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Welcome and thanks for joining us for this episode of the See Free Church podcast. You're

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about to listen into a message from one of our gatherings. To find out more about our

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community, where we gather, both in person and online, and how to get involved, head

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to seefreechurch.ca. Now, let's listen into a message from a recent service.

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Hey, so before we dive in, Clayton said it, my name is Josiah, and along with my wife,

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we're associate pastors of the church. We reside in Vernon, so we spend most of our

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time in our Vernon location, which seems to be a little untrue because I've been with

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you for the last three weeks, but sometimes we spend a lot of time in Vernon, and we've

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been in the middle of a series right now on the book of Romans. How many of you know we're

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in the middle of a series on the book of Romans? I hope you do, otherwise I'm doing a very

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bad job as a preacher, but that's all right. We'll give me another chance today. But before

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we dig in today, we are going to be digging into Romans chapter 12 and 13. Let's quickly

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remind ourselves of where the book of Romans has come from, because lo and behold, although

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you heard me last week and you heard me the week before, you've probably forgotten most

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things about Romans by today. You have not forgot your streak on Duolingo or what you're

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having for breakfast every week, a hash brown with hot sauce. Weird. Anyways, so we'll continue.

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Romans, it comes from Paul, a devoted Jewish follower who had converted to Christianity,

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and then became an apostle. Apostle is not a word that we use very often in our culture,

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if you go to Africa, you'll see apostle on every advertisement for revival. But we could

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interpret it this way, an apostle is a church planter. Okay, so he wrote this letter to

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the church in Rome around AD 57, and he was still in the city of Corinth doing ministry

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there. Paul is writing in advance of a hopeful trip to Rome, the epicenter of modern society.

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Paul is, this church in Rome would have predominantly met in homes, if not exclusively in homes.

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So because of the cultural divide between Jewish believers and non-Jewish believers, there's

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a good chance that one home had Jewish believers and one home had non-Jewish believers, a little

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segregated. But Paul was writing this not to Jewish believers or non-Jewish believers,

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he was writing to all of them. The book of Romans, the letter is written to the church

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in Rome, it's broken into three sections, Dr. Vernon McGee labels them this way, chapters

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one to eight is the theology of faith, chapters nine to 11, which is what we looked at last

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week when I preach from Vernon, it's the dispensational section. So it's about Israel's past, present,

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and future. And here we are in chapters 12 into the third section, and it's chapters

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12 through 16, it's duty, justified by faith to duty. We're going to read on Romans 12

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versus one to two in the message version that are thrown up on the screen, I'll read it

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with you, I think if it makes it up on the screen, there we go. So here's what I want

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you to do, God helping you take your everyday ordinary life, you're sleeping, you're eating,

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you're going to work and you're walking around life and place it before God as an offering,

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embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so

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well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix

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your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out, readily recognize what he wants

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from you and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you always dragging you

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down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well formed

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maturity in you. This is the intro to Romans 12, Romans 12, one to two, we've read it in

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the message version. If you've been doing our midweeks, you would have just spent a

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week on the different translations. The message version is less a version, more a summary.

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It's sort of like Cliff Notes. It's sort of like putting into chat GBT and saying, what

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does this mean? This is what it is. So the message is a really great place to start when

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you're trying to read your Bible because it gives you a more easily understood idea of

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what the Bible is saying. How many of you know the Bible is confusing? Wow, you're so

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vocal. So we've got to do things sometimes to make the Bible less confusing because the

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Bible is still necessary. Scripture says that the Bible is necessary to correct, rebuke,

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encourage, and to teach. So we need Scripture even if it's hard. How many of you know hard

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things doesn't mean it's a bad thing? How many of you had to do a hard thing this morning?

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Stand up. How many of you had to do a hard thing? Make coffee before you had coffee.

