The Disciple's Mind

[0:00] Well, good morning again, and welcome to faith. We're so glad that you're here together with us. And before we dive into the first two verses that we're going to be looking at this morning, I want us to connect the dots of what we've been talking about for the last few weeks, the last couple of weeks that we started in this series together. And that is, as we are abiding in Christ, how God affects every area of our life, and how Christ in us affects every portion of our being. And the last time we were together in this series, we talked about our mission, the mission that God has given us through Christ when he says we are to make disciples. We are to go out into the world and to make disciples. So as we connect these dots, we ask ourselves the question, how can we effectively multiply the glory of Christ over there?

[1:08] So if you're taking notes, as we think about the mission, over there really is anywhere outside of here. It could be our neighborhood. It could be our home. It could be across the world. So how do we most effectively multiply the glory of Christ over there? And our answer is by maturing into the image of Christ over here. Think about that. As we are carrying out the mission, how can we most effectively carry out the mission of being the spokespeople of Jesus Christ and carrying his glory all around the world? It begins by maturing into the image of our Lord and our Savior, Jesus Christ. And if you look at the diagram in your notes, you see as we trust Christ as our Savior, it's Christ in us, affecting our mind, affecting our emotions, affecting our will, affecting our bodies, and affecting our relationships, and ultimately the mission that he has given us. So Jesus Christ affecting every facet of our lives. And there are many New Testament pictures about how Christ transforms our mind, which is where we're going to be looking this morning, the disciples' mind. But I believe the best one that sums it up, we see in the book of Romans, written by the Apostle Paul, and it's Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2.

[2:52] So let's see what happens when Christ is in us and things begin to change. Verse 1, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. So verse 1 sets up what he is going to be talking about in verse number 2, and that is, he says, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. So what is happening within the believer, within the follower of Christ, as Christ is in us, as we allow ourselves to be transformed by him? The first thing that we're going to see this morning is, our hearts are transferred to his worship. And it's at this point that we connect, verses 1 and verse 2. So what happens as we offer ourselves as that living sacrifice to God? There is a fundamental transfer that takes place here at the core of who we are when we trust in Christ, because once we were dominated by self, and we worshipped our self. The moment we trust Christ as our

[4:34] Savior, there is a fundamental shift in allegiance. Whereas we used to worship ourself, we used to be offering allegiance to self. Now we transfer our worship to Christ. We no longer worship ourselves, we worship Christ. And that's what verse 1 is setting up. In verse 2, look at that again, it says, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your what?

[5:07] Renewing of your mind. So really, the crux of the entire change in the Christian life, and that from which everything else flows, is the changing of our mind. Is God transforming how we think, what we believe? And therefore, it will affect our will, it will affect our emotions, it will affect our relationships, it will affect everything from that point forward. So it, whereas once we were worshipping ourselves, think about it, apart from Christ, what do we want to do all the time? We want to please ourselves. We want to do that which is comfortable, we want to do that which pleases ourselves. But when we trust Christ, our worship is transferred from self to Christ, and now we want to do what he wants us to do. So what happens as a result of our worship, or this transfer of worship? He says now we're commanded to avoid what? The pattern of this world. He says, don't be conformed by this world. One translation says in verse 2, don't let the world around you squeeze you into its mold. And that's exactly what Paul wrote. He says, don't be conformed. That word conformed is just like when you place something in a mold. Just like when you take, if you've ever played with Play-Doh, and if you ever had the luxury of having that little extra set that you can mold the

[6:52] Play-Doh, what happens when you put the Play-Doh in that mold, and when you squeeze it together, when you open it back up, the Play-Doh is in the form of whatever the mold was. So this is the picture that Paul is giving us. He says, don't let the world squeeze you into its mold. As a matter of fact, this is what A.W.

[7:12] Tozer has said, he says, the church has gotten to the point where almost everything the church is doing these days has been suggested to her by the world. But we need to remember that that simply, when he's saying not doing what the world does, does not automatically transform us into being like Christ.

[7:39] Christ. Because all we've done is, we've exchanged a list of immoral behavior for moral behavior. And it's possible for us to, if that's what we're concentrating on, all we've done is we have changed behavior without ever being transformed by Christ. Because there are many people who turn over a new leaf and are pretty successful at it for a period of time. But that's not what God is asking us to do. He's asking us to allow ourselves to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. I want us to see that the changing of our minds is the key to affecting our behavior. Because if we focus on behavior, we're getting the cart before the horse. He says it's the mind that needs to change. And when the mind changes, the behavior will follow. Let's take a look at verse 21 and see the progression here. Let's go back to chapter 1. Romans chapter 1. And I want to look at verses 21 through 25 in Romans chapter number 1.

