is already dealt with. 499 00:32:45,640 --> 00:32:51,200 But sin leaves behind a wound, and that wound has a way of 500 00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:55,120 seeping and hurting, and most of us will reach for just about 501 00:32:55,120 --> 00:32:59,520 anything to try to relieve the pain and seal it up or distract 502 00:32:59,520 --> 00:33:06,080 ourselves from feeling it. These passions are our desires 503 00:33:06,080 --> 00:33:08,720 and our thoughts and our emotions that have become 504 00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:12,800 distorted based upon the wounds that the sin has left behind. 505 00:33:13,120 --> 00:33:16,680 And all of this gets expressed in very culturally bound ways, 506 00:33:16,880 --> 00:33:19,840 right? So Paul appeals to us, in view 507 00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:23,520 of God's mercy, to offer our bodies to God and worship and to 508 00:33:23,520 --> 00:33:27,480 break free from the patterns of this world by allowing our mind 509 00:33:27,480 --> 00:33:29,840 to be transformed by the love of God. 510 00:33:30,120 --> 00:33:32,960 And he's writing in a context where the weekend event was the 511 00:33:32,960 --> 00:33:37,320 Colosseum. We're like the anger that people 512 00:33:37,320 --> 00:33:40,440 were carrying could get stirred up by watching some people get 513 00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:43,560 slaughtered on a Friday night. He's writing in the context 514 00:33:43,560 --> 00:33:46,600 where older men would use their wealth and power to employ 515 00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:51,200 teenage boys as sexual partners or a prostitution was quite 516 00:33:51,200 --> 00:33:54,520 common as a as an outlet for one's lust. 517 00:33:54,880 --> 00:33:58,640 In an our cultural context, all of these things get expressed 518 00:33:58,640 --> 00:34:01,160 through things like food addiction and numbing out with 519 00:34:01,160 --> 00:34:05,680 alcohol and drugs or pornography or online gambling or those 520 00:34:05,720 --> 00:34:09,440 hours of scrolling. The time that we wish that we 521 00:34:09,440 --> 00:34:13,000 could get back, but we get sucked in over and over again 522 00:34:13,239 --> 00:34:17,239 because we're trying to self medicate the emotions and the 523 00:34:17,239 --> 00:34:21,000 desires that are fragmented inside of us and leaking out all 524 00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:26,639 of these different ways. But the self medicating with 525 00:34:26,639 --> 00:34:29,880 food and drink or getting caught up in pornography or clinging 526 00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:32,679 really tightly to that paycheck or that inheritance that's 527 00:34:32,679 --> 00:34:35,960 coming your ways. These are all symptoms, friends, 528 00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:39,960 of a deeper issue that sin has left behind. 529 00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:45,639 A wound with trauma and grief that we've ignored and all of 530 00:34:45,639 --> 00:34:48,400 the kinds of stuff. Does this make sense? 531 00:34:52,159 --> 00:34:57,000 And there is a healing on offer and there is a physician that 532 00:34:57,000 --> 00:35:04,680 you can trust, and the medicine is God's love being poured out 533 00:35:04,680 --> 00:35:06,960 into you through the Holy Spirit. 534 00:35:08,440 --> 00:35:10,560 And this brings us to the transformation. 535 00:35:10,720 --> 00:35:16,520 And we'll close with this. I know that some of us are 536 00:35:16,520 --> 00:35:22,320 looking at this list and there's already maybe some resistance 537 00:35:22,320 --> 00:35:25,440 that surfaces. Anybody feeling a little 538 00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:27,000 resistance when you look at that list? 539 00:35:27,000 --> 00:35:31,000 Thank you for your honesty. You know that there are things 540 00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:32,800 on this list at work in your life. 541 00:35:32,800 --> 00:35:35,320 And I know that there are things on this list that are work in 542 00:35:35,320 --> 00:35:37,200 me. But here's the question that I 543 00:35:37,200 --> 00:35:40,120 want to ask you is when is the last time that you imagined what 544 00:35:40,120 --> 00:35:46,880 it might be like to be free, like to be healed of it? 545 00:35:50,320 --> 00:35:52,480 Paul says. For by the grace given to me, I 546 00:35:52,480 --> 00:35:55,240 say to everyone among you, to not think of your soul 547 00:35:55,320 --> 00:35:59,000 