Transcription downloaded from https://sermons.littlelogchurch.com/sermons/28182/loving-the-lord-with-all/.

Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions.
Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt.


[0:00] You all know computers? No. Thank you for your honesty. Yeah, me neither, but I have one.

[0:13] And if you've got to work on a computer, you've got to fix things, you kind of learn a few things. Did you know that a computer has a control center? Or at least there's an app on there.

[0:24] There's a program in there that says control center or control something or other. And in that aspect of your computer, you can add and delete whole programs.

[0:38] You can set settings. You can mess things up. You can change. You can set your security. There's all kinds of things you can do to get control of your computer.

[0:52] Supposedly. Especially if you know what you're doing and you follow the direction. You can manage it. Control the whole deal. Well, don't you wish we had a control center for our heart and soul?

[1:08] Where we could manage it, control the settings, add and delete programs. I mean, that would be really nice. Govern the whole thing.

[1:19] Well, guess what? We do. Now, you can't add and delete programs. But we do have a control center where, to some extent, we can control.

[1:36] Manage. Our heart and our soul. It's called our mind. Proverbs 23.7 says, As a man thinks, so he is.

[1:51] You ever heard the saying, you are what you eat? No, you are what you think. What you think you are. That's what you are.

[2:03] So, if you have a low sense of who you are, that's who you are. You have a high sense of who you are. I guess you can be high. As a man thinks, so he is.

[2:17] In other words, how you decide to be is how you are. Your mind matters. What we think directs all else.

[2:29] It's not automatic, unfortunately, like a computer. We can't totally add and delete programs. But the scripture talks about renewing our mind.

[2:41] Renewing our mind as the key to our whole Christian walk. In 1 John 5.20, John says, The Son of God has come and He has given us understanding.

[3:00] He's given us a mind. As a believer, when you become a believer, things change. Right? You don't just decide to become a Christian. You do that.

[3:12] But because God has done something in you. He changes things. That's how we know we are saved. Is we look, okay, have things changed?

[3:23] Just because I ask God to save me doesn't mean He does that right at that instant. Like for me, that took years. Sometimes He decided to kind of come up. Come up. Drag it out.

[3:34] So I got more desperate and then I really meant it. That's how He answers prayers often. Sometimes He does it right away. That's wonderful. I wish He'd have done that for me. Would have saved time.

[3:44] But He did not do that. He wanted to humble me a little bit. All right? So that's fine. I don't, you know, that's His choice. But things change.

[3:55] So He gives us a new heart. Right? Because our old heart is hardened and He changes it. He gives me a new spirit, a new attitude. He gives me a new mind.

[4:06] A way of thinking. A way of recognizing. Suddenly I understand things this Bible says that I never had a clue about before. And that keeps changing.

[4:18] I keep learning new things. We don't get it all all at once. So as we're looking at this, as I already mentioned, we're looking at loving God with all our heart, all our soul, all our strength, all our mind.

[4:34] How do you govern all that? Where do we begin? Well, let me just remind you briefly kind of what we've been studying. We've been looking at the marks of our love for God. These four areas.

[4:46] And we've been looking at it this way not to kind of get into the nitty gritty and overstudy something. Our desire is practical. Our desire is sincere to really love God.

[4:57] I really do want to love God more than I do. And that's what God has given me too. That's how I know I've been changed is I've got these new desires. Before I hated His commandments.

[5:10] Right? They were a have to kind of thing. They were a burden. 1 John 5 says, When I have been born again, His commandments are no longer burdensome.

[5:23] Because He's changed my heart. I actually want to do them. Deep down. At the end of the day. Not at certain moments of the day maybe. But you know what I mean. Overall, I do.

[5:35] I want to obey Him. I want to serve. I want to honor Him. So that's who I'm talking to. Do you desire to love God? And you want to do that better.

[5:47] So that's what we've been looking at. So heart. When we talk about loving God with all our heart, we mean to love Him with genuineness. Not just going through motions. It's not external. It's not lip service.

