Episode Transcript
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As you're able to, please remain
standing, and let's give our attention now
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again to Romans. We again continue
reading through this book, hearing God's Word
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Romans twelve, versus one and two, focusing on verse two. This morning,
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just to remind you, Paul is
beginning this great exhortation on how we
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ought to live our lives. I
mean all sorts of detailed waves, so
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what it means to live as a
Christian, and these two verses give something
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of a summary and introduction to his
thinking about this. So verses one and
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two. This is God's word.
I appeal to you, therefore, brothers,
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by the mercies of God, to
present your bodies as a living sacrifice,
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holy and acceptable to God, which
is your spiritual worship. Do not
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be conformed to this world, but
be transformed by the renewal of your mind
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that, by testing, you may
discern what is the will of God,
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what is good and acceptable and perfect. You may be seated. Each of
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us has various goals and objectives for
each day. Perhaps some of them are
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planned, perhaps some of them are
unplanned. Some of them work consciously,
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some subconsciously, but there are these
intentions that we have, desires, objectives,
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goals were trying to reach. Now. Some of those are important,
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some of them are unimportant, some
of them are foolish, some of them
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are wise. God's Word gives us
some instruction, and that indeed quite a
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bit of instruction, and how we
should be thinking about our lives, what
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the great goals and objectives are.
Jesus puts them in various ways. This
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is through his apostle. Another way
that he puts the he sets before us
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one of the great objectives of our
lives, of our daytoday, living of
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our whole lives, and that is
knowing the will of God. In verse
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two we have the first part of
the verse sort of sets us up for
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that. It says, don't be
conformed to this world, but be transformed
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by the renewal of your mind,
that by testing you may discern what is
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the will of God. That's the
goal, discerning what is the will of
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God. This should be one of
your great goals, something you should be
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thinking about every day. What is
God's will? Now, of course,
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when Paul writes that we should do
these things that we might discern the will
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of God, he doesn't mean merely
knowing it. He also, of course,
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includes doing it. James Two hundred
and twenty two says, be doers
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of the word and not hearers only
deceiving yourselves. In other words, it's
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not good enough to work really hard
to discern the will of God and then
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simply to walk away and say,
well, glad I figured that out.
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The goal and discerning the will of
God is to actually do the will of
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God. But doing, doing the
will of God depends completely on hearing it,
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on knowing it, on understanding it. In other words, if you
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didn't first hear it and know what
God's will is, what exactly would you
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be doing? You would be doing
the imagined will of God, the dreamed
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up will of God, the guests
at will of God. No, Paul
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wants us to discern the actual will
of God, to know the real will
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of God, so that we might
do it, a will that is good,
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acceptable and perfect, so that we
might do the things that are good,
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acceptable and perfect. So all this
to say is that knowing the will
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of God is important. It should
be a primary objective in your lives day
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today, our to our and who
wouldn't want to? Sure there are sinners
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who like to do their own thing. It's the very essence of sinfulness right
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the most. The essence of sinfulness
to not do the will of God,
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to go the other way. But
think about how important knowing the will of
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another is in even human relationships.
How many spouses have asked, maybe you've
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asked, if I only knew what
he wanted or if I only knew what
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she wanted right? Or about?
Think about companies who desperately collect all kinds
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of information on us because they want
to know our will. They want to
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know what we want so that they
can act accordingly, so that they can
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sell to us and make lots of
money. They want to know our will.
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They want to know what we want. Or there's students who try to
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please their teachers, employers who want
to retain their employees. In every human
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relationship and every point where we are
depending on someone, when our lives and
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our happiness is in the hands of
another, we deeply feel the need to
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figure out what it is they want
to reliably know so that we can act
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accordingly. Well, if that's true
of other people who hold our lives in
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their hands to a small degree,
how much more true is that of God,
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who upholds all things by the word
of his power? Who holds our
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lives and our deaths entirely in his
control, who gives, commands and requires
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things of his creatures, who made
us to do certain things and wants us
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to do them, the God who
knows our beginning, our middle and end,
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who controls at all, God who
is our maker and our father and
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our king. We should want very
much to know what he wants. We
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should desire very much to know what
his will is. We should always be
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seeking as seeking it as if our
life depended on it, because you know
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what it does, it really does. The first hurdle then to knowing God's
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will, I think, is perhaps
apathy, just not caring about God's will,
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and I hope that you're at least
over that first hurdle now well,
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with the importance of God's will before
our mind, let's consider two other great
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obstacles that come between man and this
knowledge of God. The first one,
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if I can be bold, I
think, is fairly easily dealt with.