[8:54] And we were in Romans chapter 12. But Paul begins in chapter 1 talking about the progression of mankind, where he is in his mind, and how it results in behavior. Verse 21 says, because, and Paul is starting off in Romans chapter 1, and he's setting the stage. And what he's doing is, he's talking about all of mankind. And then he brings it down to the Jews, his people. And he is going to show everyone that apart from Christ, they are lost. Apart from Jesus, we are all lost in our sin, and will ultimately one day spend an eternity apart from God, without Christ, if we don't turn to him. So he says in verse 21, because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, he says, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and birds, and four-footed animals, and creeping things. Therefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness in the lust of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie. And what do we see here? He says in verse 25, and worshipped what?

[10:34] And serve the creature rather than the creator. So that's where what we see is, we first of all, is see that our hearts, that our hearts transfer our worship to God, whereas before we were worshiping the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. So notice the progression.

[10:59] It all starts with, first of all, disordered worship. We talked about that. What we saw in verse number 21 through 25, what we saw was they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and they began to worship what God created rather than the creator himself. And this permeates the whole passage here, and you see it bookended. Verse 21, they'd either glorified him. Verse 25, they worshiped and served created things rather than the creator. And that's the core problem in all of us, is we do not naturally worship the creator. Before we came to faith in Christ, at our very nature, at our very core, we worshiped ourselves. And you say, well, you know, I didn't bow down to myself and worship myself. Well, we serve that which we worship. Think about it. We serve whatever it is that we worship. If you worship money, what do you do? Everything we do is done in service of making more of it. If we love our car, what do you do? You serve that thing like crazy. You wash it. You make sure when you are turning into a driveway that you go slowly because you don't want to mess it up. Right. Why? Because you're serving that car, because you're worshiping it. The same thing with anything that we worship. We serve that which we worship. So before we come to Christ, we're serving ourselves. We're doing that which makes us most comfortable. And that's the fundamental problem at the core of our being. It's a worship problem. And so we need to transfer our worship to Him. But I want to show you how this problem of worship is tied directly to the mind. Did you hear verse 21? He says, because although they did what?

[13:11] Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their what? In their imaginations, in their thoughts. They became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. So where does it all begin? It begins in the mind. So disordered worship begins in the mind. So disordered worship. Secondly, disordered thought. That's where we see the Apostle Paul showing the progression. Before we come to faith in Christ, there was disordered worship, then disordered thought. We've got to realize that in our sinful nature, in the flesh, we have self-worshiping minds.

[14:03] Minds that are not prone to worshiping God. And how do we know this? Well, we know it by experience, because it's much easier, is it not, to focus on things of this world than it is to focus on things of God? Because what comes naturally is focusing on ourselves, focusing on the things that make us comfortable, or provides us comfort, provides us whatever it is that we feel that we need. So that's the easiest thing to do. That's our default state. That's where we revert to, you know, when we're tired, or when we're stressed, or when we're not really thinking about things rationally. We revert to our default state, and that is serving and worshiping our self, rather than spending time thinking of that which is true, that which is pure, that which is, and the list goes on. And then it says, verse 24, he says, God gave them up to uncleanness in the lust of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves. Also, what did they do? Verse 22, professing to be wise. We have a lot of people that profess to be wise. You know, most of them are teaching in college and universities.

[15:34] They profess to be wise. They profess to be students of higher learning. And what does the Bible say? Those who are wise in themselves. They become fools. And act foolishly.

[15:52] Think foolishly. And believe foolishly. Well, they say, well, no, we're thinking according to science. Well, what does science know? Science knows only that which it can prove. Science cannot prove God.

[16:08] Science cannot prove miracles. So therefore, what does science know? Not a whole lot. It knows only what it can see, only what it can reproduce in a laboratory.

[16:24] And so therefore, he says, professing to be wise, they became fools. So we have disordered thought. Excuse me. Then we have the progression goes to disordered desire.

[16:37] So what do we see here in verses 21 and through 25? Verse 21, because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were thankful, became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened, professed to be wise, they became fools.