[5:58] This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. So in other words, our intentions are true. We're talking about the heart. We're talking about the will mainly. Our intentions.

[6:10] Our attitude. Is our heart in it? And then we talk about loving God with our soul. That's our feelings and passions and affections. For the most part, it's our identity kind of at the basic sense.

[6:24] Because, you know, we get all wrapped up. As we talk about as a man thinks, so he is. For some of us, as we feel, so we are. Some of us are more soulish.

[6:38] And our feelings really overpower us. So how do I love God with my soul, with my passions and affections? Well, we see in the Psalms and we see in the Scriptures that whatever they are, we take them to Him.

[6:51] Even if my feelings are down, I take them to Him. If our feelings are up, I take them to Him. I go to Him. I go to Him. That honors Him. Because even when my feelings are down, I go to Him.

[7:04] That shows I have faith in Him. Right? It doesn't feel really good. But I'm going to Him because I know. He wants me to come and complain.

[7:17] Can you believe that? He wants me to complain to Him. He wants me to vent. Lay it on Him. Cast Him on me.

[7:27] See? And we see that in the Psalms all over, right? Those aren't all, they're not all happy songs. All right? But they're faith songs.

[7:38] They're worship songs. So even, so our soul, we love Him by confessing and by acknowledging and praising. We can worship on a day like this, even if the song isn't resonating with me.

[7:51] You know, it doesn't lift my soul even though, but the words are true, so I can still acknowledge those words. I can sing softly. If I'm depressed, I can still acknowledge those words.

[8:01] I may not feel happy about it, but those words are still true. And then sometimes we sing those songs that are, you know, the sad songs. We sing the depressed songs, like, Be Still My Soul.

[8:12] And then I can get into it. Because that really resonates with my soul. Because my soul's right there. My soul needs to hear that. Then our mind.

[8:26] How do we love God with all our mind? And this is the word that Jesus added. Because back in Deuteronomy, it didn't have that word. It just said, Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.

[8:37] And then in each of the three Gospels where Jesus teaches this loving God, He adds the word mind. Which tells me that matters, and it's essential.

[8:50] Because now He's teaching not just Jewish people who understand that the heart involves thinking in the Old Testament. Now He's adding in these Greek people, and, you know, these Syrophoenician people, and these Romans.

[9:08] I mean, I have a whole different idea of what heart means, so He adds mind. So loving God, really to love Him, also involves my mind, my thinking, my reasoning, my theology, that I might deepen my theology of Him and that loves Him.

[9:25] That I love Him enough that I start to search out who He is. That I start to want to put together what He has said. That that matters to me. I don't just pick the verses that I like and those are the ones I cling to.

[9:36] But I start to learn, okay, I want to learn that part of God too. And then that deepens my love for Him.

[9:47] And then loving God with all my strength, all my ability, my muchness. I give all my mode, my variness, with all I have, with diligence.

[10:03] And part of that in the New Testament is to love God with all my strength realizes, well, it's not about leaning on my own strength to do that. it's learning to be strengthened, to receive strength from Him to do that.

[10:18] Because my strength will wear out. I can maintain that for a while maybe if I'm feeling good. But it's going to wear out. It's going to hit a wall.

[10:30] And He wants us to love Him with all our strength where He's providing the other strength. Right? Okay, so that's kind of what we looked at. Not kind of, but it is what we looked at.

[10:40] So how do we manage all of that? Let's look at the mindset of our love for God. And I want to offer you two applications. How do we do this?

[10:54] How can we kind of narrow this down? How can I rein in my heart and my soul and my strength and my mind? How does Scripture talk about doing all that? Where do we start?

[11:06] So two applications. One, recognize our vulnerabilities. And two, renew your mind. So first of all, be aware by recognizing your vulnerabilities.

[11:24] So, in other words, our heart, soul, mind, and strength are our vulnerabilities. And I think, this is just me, but I think each of us kind of are prone to one of those or maybe two of those areas.