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Hard things aren't bad things. They're just hard things. And we have to find ways to make

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hard things more simple so that we can participate in the necessity of life. I've titled my message,

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and I encourage you to take notes. I've titled it one word, therefore. Why don't you close

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your eyes? I'm going to pray. Jesus, thank you for being here. God, I pray in this room

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right now with every head bowed and every eye closed, God, I pray that we would turn

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our attentions off ourselves. God, just for a moment, just for 27 minutes, would we turn

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our affections and our attentions onto you? Would we remove the things that we are worried

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about and would we say, God, I give you the space to ask me to do something I've never

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done before so I can go somewhere I've never been before. God, would there be people in

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this room that meet Jesus for the first time in reality because they gave permission for

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you to move? God, I thank you that you're a gentleman. I thank you that you wait for

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our invitation, that you give space for our figuring it out and working it out. God, I

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pray that you would invade this space right now with your presence, that we wouldn't miss

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that Jesus was in the room. In your name we pray, amen. So let me summarize for a moment

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the chapters we're going to look at today. So in Romans 12, there's four sections I'm

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breaking this down to. So we're going through Romans 12 to 13. Romans 12, 1 to 2, which

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is what I just read. The Bible that I have has like little headings. Anyone see that

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in your Bible ever? It's these black headings telling you a summary of what it is. So it

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says a living sacrifice. I didn't really like that title so I'll give you a different one.

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It's the walking dead. Romans 12, 1 to 2 is the walking dead. You'll understand it as we

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go a little further. Second section, Romans 12, 3 to 21, my Bible says marks of a true

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Christian. I'm going to call it proof of purchase. Next section, Romans 13, 1 to 7. We're going

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to go through these but just give you a summary here. It says submitting to authorities. Everyone

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say amen? That was, you guys are just such submitted authoritarian people. It's wonderful.

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I called it a little different. I'm calling it recognizing who's in charge. Last section,

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Romans 13, 8 to 4, which gets us to the end of the chapter that we're going through today.

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Titled in mine it says living with urgency of love and holiness. I wrote it this way,

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love like there's no tomorrow. The walking dead, proof of purchase, recognizing who's

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in charge and love like there's no tomorrow. We're going to turn back to that first verse

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that we read but we're going to read it in the ESV here. They're going to put it on the

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screen so I can follow along. It just means if they put it on the screen I know I'm reading

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from the Bible. It's good. Romans 12, 1 to 3, it'll be 2 but in the ESV. I appeal to

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you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice.

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Walking dead. Holy and acceptable to God which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed

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to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern

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what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. So if you've been

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taking the course that we've been doing in midweek you would have learned that it's sometimes

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advantageous to read the Bible in multiple versions. You would have learned that there's

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a reason there's multiple versions. Now there's not multiple versions because one guy read

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it and said I don't like this so I'm going to write my own Bible. Just so you're clear.

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It's not multiple versions because of preference. It's multiple versions because we're trying

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to interpret something that is not our original language. I love this analogy. So there's

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two threads that are taken when we interpret scripture. There's the thread of trying to

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interpret it word for word or thought for thought and most of your Bible translation

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sits somewhere along that. The message is very thought for thought where it's summarizing

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the idea. The ESV which we just read is the opposite. It's word for word. That's why I've

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given you these contrasting things. I like this analogy to sort of put it in context

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for us. If you know a little bit of French, which I know un petit peu, a little bit of

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French, there's a word in French called palm de terre. Palm de terre. Now palm de terre

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by thought is potato. By word for word translation is apple of the earth. So some Bible translations

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will have translated that apple of the earth and some will have translated it potato. You

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following me? It's not actually in the Bible the potato, the apple of the earth, but you

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get it. So that's why we have the breadth of this trying to give us an understanding

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that hey we all know now that palm de terre is probably not exactly or sorry apple of

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the earth isn't exactly what they're saying. But potato is probably what they're saying,

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but we need the breadth of that. Today you've learned some French. Welcome to Canada. Bonjour.