[16:56] And we see in verse 24, therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness in the lust or the desires of their hearts to dishonor their bodies. And so that ultimately, or that leads to disordered desire.

[17:17] Then it leads to disordered behavior. We see it spiraling down. Verse 24, God gave them up to uncleanness in the desires or the lust of their hearts.

[17:33] And what did that progress to? Dishonoring their bodies. So it progressed into behavior, disordered behavior.

[17:44] God gave them up to uncleanness in the lust of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves. You see this, the picture of the concentric circles being played out in, as the apostle Paul lists out the progression, starts with worshiping the creator rather than God from the mind all the way down to behavior.

[18:04] It filters down. Now, here's the tension. Think about this. God wants us to worship him. God wants our minds to be completely filled with him.

[18:18] But what is God wanting us to do? We see that we're called to live as what? Live as pilgrims in this world.

[18:33] This is the tension in which we live. We're called to be holy. We're called to have the mind of Christ. But we live in a world where we're constantly bombarded by all types of external stimuli.

[18:47] We are bombarded by radio, TV, images from everywhere. We are bombarded by marketing. We are bombarded with all types of external forces that want to what?

[19:00] Force us into its mold. So that's a tension in which we live day in and day out. So how does Christ transform the way that we think?

[19:13] Well, we're not going to turn there, but in Romans chapter 6, what does the apostle Paul say about the condition of the believer, the follower of Christ? He says, we are dead with respect to sin.

[19:28] So he says, therefore, you no longer have to go on living and allowing sin to control you. So he says, we're dead with respect to sin.

[19:41] And so in the light of that, we do not have to give in to the desires of the world. That's how we live as pilgrims in this world. See, we're living for the next world, not this world.

[19:56] And so how do we do this? It leads us to the second picture. The first picture is our hearts are transferred to his worship. The second thing is our minds are transformed by his word.

[20:11] It all starts off when Jesus Christ comes within us. His Holy Spirit within us transfers our worship from ourselves to him.

[20:23] And then secondly, he begins working on the mind. Our minds are transformed by his words. Look at verse 2 back in Romans chapter 12.

[20:35] He says, do not be conformed to this world. Remember, we talked about do not allow the world to squeeze you into its mold. But rather, he says, be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

[20:56] That word transformed, it's an awesome word. It's used once in the Gospels, and it's used of Jesus Christ when he was on the Mount of Transfiguration, or literally, the Mount of Transfiguration.

[21:08] It says that his face shone. It was bright with glory when Jesus Christ was there on the Mount of Transfiguration.

[21:19] So it was an outward change that they were able to see, but it came from within. It was a metamorphosis.

[21:30] Literally, that's what that word means. What we need to understand is that when we trust Christ, Jesus not only gives us a new heart, not only does he give us a new nature, he gives us a new mind.

[21:47] He gives us a brand new way to think. He gives us the power to be able to think differently. Because if our minds were not changed, if our thinking were not changed, we would go on living the way we were.

[22:02] Even though we have a new nature, think about that. Our sinful nature is consistently warring against our spiritual nature. And if we're not careful, we will give in to the desires of the flesh.

[22:17] And so it's the transformation of the mind. Where God transforms what we believe, God transforms the way we think, therefore we are able to live above the desires of the flesh.

[22:31] So we need to think. To become a Christian doesn't mean you throw out reason. Matter of fact, one prominent atheist said this, Bertrand Russell said this, most Christians would rather die than think.

[22:46] And most do. The thing is, we don't check our intellect at the door when we become a Christian. And all of a sudden, now we believe in all these fairy tales, and we can't prove any of it, so therefore, we are worshipping some man-made whatever, depending upon what culture we live in, and we become slaves to whatever that is.

[23:10] No, we don't not think. God says we ought to think. He wants us to use our minds.

[23:23] And I'm convinced that the greatest need in Christianity today is this, that we all learn to think Christianly.

[23:36] And I don't think that's a word, but I made it a word. But we need to think Christianly, and that is letting the person of Christ, the spirit of Christ, the truth of Christ, the mission of Christ, shape and direct every thought.

[23:52] That means every thought we think, from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to bed, we are to allow it to be controlled by the person, the work, the spirit, the word of Christ.

[24:06] So we need to be thinking. We cannot afford to go through our Christian life on autopilot. We've got to think.

[24:17] And we're going to see in a moment how active that thought process is. That we are to think Christianly. We are to think the way Christ thinks in everything that we do.