[11:43] You might be more of a heart person. That's kind of more natural to you. You're a doer. Right? You're a will. I will and I do it. You might be more of a soul person.

[11:54] You're affected by feelings. You're more up and down. You're like David. You know, you're more up and down. You have some highs and you have some real lows. Or you might be a mind person.

[12:05] You're a thinker. God created you that way. You're just a good thinker. And so you were prone to that. Or maybe you're a strength person.

[12:16] Maybe just a, just do it. In a different way than heart is. It's, give me something to do. Give me something to do.

[12:27] I'll do it with all my strength. That's how God's created you and that's kind of where your strength, that's where you kind of go. Does that make sense? Because I can kind of see myself in a couple of those areas.

[12:39] And sometimes it's more one and sometimes more another, but... So, so be aware, in other words, the way I can love God more is by being aware of how I'm vulnerable and where I'm weak, where my kind of struggles can lie.

[12:59] So let's reflect on each one of these. First of all, the heart. Heart is about intention, our will, our attitude. So what's the liability of the heart?

[13:11] What is the weakness of the heart? Where can the heart go bad? Remember, Jesus talks about the scribes who were listening to His teaching were questioning in their heart, resisting Him in their heart.

[13:25] they had hardened hearts. A heart can grow hard. So my will can go, uh-uh. My heart can go, uh-uh, I don't want to hear that.

[13:40] Uh-uh. I'm resistant. I'm hardened. I can be willful. I can be resistant. I can be questioning. I can be skeptical.

[13:51] Or the other way that goes is I become, when I'm hardened, I become insensitive and callous. I think we've all been there at the time.

[14:06] You know, things are going bad. I just kind of, uh-uh, and I build up a grudge against God or I kind of just, okay, this is the way it's going. I give up and I'm not learning anymore. And I don't want to listen anymore.

[14:19] All right, so my heart can get there. And that's about attitude. That's about willfulness. And the other thing that Scripture said about the heart I thought was really interesting is the heart can be deceived.

[14:33] James 1 talks about you can deceive your own heart. Remember, heart does involve not only will and intention, but thoughts, attitude, our heart's susceptible to deception.

[14:48] And this kind of willfulness, this hardening of the heart shows in, so if we get hard enough, but we still want to look good to other people, what do we do?

[15:00] We become the hypocrite. Right? We become the pretender. So like the scribes and the religious leaders, they honor God with their lips, they say the right things, they do the right things, but their heart's not in it.

[15:17] Right? It's preaching. We call that hypocrisy. Posing. Pretension. You're just a pretender. It's not real. It's just external.

[15:27] And Jesus kind of goes after that one a lot because that's a problem of religious people. We get religious instead of relationship.

[15:40] So what does our heart need? Our heart needs cleansing. Scripture talks over and over again about cleansing your heart through faith. Cleansing your heart. I need to wash away that.

[15:51] I need to pierce that hardness. Right? I need, even in the Old Testament, God says you need to circumcise your hearts because it's gotten a hard shell around it and you're not letting me in.

[16:06] So, our heart, can we trust it? Should our heart take lead in our transformation? No. No. Our heart's very important in our transformation, but it can't take lead.

[16:20] Jeremiah said the heart is deceitful above all things. We deceive ourselves, we deceive others, we can play the hypocrite. Nobody knows your heart but God and you.

[16:32] So no, we can't trust that. So what about our soul? How does our soul work in all this? Well, it's the feeling and affections. Where our soul can become weak and vulnerable is our soul, because it's affected, it can get disturbed.

[16:50] So often, the scripture talks about my soul is disturbed, my soul is troubled. Even Jesus talked about that. My soul, Jesus said, my soul is troubled. And then Gethsemane, my soul is sad and sorrowful to the point of death.

[17:04] I think I'm going to die. My heart is just, or my soul is being crushed with the thought of what was before him. So our heart is anxious, sad, bitter, depressed, you name it, it goes the whole spectrum.