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So this is why we look at different versions because there's a different perspective taken

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on it. They're all trying to translate the Bible authentically. There's just different

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ideas of how to translate it authentically. They're all saying that the Bible is in the

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inerrant, the rightful word of God. We're just translating to help us understand it. Pastor

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Dave says this, I think I said it last week as well, is the best version of the Bible

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for you to read is the one that you'll read. So if the one that you're trying to read isn't

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working, then choose a version that you can read, because they're authoritative enough

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in their translation that we can get what God's trying to say out of it. Okay, sound good?

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So I've titled this message Therefore, and I don't know if you'll remember, a couple

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weeks ago when I was here, I used the idea about therefore. And when I was in Bible college,

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I had a professor say to me, he said, "Whenever you see therefore in the Bible, you must discover

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what it is." There for exactly. Ah, proud of you. There for. So here we find ourselves

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in Romans 12 with Paul saying therefore, what does that mean? In theosaurus, or thesaurus,

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thesaurus, it's a dinosaur, thesaurus.com, gives the list of synonyms for the word therefore.

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It says accordingly. So then thus consequently, hence thence and so ergo for for this reason

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for as much as in consequence in that event, in as much as on account of on the ground

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since there from there upon to that and whence wherefore. Therefore doesn't tell us a whole

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lot, does it? It tells us that there's something preceding this that I must know to understand

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what is taking place after it. Too often in scripture, we like to read pastor therefore.

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We have 11 chapters that Paul has said, this is what it means. God's sacrificing himself

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for you. This is what it means to obtain righteousness with Christ. Therefore, this is now how we

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act. And how many of you know if you get the action before the understanding of why you're

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going to misalign some things, you're going to have a very dead Christianity, not just

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a dead individual, but a dead Christianity. It's what we sometimes call dead works. You'll

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do the right things without meeting Jesus. We believe in our church that today you can

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meet Jesus, which is why we worship not to sing songs. But we actually think there's

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life that is coming into the space. Not to read words that were written 2000 years ago,

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but we believe there's life coming to the words of the Bible. It's so sad to relegate

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the relationship with Jesus just to a religious practice. And let me tell you, if that's all

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you've ever had, God has more for you than that. He is far more than doing the right

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things, because doing the right things never really got you anywhere anyways, did it? No.

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So therefore tells us that everything preceding that, this chapter that we're in, now tells

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us how to live. I remember a guy I asked to feedback one of my messages about a decade

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ago from a different city. He gave me this thought, and it's funny I have it written

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on my template that I always write on my notes, and I asked myself this question when I'm preparing

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a message, after I've written everything, the question is, "so what?" Great. Paul wrote

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Romans, "so what?" And today I want to encourage you to ask the same question today as we dig

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into the message. So what, or now what? Not here's the information that I have, because

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information will not change your life, but revelation will. Something being revealed

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that transforms it. When someone comes up here and encourages you to give, having encouragement

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to give is not going to change your life. Giving changes your life. Knowing that church

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is a good place to be doesn't change your life. Being in church, and being involved,

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and being in relationship, that changes your life. Knowing the Bible's God word doesn't

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change your life. Reading God's, you get the idea here, right? So here I'm encouraging

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you to say, okay, now what? Or so what? And if there's no answer to that then I've done

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a poor job delivering God's word to you this morning. But I believe that today there is

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something for you. That there is a so what? There is a now what because of this. Make

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sense? Can we agree upon that? Okay. Mitchell says yes. So I go with Mitchell. John P. Pohlhiel

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in his book, Paul and his letters, which is a theological understanding of Paul's letters,

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because Paul wrote a lot of the New Testament, not all of it as he would have learned this

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week, but a good amount. He says this, Christ presented himself as a sacrifice for us. Understand?