[24:33] Do you think the Apostle Paul thought it was important for us to think Christianly? Let's look. Let's look at 2 Corinthians chapter 10.

[24:45] 2 Corinthians chapter number 10, verses 3 through 5. So Paul starts off, verse 3, he says, For though we walk in the flesh, remember, we are to live as pilgrims in this world.

[24:58] We're not living for this world. We're living for the next. We're living for when we are transferred from this earthly existence to a heavenly existence. So this is just a temporary address.

[25:14] Our forwarding address is heaven. And so Paul says, For though we walk in the flesh, for though we walk today in these earthly bodies, we do not war according to the flesh.

[25:27] He says, For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, they're not fleshly, but mighty in God for the pulling down of strongholds. Notice the warfare terminology that Paul uses.

[25:41] He says, This warfare that we're engaged in, the Christian life, he says, We're not walking according to the desires of the flesh, he says, but we're using the weapons that are mighty and are not fleshly.

[25:54] We're not trusting in horses and chariots or guns and tanks. And fighter jets, he says, We are trusting in weapons that are mighty in God for the pulling down of strongholds.

[26:07] And notice this in verse 5. Casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.

[26:19] And get this, what he says next. It's bringing, what? Every thought. You see how important our mind is?

[26:30] You see how important just being on autopilot in the Christian life and just going by what the rules say or what other people say the rules are and just going along and taking it for granted.

[26:42] No, Paul says, We need to take every single thought and bring it into what? Captivity to the obedience of Christ.

[26:55] Not some thoughts. Not all thoughts. Not just when you're in church and thinking church thoughts. Not just when you are reading your Bible and thinking God thoughts. But when you're thinking about business.

[27:07] When you're thinking about sports. When you're thinking about whatever. He says we need to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

[27:20] So every thought we need to take captive. It's like we need to go. He's talking about a warfare. What do you do with enemies? He says you kill them.

[27:31] But he says sometimes you're able to capture them. You capture them and you bring them over to the authority of the dominating power or the capturing power.

[27:43] So that's what we do or that's what Paul says we're to do with our thoughts. We're to take our thoughts grab a hold of them and bring them under submission to Christ.

[27:56] To obedience in Christ. So every thought we take captive and we submit it to the Lordship of Christ. So how are we transformed?

[28:07] How does this take place? First of all I believe as we continually savor the person of Christ what I mean by that is have you ever had a meal that was just out of this world awesome?

[28:29] It could be a great steak. It could be whatever. When you I was reading an article a number of weeks ago about the difference between a $300 steak and a $10 steak.

[28:42] And you're saying to yourself I did not know a $300 steak existed. Well it does. It's from Japan. And as a matter of fact when they get the steaks over it tells you the name of the cow.

[29:01] It gives you it gives you it tells you what it ate. It tells you where it was kept. So a $300 steak. Now let me ask you this.

[29:11] If you're going to fork over $300 for a steak which I don't think I would. I actually have forked over nearly $100 for a steak. I had somebody when I was at a conference talk to me into going to a Ruth's Chris.

[29:24] and you know you're in trouble when two waiters show up both of them with their hands out and you order everything a la carte.

[29:37] I learned well I shouldn't have ordered as much as I ordered because it's way too much. We could have ordered one thing and shared everything. But if you are willing to fork over $300 for a steak are you going to gobble it down?

[29:51] You're going to savor every single bite. Right? Roll of the eyes. Mouth watering. You're going to talk about it. And when you now you may not tell somebody how much you paid for it but you're going to tell them how awesome that steak was.

[30:07] Right? Man I've never had a steak this great. And oh this is so awesome. We savor it. We think about it. We take our time. We talk about it. We allow the juices to kind of roll around in our mouth and just let it dissolve and it's just so awesome.

[30:21] So when we savor Christ it's allowing Christ to permeate our minds to permeate our thoughts to permeate our entire being.