[17:21] And because of that, it's prone to become weary and heavy laden. Remember how Jesus said, come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, for I will give you rest.

[17:33] Well, what kind of rest? Not physical rest. I will give you rest for your soul. Because your soul is unrested. It's disturbed.

[17:46] It can't settle. It's not at peace. So the soul needs what? The soul needs reviving. The word of God revives the soul.

[17:59] Jesus as our shepherd restores our soul. It needs directing. Jesus said, hate your soul in this world so that you might save it.

[18:14] So you're ultimately loving your soul by hating it. By hating, he doesn't mean hate yourself, self-hatred. He's not talking about that. But he's talking about self-distrust.

[18:25] You can't trust your soul. Because your soul will want to go the quick and easy route. Okay? I can't trust that. I can't listen to my soul. I've got to speak to my soul. Remember Psalm 42 wasn't, what do you want, soul?

[18:40] He's questioning his soul. Why are you downcast? What's going on? Why are you? So he's talking to himself. And then turning it. Now soul, hope in God.

[18:53] So we've got to direct and teach our soul. And then the mind. The mind, the word meaning think through, reason through, being carefully thoughtful.

[19:06] What is our mind susceptible to? What's our mind vulnerable to? Well, it's vulnerable to corruption. Scripture talks about the minds that become defiled or corrupt, polluted.

[19:20] Well, why is that? Our mind can become corrupt by, one, resisting the truth, so not learning new truth, or by neglect, not using our mind.

[19:37] Remember what Jesus kept saying to his disciples. Do you not yet understand? Are you not yet thinking?

[19:49] They're just kind of going along. I love Jesus. He's great. Some of the stuff he says, I don't get it. Right? And then they start worrying about things. And remember, about the bread. They got all upset about the bread.

[20:01] After they had seen him feed 5,000 men and 4,000 men plus the women and children. And Jesus says, why are you worried about whether you have bread or not? Do you not remember the feeding of the 5,000?

[20:13] Do you not remember the feeding? And how many baskets did you pick up? Okay, now have you put anything together yet? You learned that, you learned that, and now you're over here, oh, we don't have bread.

[20:26] Hello? Are you thinking yet? Jesus expects us to take what he does and says and to think that through. He expects us to put some effort into that.

[20:42] To think. To connect dots. Now, granted, he needs to help us do that. So we say, Lord, help me.

[20:56] I'm not you, maybe that's not my prone area where I'm used, you know, maybe I'm not the thinker kind of person, so I really need help to learn how to do that. Show me how to do that.

[21:07] And he will. He might show you a little, not maybe in the area where you're really wanting. He'll probably show you another area. Because, you know, he's usually not on the same page we're on in terms of what I want to fix in my life.

[21:22] You with me on that? Here. I really want to fix this area and he just keeps seeming to ignore that question but he's working on this one over here. He knows what he's doing.

[21:35] And then strength. Obviously, our strength, our physical ability, our efforts, our diligence, our, as Jesus himself said, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

[21:46] It wears out. That's just simply who we are. We're human. It's absolutely impossible in human natural form to love God with all our strength. because our strength doesn't last.

[22:03] Isaiah 40 talks about youths, even young men grow tired. Even elite athletes have a ceiling.

[22:15] Right? So, yeah. But I think the area we're vulnerable to in our strength is if that's your good area where you really are a good doer and you're a, you know, you've learned to depend on yourself because you've gotten things done, is we fail spiritually in that we're leaning on our own strength.

[22:43] Right? Because I've done it before. That's Peter, right? I've done it before. I've been faithful so far. I'm going to be faithful. Because my heart is right there. My intention is right there.

[22:54] As long as I know where it's coming from. Right? So, our susceptibility and our strength is that either we lean on our own or we go the other way.

[23:11] We've been worn out and we don't give our all and we don't want to give our all and maybe we struggle with sloth. That seems to be in my area of confession regularly.

[23:26] Forgive me for my sloth because I know I could do more. But then I've got to be careful that it's not about me, you know. And that's not coming from a guilt kind of condemning self thing.