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Christ died. The proper and logical response to the divine act of grace, Christ didn't

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die because I did something good. Christ died because he was good. In fact, everything I've

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tried to do good is not sufficient for his death. So the only logical response to this

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divine act of grace is to sacrifice ourselves in sacred service to our Lord. The truth is

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this, conceited people are incapable of empathy toward others. We need to learn how to be

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the walking dead. Dead to self, alive in Christ. And I promise you if that's offensive then

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you're probably not the walking dead yet. Anytime scripture hurts me, it shows me where

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I haven't actually submitted myself to God. It doesn't show me where scripture is being

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mean. It shows me where scripture is pointing on something that I'm still trying to be my

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own Lord of. You ever watch one of those house flipping shows? They walk into like a disaster

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of a house. Holes in the walls, questionable smell, you know, maybe it's what your house

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currently looks like, I don't know. And they say, this place has potential. I remember

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our house in Revelstoke, we learned after looking at houses for a while that I saw potential

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where my wife didn't so I had to look first and then she would trust my potential. I remember

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walking into her house and she's like, yeah I'll live here. Get rid of that, that, that,

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that. Which we did and it was great. But this is kind of what Jesus does to us. He walks

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into the mess of our lives, hands us the keys and says, it's time to renovate. He sees potential.

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It doesn't matter what it looks like, he sees potential. It doesn't matter where you've

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come from, doesn't matter where you're at right now, God walks into your life and says,

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let's renovate. There's potential here. Whether today's your first day or you grew up in this

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church, let's walk in, there's potential. There's still things that scripture shows

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you, you are not submitted to God about because we're human, working it out. Romans 12 to

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3 is sort of Paul's blueprint for this transformation. He spent 11 chapters laying out the gospel

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and now he hits us with therefore. In other words, since Jesus did all this, here's what

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happens next. So the first point, the walking dead. Paul starts with an appeal, with I appeal

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to you therefore brothers 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. Back in the day, sacrifices were dead.

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Make sense? There was not a practice in Jewish faith to sacrifice living things. They sacrificed

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dead things. So Paul flips the script when he says this and he says, well actually I

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want a living sacrifice. You want your life to be a living sacrifice. It's not just about

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tweaking our behaviour, it's actually about surrendering everything. How many of you can

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say today that you have surrendered everything to Jesus? None of you. Now some of us can

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say we want to surrender everything to Jesus, some of us are working at surrendering everything

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to Jesus, but none of us have fully surrendered, which is why God walks into our life and says,

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it's time to renovate. It doesn't matter where we're at. Understanding? So surrendering

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is this really interesting thing. So we focus here on the therefore and I think there's so

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many times in my life that I have to ask myself, have I really got to the therefore? Have I

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really submitted, because of what God's done, have I really submitted myself to him? And

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again it's those moments where you read a scripture and you're like, well I don't really

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like that or I don't agree with that. Well when you say to God, I don't agree with what

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you said, what you're saying is, I'm in charge, you're not. It's not how we like to say it.

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As a Canadian culture we like to tone down any negative thing we say. We're like, oh well

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it could have been better. We give very light feedback in our society. We don't tell people,

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you're a bad singer, please don't do that again. We say, well, you know what, you just

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have a different tone than the rest of us. So maybe today I'm going to give you a few

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options of tangible applications, things you can do. The so what? The now what? Maybe today

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what you could decide to do over the next week is you could say, and pray, God I give

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you my mind, my heart, my body, let my life be an act of worship. Maybe you write it down,

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maybe you text a friend and tell them, hey this week I would like to do this every day.

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How many of you know if you text a friend you're more likely to do something than if you leave

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here and don't text a friend? I just gave that example to someone this morning about,

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for me the thing that really shifted my irregular practice of reading the Bible to reading the

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Bible was doing a Bible reading plan with others. They never even called me and said,

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why haven't you read your Bible? They were not judgmental like I would be. But I knew

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they were there, and that encouraged me. You know I said it last week, we're all only one

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tool away from the breakthrough in our lives. One moment away from the breakthrough in it.

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Whatever you feel like is hard in your Christian walk, you're only one moment away. You're

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one prayer at the end of service with someone away, you're one idea away, you're one action

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away, you're one thing away. I remember praying a few months ago about a financial concern,

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and I realized God said, you know like every once in a while we have financial concerns,

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right? Whether it's a hundred dollars that you're in debt or a hundred thousand dollars

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you're in debt or whatever. And I realized when I was praying, I was like God I would

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like you to show up in this way. And I thought about like, oh it's going to be thirty different

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things that have to happen for this to work out, and then God said like, I could do it

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with just one person dropping off one thing. And we always think that it has to be thirty

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things, but God can do a miraculous thing in a miraculous moment. So we have to be careful

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not to relegate God to a certain box of things. And we all do it, we all put God in a box.