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Many people fail to come to the
knowledge of God's will because they're simply looking
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in the wrong place. They think
that when they are looking for God's will,
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that they are trying to figure out
his secret will, and indeed it
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exists, but you're not going to
find it out. It's secret for a
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reason. It's called secret for a
reason. Deuteronomy twenty nine says the hidden
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things belong to the Lord and the
revealed things belong to us, so that
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we might do them. To try
to find out the secret things of God
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is a foolish task and a bit
prideful to your parents don't tell you everything,
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your boss doesn't tell you everything,
the government doesn't tell you everything.
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What makes you think that God is
going to tell you everything? He won't,
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and he doesn't. It doesn't plan
to either, whether it's all the
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names that are written in the book
of life or where you're going to be
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living in a year, or who
you're going to marry, or any number
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of a number of things, there
are things that God simply is not going
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to tell you. You can't go
to the back of the Bible and find
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yet one more chapter right after a
revelation that you never realized before. There
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are simply some things that are hidden
in some people spend their entire lives trying
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to figure out the mysteries, trying
to figure out the hidden things, when
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God has given us an entire book
of revealed things. My point is that
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when discerning the will of God,
we have to be looking in the right
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place. Again, God says that
the hidden things, the secret things,
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belong to him and the revealed things
belong to us. So when God says,
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children, I want you to know
my rules, I want you to
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know my will, then we ask, well, what is it, and
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he says here it is. He
gives it to us in his word.
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And so the first obstacle and knowing
his will is going to the right place.
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Instead of trying to divine it by
all sorts of secret and ways people
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have come up with, let's simply
go to his word, where he has
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revealed it, where he has expressed
it to us, where he has taught
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us to us, and he has
told us that it is good for everything
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that we need in our lives,
sufficient for all that we need. That
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means we will have to depend on
him for the secret things, we will
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have to wait on him for the
unknowable things, but it also means that
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in the things that he has told
us, we have a reliable place where
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we can go, where we can
learn and know, without a shadow of
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a doubt, without any wondering,
what is the will of God? That
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is something you can discern. It's
something you can know in a process that's
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not mysterious. It starts with reading
God's word, with hearing it, understanding
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it. The second obstacle to knowing
God's will is much more difficult. The
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first one can be overcome simply by
reading your bibles. The second one,
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however, the second one, however, that requires a miracle, Paul says.
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I seem to have gotten off Romans
somehow here. Paul says that we
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should not be conformed, and do
not be conformed to this world, but
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be transformed by the renewal of your
mind. That conformity to the world is
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the second objective I want to put
before you. Conformity to the will is
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a huge obstacle in knowing God's will, because it's exactly the opposite of God's
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will. Conformity of the world is
this. When God says right, you
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go left. When God says store
up your treasures on he in heaven,
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the world says do what on Earth? When God says Count in Humility,
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count others more significant than yourselves,
the world says don't let your guide down.
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Look out for number one. We
could go on and on and on.
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Wherever God says something, the world
says the opposite. Where God says
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take this path, the world says
take this other path. So you can
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see why that would be a pretty
difficult obstacle to knowing and doing the will
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of God. If you're supposed to
be heading West but you're heading east,
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it's just not going to work.