[23:40] It's more of you deserve all I got. I'm sorry I'm not giving it all. So, how do we manage these things? Where do we begin?

[23:51] Where do we begin? God said something to the Israelites in Deuteronomy. Remember, Deuteronomy means the second giving of the law. So, what we heard back in Exodus is repeated in Deuteronomy.

[24:05] That's because it's 40 years later. Remember, they come out of Egypt, they go to Sinai, Exodus tells them, here's the Ten Commandments, here's the covenant, right? So, Israel doesn't want to go conquer the promised land because they see there's giants there and there's huge fortified cities, and they say, uh-uh, we're gonna, we wanna go back to Egypt.

[24:25] And God says, okay, you're gonna wander for 40 years until you're, all the fathers die off and then I'll raise up the sons and we'll go back in. So, Deuteronomy is that 40 years later.

[24:37] After wandering, the parents have died off, now the children, the Joshua's and the Caleb's, now they're gonna go into the promised land. So, God says, I want you to prepare yourselves and this is what he says in Deuteronomy 4, 9, he says, only, so here's the focus, only take care and keep your, what?

[25:02] Your soul diligently. literally, only guard and watch your soul with all your ma'od, with all your strength.

[25:17] Why? Lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen. Remember, they've come, they've, they've seen the miracles in the wilderness, they've seen the miracle in Egypt. Lest you forget what you've seen.

[25:29] In other words, who I am. unless they depart from your heart all the days of your life. So, in that one verse, he mentions the three words about how I love God with all my heart.

[25:48] He mentions heart, he mentions soul, and he mentions strength with the word diligently there. Interesting. And what is it that can't be trusted in those?

[26:01] What do I have to watch? First, I have to watch my soul. I have to watch over and guard my soul. Why? Because my soul's going to wander. My soul's going to go after, my soul wants to go back to Egypt where it was comfortable.

[26:17] Where I had food every day. Even though it was horrible, I still had food every day. I didn't have to wander around the desert wondering if I'm going to eat or drink. You know, trust God, come on.

[26:28] I want the real thing. That's what my soul, soul wants quick rescue. So watch and guard your soul, diligent with all your strength. How long is that going to last? Read Joshua, you'll see it doesn't last that long.

[26:43] How diligent are they? Well, they're diligent for a while and then they run out of strength. And their soul takes over and their heart is lost. Keep your soul diligent lest you forget the things you've seen and lest they depart from your heart.

[26:58] I know they're in your heart now but your heart can lose them and your heart can forget them. Your heart can become hardened. See, so in other words, even in the Old Testament he's saying, don't trust your soul, don't trust your heart.

[27:11] Both of them need watching. Both of them are vulnerable. So, what part of you is doing the keeping and watching? What part of you is doing the guarding and the keeping?

[27:27] It's the word Jesus adds in the New Testament. It's your mind. It's your mind. Listen to Ephesians 4 where Paul is talking to these new believers in Ephesus.

[27:39] He's talking about the change that came after their conversion. They're just getting used to walking this new life. They've come out of all this stuff, all their baggage, all their old gods, all their corrupt nature, all this, you know, they were just regular folks.

[27:57] Did what was going natural. All of a sudden they've been saved. Now they're kind of like, okay, now how do we operate now? How do I live with this new life? How do I do this? So listen to how Paul directs that.

[28:09] Ephesians 4, he says, now this I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do. You know, don't walk like the world. In the futility of their minds, so there's their mind, their mind is in emptiness.

[28:24] They are darkened in their understanding, so their understanding has been clouded over. They can't see everything or understand everything. They're alienated from the life of God. Why? Because of the ignorance that is in them.

[28:35] It's not that, you know, we're like saying they're ignorant, they just don't know. They don't know because they haven't been given a mind by God. They just don't know. It's not their fault. That's just who they are.

[28:48] Why? Due to the hardness of heart. Well, there we have mind and heart. And it's the hard heart that has caused the darkness in their mind. And then watch.