[30:36] So we continually savor the person of Christ. Romans 12 to be transformed it's in the present tense continually it means continuous to continually being transformed so to continue on to continually savor the person of Christ says we are to allow our minds to be transformed so we are to secondly humbly submit to the spirit of Christ and here's the thing you can't do this on your own you've got to allow him to do it through you it is the work of the Holy Spirit look at 2nd Corinthians 3 18 2nd Corinthians 3 18 he says but we all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being what there's that word again only one time used in the gospels the other time it is used outside of

[31:40] Romans it is here in 2nd Corinthians we are being transformed again this passive tense we are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory just as by what is the method of operation what is the mechanism of action it is the spirit of the Lord so we're transformed by the Holy Spirit we're not transformed just by our willpower he says we're transformed by him so therefore that's why we submit we humbly submit to the spirit of Christ we saw that picture in Romans chapter 12 verse 2 it's not you it's not me that transforms our mind it is a passive verb to be transformed allow God to transform the Holy Spirit to transform our minds through his word it's something done to us and it's done by the spirit it affects our mind which leads to the third thing we are to diligently do what study the truth of

[32:49] Christ we are God tells us to consistently look at his word he tells us we are to consistently spend time learning studying memorizing his word is a tool by which we experience transformation in our minds that's why God told his people he says take my word and bind it to your foreheads he said bind it to the to your wrist to the back of your hand you know what God was telling them you know we see Hasidic Jews we see Orthodox Jews walking around with these little phylacteries little boxes on their foreheads and little scriptures tied on the back of their hand God was not telling but he was saying to them I want you to know my word like you know the back of your hand I want it to be on the forefront of your mind all day long remember what we talked about taking every thought bringing it captive to the obedience of

[33:55] Christ so the word of God is the tool by which our minds are transformed it is the tool that God uses so we study it we memorize it and I don't care how old you are you can memorize God's word how many of you know your phone number how many of you know your address how many of you memorize sports statistics you see we can take God's word and we can memorize it we can internalize it and then that is the ammo remember we're still talking warfare that's the ammo which the Holy Spirit can use to fight against Satan how did Jesus defeat or how was Jesus what did Jesus do when he was there for those 40 days when he had no food and when he was weak thus saith the Lord this is what the word of God says and he came back with every one of Satan's temptations with scripture and that's what the

[34:59] Holy Spirit can do in our we fully surrender to the mission of Christ fully surrender to the mission of Christ notice this 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 verse 5 Paul says for we do not preach ourselves it is not a man centered gospel it is not what we can do it is not a works based theology it is not of ourselves it is not Christianity is not a man made religion Christianity following Christ is he says we don't preach ourselves but what Christ Jesus the Lord and ourselves your bond servants for Jesus sake so we fully surrender to the mission of Christ and then lastly the main idea in this whole transformation process as we allow our lives to be transitioned into his will remember we said it starts with the mind

[36:11] God transforming our mind which will result in changed behavior so our lives are transformed by his will this is the connection between our mind and our behavior and here's the thing we always we always live according to our beliefs that is universal we live according to our beliefs our behavior is a reflection of our beliefs and I'll prove it to you you who have a job you went to work this past week because you believed it was important right what would you rather have done stay home spend time with your family get some things done around the house get that honey do list done or go fishing or go hunting or go shooting go do something you would have rather do anything other than showing up at the plant showing up at the office showing up wherever you know it's because in this culture we have many people who don't believe that work is important and so therefore they wake up in the morning and what do

[38:06] I feel like doing today well I feel like doing this instead of going to work so therefore their belief system takes over so they believe that they will be better off by doing whatever it is they want to do rather than believing that work is important our word is our bond so if we said I will show up we will show up so our behavior is determined by our belief we live according to our beliefs so the question is what do you really believe what do we believe about Jesus what do we believe about the importance of surrendering to him what do we believe about the importance of obeying him what do we believe about the importance of being holy my point is we need to understand what we believe and how do we know what we believe look at your behavior you want to know what you believe now there are many

[39:14] Christians who say I believe in Jesus I believe Jesus is virgin born son of God deity died on the cross in my place is Lord and I am to surrender to him as Lord but then turn around and live as atheists you say well pastor what do you mean to live as an atheist well how does an atheist live lives for himself I mean bottom line bottom line lives for himself doesn't matter what God says because the atheist doesn't believe there's God for many Christians they believe in God but they don't live like there is a God they relegate God to one hour a week and then live the rest of the week for themselves and so what do you believe look at your behavior that will determine what you truly in your heart of hearts and in your mind believe because when our minds take over and God is in control of our mind he is going to affect our behavior so when