It's a huge obstacle. But it's even
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worse because for some conformity to the
world is not just going the opposite direction
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from time to time. For those
who haven't been reborne by the spirit,
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who haven't had their minds transformed by
him, who remain bound to sin,
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conformity to their world is their whole
life, it's their whole state of mind,
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it's the whole way in which they
live. Worldliness isn't just a set
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of actions and beliefs. For some
of us, worldliness is blindness. You
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can't discern the will of God because
you're totally blind to it. It's like
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a rubber ball that hits the wall. It's sort of just bounces right off.
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You hear it, you read it. But if you are conformed to
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the world, if your state of
mind is so enslave to that, then
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it's impossible to see these things.
Remember, back in Romans eight that we
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read earlier, we read that we
are no longer slaves of sin and death.
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Those who are not united to Christ
have great difficulty in knowing the will
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of God, even when they read
it, because they don't care about it,
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they don't desire it, they don't
want to do it. They're conformed
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to an entirely other pattern. There's
a complete blindness that doesn't allow them to
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see even what they're seeing or hear
even what they're hearing. And they love
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it. They live in their sin, they love being worldly, at least
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in part. So what can be
done about this obstacle? Either is Christians
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or is Non Christians. If you
find yourself on a worldly path, tempted
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to worldly paths, what can be
done? How can you come away from
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conformity to the world to discern the
will of God? Maybe that is a
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place that you are right now,
worldliness that is. Maybe it's a path
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you've been on for some time.
What can be done? Well, Paul
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says that something truly dramatic has to
happen. He uses the word transformation like
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a metamorphosis, a process of renewal. It's not just saying, okay,
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I think we'll go the other way. A renewal has to happen, a
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transformation has to happen. The old
born, the old burned out forest of
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morality has to change. If you
imagine a forest where a forest fire is
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sort of ripped through and everything is
hard and dark and dead, that kind
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of landscape has to be changed into
a landscape teeming with life and flowers and
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vines and undergrowth and trees and birds
and animals. That's a big change.
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It requires a word like transformation and
renewal to no longer be conformed to the
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world. So that you might know
the will of God. You have to
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be transformed by the renewal of your
mind. That means the seeds of Godly
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desire have to be implanted in you
and watered and grown by God's spirit.
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The knowledge of Biblical doctrine, knowing
God's will, has to be has to
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come into your heart and your minds, and it too has to be watered
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by the spirit to bear forth fruit. This transformation, this renewal and to
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this degree, implies and teaches to
us that there's a power that's required.
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That simply not within ourselves. If
you feel overwhelmed by worldliness, if you
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feel like there isn't enough strength in
you to change it, to take another
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path, to do another thing,
well, you're right. You don't have
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the resources within you to simply turn
around, to simply go the other way.
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But it also implies, what God
is saying here and what he said
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throughout the book of Romans, that
God does have those resources. You don't,
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but God does. God has the
resources and means of accomplishing them,
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and that's why there's no need for
hopelessness. That's why, when we consider
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our own temptations to worldliness, our
conformity to worldliness, we don't need to
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simply give up. And we say
that's too hard for me. Well,
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yeah, it is, but it's
not too hard for God. His grace
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is powerful to save. God has
the power to renew you and promises to
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do that for all who trust in
him. How do we know that?
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We know that because of Jesus.
Jesus came, as we read even from
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Romans earlier, in Romans aid and
in many other places. Jesus came to
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take on Worldliness, not to be
worldly but to take our worldliness on himself
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so that he might die for it, so that he might suffer the punishment
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for it, so that all the
things that worldliness leads to the wrath of
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God, the curse of death,
might come to their end in him,
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because he would live again, because
he would conquer those things, because he
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would rise up victorious above them by
virtue of his otherworldly life, by his
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godly life, by his divine life, perfect life. Paul says in Romans
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six that in Christ we have died
and risen to the newness of life so
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that we might live in him and
walk in him. God doesn't call us
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to the transformation and the renewal of
our minds by the strength in ourselves.
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If we take everything that he's been
saying and put this in the context in
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which it is, he's saying you
got you. What is required in you
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is something miraculous to be united to
Jesus Christ, God himself, that you
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might die to that which is worldly
and live again in him. The son
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of God was resurrected from the dead, and we, who are united in
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him, are also resurrected from the
dead. We have risen with him.