yourselves more highly than you ought to think, but to think 548 00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:01,840 with sober judgement, each according to the measure of 549 00:36:01,840 --> 00:36:08,720 faith that God has assigned. What might it look like for you 550 00:36:08,720 --> 00:36:12,320 and I over the next 8 weeks to be willing to simply take a 551 00:36:12,320 --> 00:36:18,200 really honest look about what is true about our life in the 552 00:36:18,200 --> 00:36:23,760 context of loving community? In a context where we believe 553 00:36:23,760 --> 00:36:26,840 that the only thing that can possibly change you and rescue 554 00:36:26,840 --> 00:36:37,980 you is the love of God so that you may discern what is the will 555 00:36:37,980 --> 00:36:43,180 of God? I got to tell you, I think in 556 00:36:43,220 --> 00:36:46,980 all of my years of being a pastor, I think the question 557 00:36:46,980 --> 00:36:52,360 that I most receive from people is I just don't know what God 558 00:36:52,360 --> 00:36:55,400 wants. What is God's will? 559 00:36:55,880 --> 00:37:03,240 What does God want me to do? What's on offer is this reality 560 00:37:03,240 --> 00:37:07,520 that the passions, they distort our vision about ourselves and 561 00:37:07,520 --> 00:37:09,840 about others and about the world in which we live. 562 00:37:10,200 --> 00:37:12,920 Which means that all of those thoughts and those desires and 563 00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:15,960 those urges that we've grabbed onto have a way of bending us 564 00:37:15,960 --> 00:37:19,440 away from the desires of God for our life. 565 00:37:21,440 --> 00:37:25,720 But as we're transformed, our vision gets healed and we come 566 00:37:25,720 --> 00:37:30,240 to see and discern what the will of God is. 567 00:37:31,760 --> 00:37:35,280 So that's what's at stake, guys. It's like we asked the question, 568 00:37:35,280 --> 00:37:36,920 God, what do you want from my life? 569 00:37:38,520 --> 00:37:41,160 What he wants is what is good and acceptable and perfect. 570 00:37:41,160 --> 00:37:43,960 And yet we just can't see it because we're so bound up. 571 00:37:43,960 --> 00:37:51,680 The factory is like an OverDrive in the wrong direction, so I 572 00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:53,560 want to close just with an invitation. 573 00:37:55,120 --> 00:38:00,120 What would it be for you as you sit with all of this, to just 574 00:38:00,120 --> 00:38:05,800 offer yourselves to God as a living, alive sacrifice, To say, 575 00:38:05,800 --> 00:38:08,040 God, do with me what you want to do with me. 576 00:38:08,040 --> 00:38:13,760 I want to invite the worship team to come, the prayer 577 00:38:13,760 --> 00:38:18,000 ministry team begin to make their way around the edges. 578 00:38:18,040 --> 00:38:20,240 We always want to make room for prayer. 579 00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:26,400 I want to invite you to stand as we begin making our way to 580 00:38:26,400 --> 00:38:29,640 worship. And I have a version of the 581 00:38:29,640 --> 00:38:33,240 liturgy that we began with in first person that I want to lead 582 00:38:33,240 --> 00:38:35,840 us in reading together. So if you're able to stand, go 583 00:38:35,840 --> 00:38:38,440 ahead and stand as we head towards worship. 584 00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:46,280 It's OK if you also want to sit together. 585 00:38:47,120 --> 00:38:53,240 I want to invite us to read this out loud. 586 00:38:55,200 --> 00:39:00,320 I am infinitely loved by God, and God's infinite love is in 587 00:39:00,320 --> 00:39:04,440 the process of healing everything in me that clings to 588 00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:09,040 false things. The invitation of God to me is 589 00:39:09,040 --> 00:39:12,040 to allow God to be the divine physician. 590 00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:18,160 The medicine of God is God's own love, poured out into my heart 591 00:39:18,560 --> 00:39:23,080 through the Holy Spirit. Friends, if there's any way in 592 00:39:23,080 --> 00:39:27,000 which you just desire to give yourself to God this morning as 593 00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:31,920 a response to what you are hearing and what's absolutely 594 00:39:31,920 --> 00:39:35,080 happening in your heart, we would love to pray for you. 595 00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:37,680 Whatever way you would like to respond, we would be present 596 00:39:37,680 --> 00:39:39,800 too. So let's worship together.