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We put him in the permissibility of our lives box. Here's what you have permission to work

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in in my life. And every once in a while we realize that we've put him in a box and we

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break the box and put him in a larger box. Or a different box. God you can't have this

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part but I'll let you have this part now. We all have to constantly break the box we put

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God in to see that he has the potential to do things that we can't fathom. God can break

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through in a moment what's been taking you ten years. And God might build something over

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ten years that he could do in a moment. I know it was far more encouraging the first

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time wasn't it. Romans 12 3-21 which I've labeled proof of purchase. It's the idea that

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actually in this setting God has said, "I have died for you, therefore I have given

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my life, therefore I'm asking you to give your life." Jesus isn't actually asking us

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to do something he isn't willing to do. He's an excellent leader that way. He's not asking

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you to participate in a way he wasn't willing to participate. He's saying, "Would you lay

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down your life as I laid down my life? Would you participate as I participated? For the

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better of others even though I had every reason not to would you participate?" Which also

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sort of means for every reason I have not to lay down my life for God he still chose

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to do it even though he had every reason not to. Being God is a pretty good reason not

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to die. So Paul starts, or sorry Paul keeps it real and he lists how transformation shows

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up in our relationships. They'll put some scriptures behind me as I go. First is humility

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in Romans 12 verse 3, it says for by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not

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to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment.

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What is humility? Death to self. Not to think too highly of yourself. It is a death to self.

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Romans 12 verse 6, having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us let us

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use them. Serving. What is serving? Death to self. My 4 year old has this practice lately,

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he doesn't do it with me but he does it with my wife, he's potty trained but he screams,

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"Mom, I gotta go pee. Okay, you need to come." And my wife isn't home all the day and I heard

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her ask yesterday to the older two children, she's like, "Does he require anyone else to

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go to the bathroom with him?" I said, "Nope." "So when I'm away, does he just not go to the

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bathroom?" "No, he goes by himself." But every time my wife goes to the bathroom with him

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who knows how to pee in the bathroom by himself, she is serving him. She's dying to herself.

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She's choosing to give up a part of her life that she doesn't want to for someone else.

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This is a death to self. Whether it's humility that God is poking at, hey, actually you think

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a little too highly of yourself which is why no one can teach you, which is why you're

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hitting the same problems over and over again because you're too arrogant to admit you don't

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know what's going on. Maybe that's what God's hitting. Maybe He's saying, "Hey, you only

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have time for yourself and when someone asks you to participate in something you're always

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looking for how am I getting paid or where's the gift or the benefit from it," where actually

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you need to learn to sacrifice yourself on behalf of someone else. Maybe that's what God

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is saying, "Are you dead yet?" Because I died to serve you. I died to be humble. Then he

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goes on, "Let love be genuine. Uphor what is evil. Hold fast to what is good." Romans 12,

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verse 9. What is that? It is death. It's a self. To love is to put someone else ahead

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of yourself. To do for someone something that they need over doing for yourself something

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that you need. The times that I show the least love to my family is when I'm trying to show

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the most love to myself. It's not actually what happens because we know when we try to

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show the most love to ourself we actually tend to do the most damage to ourself versus

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the other way around but we articulate it as I'm doing this for myself. Love gives up.

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It's this funny thing you may remember Jesus' disciples, he asked them how many times do

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we have to forgive someone and he says seven times seventy you forgive them. What he's

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really saying is he's like you forgive them because you're dead. You forgive them because

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nothing can hurt you or nothing can hold on to you as hurt when you've chosen to prefer

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others over yourself. Forgiveness is a constant dying to myself. Every time yesterday I had

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to I had to apologize for something. It's like a daily practice in my marriage that

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I'm apologizing to my wife. I don't know why she doesn't do nearly as many wrong things

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as I do but I'll bring that up with God later. But I'm apologizing. It's a death to myself.