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He says a resurrection that will become
consummate on the last day when even our
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bodies arise with him. I'm saying
all this to underline this point I made
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about hopelessness. When you look at
Jesus Christ and his death and his resurrection
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and see yourself and him, how
can you be hopeless? How can you
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look at worldliness and say it's too
powerful, because it's clearly not too powerful.
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Jesus Christ has come, he has
conquered, he has risen from the
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dead and, as we confessed earlier, now says, is seated sittith at
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the right hand of God, the
Father, Almighty, ruling and guiding and
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transforming by his spirit, who now
lives in us. This is the other
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amazing thing. Not only has Jesus
Christ risen from the dead and brought us
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in with him, with him,
but now that he sees is seated at
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the right hand of his father,
he pours out his spirit, who lives
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in us, and changes us,
transforms us, conforms us not to the
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patterns of this world but to the
image of the very son of God.
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That's why you don't need to be
hopeless. And once this transformation happens,
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once as Jesus says, we have
been reborn. The conditions are now right
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for the conscience to work properly.
Instead of the will of God sort of
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bouncing off a hard wall, it
sinks into us and it convicts us and
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we say Ouch, I don't like
that, I don't want to live like
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that, that's not who I am, that's not what I love. And
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then the testing that Paul talks about
can really begin. What's our minds have
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been transformed by the grace of God, through faith in him. Now we're
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in a position where we can test, where we can read his word and
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by this conscience that he's given to
us, we can discern the things of
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the will of God and actually apply
them to our lives. We can speak,
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seek his guidance and we can ask
him questions. We can learn about
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holiness, we can grow in love. It's an amazing thing. It's a
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transformation. It's an amazing thing.
Once this transformation happens, the conditions are
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now right for things to bloom and
grow, for our bodies and our souls,
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our consciences, our minds, our
hearts, for everything to start working
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properly. It's a process. It
will take time and it won't finish until
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God's work is done in us,
in glorification and in the resurrection. But
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for right now, Paul is speaking
to us and saying don't be conformed of
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this world, especially you have have
been changed into the image of God's son,
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but be transformed by the renewal of
your mind, by faith. Let
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the worst spirit continue to work.
Don't quench that, but instead by testing
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that is sensitive to his work,
reading his word, understanding it, growing
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in it, come to understand and
discern more and more what is good and
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acceptable and perfect. God's desire is
not just that you would know his will
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and rebel, but that you would
know it and seek it and do it
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so that you might live in him
in a way that is pleasing to him.
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To be good and acceptable and perfect, to do things that are good
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and acceptable and perfect, is to
do the things that we, as God's
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creatures, were designed for. It's
like a machine that is just working perfectly
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and you say that's right, that's
what I made it to do and it's
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just worrying along without any problems.
Or a tree that you plant in your
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yard and you water and it grows
up and it Shade Your House and it
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bears for fruit and you say yes, that's what I wanted. When we
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are transformed by the Work of God's
grace and the spirit working in as,
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God looks as at us and says, yes, that's what I wanted,
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that's what I designed him for or
that's what I designed her for. It's
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good, it's acceptable, it's perfect, it's acceptable, it's holy, it's
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pleasing and it's wonderful. To live
according to the will of God is to
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live a life that is pleasing,
that is filled with hope and goodness,
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a life that is sweet, a
life that walks and lives in the grace
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of God. by His grace,
he gives his word to you. He
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doesn't hide it from you, he
doesn't store it away in secret places and
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make you guess at what he wants. He tells it to you, gives
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us instructions. by His grace,
he gives us his sanctifying spirit to all
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who trust in Jesus, and by
that spirit and his transforming power, he
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unites us to him that we might
seek him and and grow in him.
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So, beloved, do not be
conformed to this world, but be transformed
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by the renewal of your mind,
that by testing, you may discern what
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is the will of God, what
is good and acceptable and perfect. Let
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us pray together and ask that God
would do this work in US