[29:00] They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality. There's the soul. They've given themselves up to sensuality. I'm just going to follow my feelings. Greedy to practice every kind of impurity because that's what the world does.

[29:13] Right? I mean, today's the day. Live your life. Paul even said that, hey, if Jesus didn't raise from the dead, then for goodness sakes, stop sacrificing and just go have merry time.

[29:27] Because if this is it, do it. If there's no more meaning to life, if there's no more purpose, then just go. But Christ has raised from the dead.

[29:38] There is real meaning. There's something beyond all this. And if that's true, then, whoa, then that makes a huge difference. Because just this life, that's not much.

[29:52] And even when I enjoy what's in this life, it still ends up empty. You know, and I'm in pain. My soul really hurts itself then. But, and here he goes, but that's not the way you learn Christ.

[30:07] You learn Christ as if you're still walking in the flesh. That's not how you learn Christ, assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus to do what?

[30:21] To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desire. So you're putting off all that old stuff, all that old natural desires and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds and to put on the new self created after the likeness of God and true righteousness and holiness.

[30:45] So how do I live with this new life? When I've been converted, how do I live with this new life? How can I just, what's the simple pattern? Well, it's a daily putting off.

[30:57] And it's not just putting off. It's like, now shalt not do that. It's not this legalism. It's, no, put those, that's natural.

[31:08] Put off the natural. Renew the mind and put on the new. So I'm not just getting rid of something. I'm putting on, I'm replacing it with something new.

[31:19] That's what's important. I'm learning new habits. I'm learning new things. And my, I really do desire those new things. I just still have the old man hanging around that thinks that the answer's in the new, the old stuff.

[31:32] But see, the key, the key there is in the middle to be renewed in the spirit of your minds. And it's be renewed, so it's not I renew myself. I just gotta redo this. It's going before the Lord.

[31:42] Help me renew. Help me think. Help me renew my mind. Help me remember why I'm here. Help me remember who you made me. renew my mind.

[31:57] Okay, I get my mind right, then I can get a hold of my heart and my soul and my strength will follow. I don't need to really worry about my strength so if my heart and my mind gets my heart and my soul right.

[32:15] So, that leads us to our second focus. Not only recognize where we're vulnerable, but now be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That's Paul's words in Romans.

[32:30] Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. We're gonna look at that text in a moment. Let me reason for you why I think this is the key. Why is it the renewal of the mind that's key to this whole thing?

[32:48] One, your mind can guard your heart. Can guard your heart against hardening and hypocrisy. The heart, by the way, the heart is where we believe.

[33:05] Isn't that interesting? Not the mind. Your heart is where you believe. Remember Paul said, we confess with our mouth and we believe with our heart.

[33:16] for with the heart we believe and are justified, with the mouth we confess and are saved. Romans 10, he talks about that.

[33:28] That it's not just I believe inside and I keep it to myself, there is some confession too. Because it's real, it's gonna come out. Remember the heart? What comes out of the heart is what's real.

[33:40] And if I believe in my heart, it's gonna come out of my mouth. But the heart is where I believe. Also, scripture talks about the heart is where Christ dwells.

[33:53] Remember Ephesians 3, that Christ might settle down in your heart. And it's also the heart where the spirit resides.

[34:03] The spirit has been put into our hearts where we confess Abba Father. Well then, that makes our heart pretty important, doesn't it?

[34:15] If that's the center of our belief, the center of where Christ and the Holy Spirit dwell, my goodness, yes, that's important. My heart's crucial. But I can't trust my heart to get the heart right.

[34:32] Because my, my heart can doubt. My heart can harden. My heart can resist. But my mind can watch over my heart. My mind can remind the heart what it believes.

[34:48] My mind can remind my heart to be cleansed by faith. To stay genuine. The heart, a renewed mind, not just my mind can guard, but my mind that has been renewed.

[35:03] That is daily renewing. A renewed mind also guards my soul. My soul when it's in distress and weariness. That's why in Psalm 42, David can say, he can question his soul.