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It's saying okay I was wrong and instead of trying to dig deeper to prove some point that

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doesn't produce anything I want. Anyone do that? Anyone like do something wrong and then

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you dig deeper although it's going the opposite direction of where you're wanting to go and

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you just keep digging. It's like what are you trying to accomplish here? Romans 12 14

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this is bless those who persecute bless and do not curse them blessing enemies. What is

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that? Okay what is that? Death to self. What do you mean? Bless my enemies? Are you dead

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yet? Are you the walking dead? A living sacrifice. Therefore because of what God's done I then

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can give up of myself. Therefore I can bless my enemies. Therefore I can love. Therefore

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I can serve. Therefore I can have humility because I know what price someone paid for

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me. Romans 12 21 it says do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good. Overcoming

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evil with good what is that? It's death to self. I'm trying to drive a really unfortunate

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point really home to you. Jesus gave everything for you. Amazing. Therefore he's asking you

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to give everything for others. Too many times our North American comforts keep us from entering

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into the greatness of what God has for us. We're too familiar, we're too used to what

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is given to us to understand it. You know I love the reality that even as a pastor like

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as a pastor I may do this in the sense of work but it doesn't make me a professional

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Christian. Like you know I don't know about you but have you ever been cut off in traffic

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and suddenly felt a little less Christian? Me too. Paul says transformation means reacting

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differently not just in traffic but in life. My wife she's tuned in so I can say so many

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things about her, it's wonderful. No she often says to me when I get mad in traffic about

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something, she's like you do realize if you were that person you would be mad at you for

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what you're doing. Yeah but I'm not right now. So maybe today the tangible now what

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the so what out of this message is writing down the name of someone you struggle to love

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and praying for them daily this week and if possible doing one thing to bless them, bless

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those who curse you. It's really nice as an idea, really unfortunate as a reality hey,

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you're like wait but I know who that person is. Romans 13, 1-7, this is a message to all

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Christian. 1-7 this is what was called submitted to authorities which I like to call recognizing

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who is in charge and I'll try and go quickly through here this is where I wanted to sit

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most of the time but not there. Anyways Paul throws in a curve ball he says respect authority.

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Let every person be subject to the governing authorities for there's no authority except

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from God and those that exist have been instituted by God. Romans 13 verse 1. Now this doesn't

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mean blind obedience. If government commits sin we obey God first. This is what Acts 5

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verse 29 tells us but in general Christians should be the best citizens. Yes you're allowed

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to be quiet for a moment, paying taxes, respecting leaders, obeying laws. When we forget therefore

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we stop living out of the revelation of who God is and what he's done and begin to live

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out of our broken humanity. So then maybe the question in this is less actually about governing

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authority but rather is God your governing authority? It's rare that I don't hear a sentence

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from someone who rejects governing authority that doesn't sound something like this. I

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don't do it because it's a stupid law. The speed limit should be a hundred and kilometers

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an hour here. The taxes are criminal. Maybe the greater question is are we dead? Are we

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living out of the therefore. If we don't get the therefore the rest is dead works, activity

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without love. Paul is not speaking about blind obedience but he is speaking about living

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a life that is actually submitted to Christ. I wonder if so much of having difficulty submitting

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to governing authorities just means you're not really submitted to God. I've learned

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in my life that if there's no denial, if there's nothing that I'm denying in my life then there's

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a lack of submission in my life too. A life with Christ includes a life of denial. Now

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hear this not as a sound bite but hear it in the context. We're talking about the therefore.

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We've spent eleven chapters talking about the therefore and now we're getting into the

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this is what we're doing. It's the challenge when we go through a topic like this of the

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book of Romans is if you take this message you've missed everything in context to everything

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else that's in there. Yes Paul is saying this is what we do because of what God has done.