[40:29] God transforms our minds so what happens we are first of all able to discern to figure out what his will is you know I hear some people oh if I only knew what God's will was oh if I only knew what God wanted me to do that's like going to we don't have any around here going to Ikea and saying this thing's got like three million parts how do I put it together hello read the directions well I don't know how to read the directions you know I imagine anybody who works in IT when somebody says well I don't know how to do this read the directions there there are so many times when I can't figure out how to do something and I Google it I go to you know you can be a plumber you can be an electrician you can overhaul a car with

[41:32] YouTube right I was working on my motorcycle and I thought you know what I just can't figure out how to do this YouTube and this guy knew what he was doing he was a bike mechanic and he showed step by step how to do it I'm going yeah okay I have to pause do it pause you know what how do I do it what's God's will how do I know God's will for my life where's God's will it's in his word and you know the old adage how do I know what God wants me to do I would say I would submit to you just do something because it's easier and I'll use an analogy from everything we're familiar with it's a whole lot easier to steer a moving automobile than it is to steer a car at rest so many Christians are at rest God what do you want me to do next do you want me to do this do you want me to go next door and share the gospel with my neighbor

[42:38] I don't know what you want me to do do do do something and what did Paul do Paul said I want to go here God said no stop I want you to go there so God changed his direction while he was on the move and that's what he does with us and so we're able to discern his will let's go back to Romans 12 2 Romans 12 2 he says don't be conformed to this world remember don't let the world squeeze you into its mold but be rather transformed we said that was the word metamorphosis allow our minds to be metamorphosized a change that is visible on the outside that is truly an internal change that shows up outwardly by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God so when we allow our minds to be transformed by his word what are we then able to do we are able to prove come back to an assaying term for metals what do you do you test a metal and you prove whether it's not real or whether it's real gold or real silver and how pure it is the more we allow our minds to be transformed by

[44:02] God through the agent of the Holy Spirit by his word will will of God and perfect will of God so as we are allowing our minds to be transformed ultimately it will change our behavior and then we will be able to discern the will of God we will also begin to display his will we will begin to display his will as we live because remember how do we show the glory of God out there how do we reveal the glory of God out there by allowing ourselves to be matured with the mind of Christ over here so God wants the world to see Jesus and the world sees Jesus through the believer whose mind is transformed and whose behavior is transformed accordingly so when the world looks upon us they see the image of Jesus

[45:09] Christ who begin to display his will and then lastly we will then discover that his will and this is important to get we then discover that his will is more satisfying than anything this world has to offer this is a game changer remember that $300 steak we talked about if you're out before we talked about the $300 steak somebody else will catch you up but what do you do you savor every moment of it and when you have had I remember the best steak I've ever had I don't know this place is still in existence it was a Blair house in Lafayette a number of years ago it was Catherine and I's anniversary this literally has been the best steak in my entire life bar none ever never had as good of a steak love ribeyes

[46:12] I've had good ribeyes never ever has anything compared to that so I judge every steak by that experience 30 some odd years ago when you've tasted Christ when you have tasted what a life is like where Christ is in control and we are surrendered to him and it is a relationship that's like nothing else so when we have that experience and we discover that his will is more satisfying than anything else his world has to offer we will then judge every earthly experience by that oh you know what not as good as Christ oh you know I think this will fulfill me and it might be a sin or whatever it is and we engage in it it was not as satisfying as Jesus so it's like that steak experience once you've had the best nothing else will be the same and nothing else will be good enough when we've tasted and seen

[47:23] Christ his love his mercy his grace his miraculous works in our life when we discover that his will is more satisfying than anything this world has to offer get this following Christ doing his will ceases to be work ceases to be a chore and the Christian life is no longer about what we can't do but it's about what we get to do that's the change that Christ can do when he transforms our minds and ultimately transforms our behavior let's pray our dear heavenly father this morning we are so thankful of what we have in Christ we have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places and what we have in Christ cannot compare with anything this world has to offer and when we've tasted the best nothing else is good enough when we've tasted and seen that the will of our

[48:32] Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is more satisfying than anything else this world has to offer it will be so much simpler so much easier to submit to the will of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Father I pray that each one of us here this morning might be able to have a taste of that submission and that transformation process that takes place when we surrender ourselves and we allow our minds to be transformed through your word Father this morning I pray that each heart each mind here this morning would be transformed Father help us to be able to go out carry on your mission shine like lights in a dark world and be able to show the glory of Christ to a lost and dying world we thank you and we praise you again for it's in the name of our

[49:38] Lord and Savior Jesus Christ we pray amen