[35:15] Why are you in despair? Oh my soul. Why are you disturbed within me? He's speaking to, questioning his soul.

[35:27] And then he says, hope in God, oh my soul. Hope in God. He's preaching to his soul. He's instructing his soul.

[35:38] He's directing his soul. So the mind can give guidance to the soul, which is all over the place. My mind can remind my soul of Scripture.

[35:50] Wait upon God. entrust your soul to the Lord. Take your despairing soul and look at that as a panting after God.

[36:02] I mean, our soul tells us where we are. Feelings come for a reason. Feelings, by the way, how you feel is not sinful.

[36:16] Feelings are spontaneous and they're natural. It's what you do with your feelings that matters. But the fact that you feel down, that's not sinful.

[36:29] Jesus felt down. The fact that you're sorrowful unto death, Jesus felt that. The fact that your soul is all stirred up, Jesus felt that and he did not sin.

[36:42] Okay? So the feelings aren't sinful. It's what you do with them. So I've got to take hold of that soul. I've got to pull it back to God. I've got to teach it and talk to it and preach to it.

[36:57] Otherwise, my soul will follow what it wants. And then thirdly, the mind that has been renewed will guard my strength.

[37:09] 1 Peter 1, Peter says, gird your mind for action. See, before I do the action, I have to gird my mind.

[37:20] So I renew my mind and that helps prepare my mindset, my attitude to get my heart, my soul, and my strength involved.

[37:37] Preparing myself to be diligent. Athletes do this all the time. Mind over body. Mind over body. Discipline of our body. So our body can be screaming, I'm tired, I'm sore, like I did this week.

[37:48] Our mind can go, no, I can do one more. I'm not saying I'm on an athlete level. But even I can do that a little bit.

[38:03] Paul talked about it. I buffet my body and I make it my slave. I discipline. Why? It's not because I want to be Arnold or something. It's because I want to have the ability to serve the Lord all the way to the end.

[38:16] It's not about me. It's about him and he'll be better served if I discipline something.

[38:28] I don't do that because I'm a legalist. I don't do that because Paul, we know, he said, hey, all things. So I can be strict with the Jews and I can be free with the Gentiles.

[38:40] So it's not about legalism thing. It's about reaching them. But I can discipline myself to be where God is leading me to be.

[38:53] Does that make sense? But our mind, see, has to do that. Our body won't just do that. Our mind does that. So when we're weary and faint, we remind ourself, my mind reminds myself to be strengthened in the Lord.

[39:13] to renew my strength in God. Isaiah 40, to wait upon the Lord. Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.

[39:27] They shall mount up like eagles. I mean, they don't just get a little bit more strength. They get this supernatural kind of push through. Okay?

[39:37] When you're done, it's like, okay, God can, okay, kick in now. You ready for me now? And by the way, it's wait for the Lord.

[39:51] That doesn't mean it comes immediately. Oh, I lack faith. It didn't come immediately. No, you don't lack faith if it didn't come immediately. Your faith's still going. It's not about the size of your faith.

[40:02] It's about the length of your faith. Please get the size of your faith out of your mind. Those are the preachers who don't understand what they're saying. Because Jesus said the faith of a mustard seed, a tiny little mustard seed can move a mountain.

[40:17] So it's not about the size of your faith. It's about how long your faith lasts. Because God is usually, not today. Keep praying. No, not today.

[40:29] Not this month. Come on, Lord. You're getting desperate. You're getting closer. Come on. I'm not saying that's what the Father says, but that's kind of my weird imagining of it.

[40:45] Because you know the Father loves us. And He knows what's best and the timing. He knows what is best. So once again, so notice in Romans 12, so let's come to that passage where He says, be transformed by the renewal of your mind.

[41:01] I want you to notice in Romans 12, the process Paul talks about. It's a simple process. In other words, it's not complicated.

[41:14] He doesn't mean, I don't mean by simple that it's easy. But in terms of it, it's not complicated. It's simple. And it's a process that keeps the love of God foremost of all.