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Not this is what we do in spite of but because of this, because of the overflow of that therefore

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this is what I do. We obey God before we ever obey authorities or any other thing but so

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often how we obey those demonstrate how we really submit to God. As a living sacrifice

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I am not dead but I am dead to myself. Symbolized earlier in Romans in the picture of the metaphor

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of death that is exemplified by our water baptism. Death to the old man alive to the new in Christ.

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It's likely that the moments that we that are difficult and offensive in our walk with

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Jesus are spotlights on the area that we've lacked surrender. Maybe this week it's taking

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one step toward being a better citizen. To pray for a leader to pay a bill on time or

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actually read the rules before clicking I agree. Something I read in preparation said

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it's always a sign that we haven't understood this if we spend more time complaining about

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a leader than we do praying for them. Complaining is about us. Praying for them is putting it

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on God. It demonstrates who I am submitted to. Myself or him. Him being God. Romans 13

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8-14 Paul wraps up with urgency he says the night is far gone the day is at hand. Translation

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time is short live like it. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the

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flesh to gratify its desires. It's like if you've had a person show up unexpected a guest

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and you're planning on cleaning your house in five minutes. Paul says live every day

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like Jesus is about to walk through the door. Don't wait till tomorrow to be submitted to

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Christ. Don't wait till tomorrow to live submitted to him. It's not just a message it's a way

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of life. Maybe your action is setting a daily reminder live today like Jesus is coming back.

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Well let's go back into Romans 12 verses 1-2 this is going to be in the NIV version. The

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NIV version is in between. It's in between thought translation and direct word for word

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translation. Again the same verses that we read in the message the same verses that we

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read in the ESV. Therefore I urge you brothers and sisters in view of God's mercy to offer

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your bodies as a living sacrifice. Holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper

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worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing

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of your mind. Then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is his good, pleasing

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and perfect will. Romans 12-3 lays out the therefore of the gospel. Because of Jesus

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we surrender everything. We love radically, we respect authority even when it's hard and

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we live like time is short. Could you pull out your phone again.

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You already texted someone this morning right? And he said thank you for being here. Here's

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what I'd like you to do is I'd like you to text them again. But here's what we're going

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to do is we're going to text them and say this is what I'm going to do. This is my so

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what? This is my now what? Maybe it's renewing your mind. It's that idea of reminding yourself

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what God has done. Maybe it's loving someone difficult. It's choosing someone that you're

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going to pray for every day this week and trying to find a place to bless them. Maybe

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it's praying for your leaders whether those are governing leaders or it's Pastor Kim and

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Pastor Dave. Or maybe it's living with urgency that reminder that am I living like God is

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coming back today? Jesus is here today. We're going to give a minute with your phone. Text

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the person. Don't change the person and just say hey this is what I'm going to do this

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week. Guaranteed it's uncomfortable for at least 75-90% of you. You can't change the

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how you look. It's much easier to hear than to do. As you're doing that I want to read

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the message version. The very first thing I started with and then we'll close in prayer.

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at the end of this message. So here's what I want you to do. God helping you. Take your

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every day ordinary life. Sleeping, eating, going to work and walking around life. Place

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it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can

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do for him. Don't become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without

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even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside

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out. Readily recognize what he wants from you and quickly respond to it. I'm going to

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pray. God I thank you that you are present, living, active. God I thank you that you do

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not desire for us to stay as we are. God I thank you that when you walk into the rooms

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of our house with holes in the walls and broken windows, you don't look and say that's good

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enough. You say you're good enough. Nothing is too great for you. God I pray that in the

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simplest and smallest of things God that we would choose to take an action. I love the

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reality of our lives that it's never about the big actions we take irregularly. It's

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the little actions that we take regularly that transform us. So God I pray that we would

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be a people in this room that do one little thing today. Nothing beyond our reach. Nothing

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beyond our capacity. But we would trust that in a little thing, you would show up. God

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bless the people in this room. Bless them with your presence. What you died to give us. Would

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we not be rejecting it? In Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for tuning in today. Each week we gather

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in cities across our region and online to explore the truth of freedom available to

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all in the message of Jesus Christ. To find a gathering near you or to find out more,

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head to c3church.ca.

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