[41:27] Even though He doesn't mention the love of God, I want you to watch what He says that proves it really is about the love of God. So Romans 12, here He says, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, what?

[41:45] What first? To present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to who?

[41:57] To God. First and foremost, what do I do in regards to Him? I offer my whole self as a living sacrifice to keep living and to keep sacrificing.

[42:16] You know, it comes out of the Scripture, the old, you know, we're giving offerings, right? We're offering things to God to please Him. And now in the New Testament, what's the offering?

[42:30] Well, first it was Jesus, right? So that gives us right access to God, but now we follow in Jesus' steps and now we offer ourselves. Now, how? It just means we offer it.

[42:42] He does whatever He wants with that. What we offer. Is that not loving God with all my heart, soul, mind? I mean, I'm giving everything to Him.

[42:54] And then watch. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind so that by testing you, by testing you may discern what is the will of God.

[43:12] That's the will of God right there. What is good and acceptable and perfect. The will of God is for you to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So two things.

[43:25] Offer yourself, total surrender, renewal of your mind. What happens when we renew our mind? Keep reading.

[43:36] For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone, among you, not to, interesting word choice, think of himself more highly than he ought to think.

[43:48] But to think, do you think he has a point here? Do you think the mind's important? The mind's important about how I think about myself. The mind is important about how I think about others.

[44:00] And he's going to get to that real pointedly. Not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, so humble, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

[44:15] For as in one, where's he going? For as in one body, we have many members and the members don't all have the same function. So we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another.

[44:25] what does that have to do with anything? I thought this was about me and God. I'm an offering, a living sacrifice to God. I renew my mind, or I, remember how he said that, be transformed by the renewing.

[44:43] So I'm both getting my mind renewed and I'm being transformed. I'm allowing God to work. And the outcome is what?

[44:55] How do I best serve God? By serving his people. Because then he's going to talk about body. We're one body.

[45:06] And he's going to talk about gifts. God's given you gifts. He's given you gifts. Why? So you can go do what you want? No, so that you can go and serve his people. So if your gift's mercy, or your gift is service, or your gift is leadership, that's so you can serve.

[45:28] So you can love his people. Because when you love his people, you love him. And that's how you know you love him, by loving his people. That's where the rubber meets the road, isn't it?

[45:43] If it's just me and Jesus, I'm good. Right? I don't want to deal with his people. they're all right. Some of them I really like.

[45:56] Some of them I don't like. Because their personality and mine just clash. So, did Jesus pick 12 guys that were all the same?

[46:10] No. Did they get on his nerves? Yes. I wonder how he dealt with Simon the zealot. Because one of his guys was a zealot.

[46:22] And you know he's the one carrying the sword. It's like, let's go kill some Romans today, Jesus. Hang on, brother. Anyway.

[46:38] So, mine is central. That's all I want you to walk away with today. I want to love God. It comes down to our mind. Because that's where we get our heart.

[46:49] That's where we get our soul. That's where our strength will follow. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And that's simply me going before God and saying, okay, Lord, what do I need?

[47:04] And that's me reading his word. Because his word is going to transform my mind. the more I get of his word inputting into my little computer.

[47:17] G-I-G-O is the old computer thing, right? So if you put garbage in to your computer, garbage comes out of your computer.

[47:27] You put good in, good comes out. Jesus talked about that. What's in the heart? What fills the heart? It will come out. If it's good treasure, good treasure comes out. Okay.

[47:42] So may God help us to love him with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our mind, and with all of our strength.

[47:54] Let us pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the power of your word. Lord, we don't get it all.

[48:06] Sometimes we make it complicated. But it's really, Father, simple as Paul said it for today. That we offer ourselves to you, that we truly offer ourselves to you, and trust you.

[48:23] That you're going to do and lead us wherever you want, and that's good. And Father, that we continue to daily look to you that you might transform us, that you might continue to change us little by little to become more like Jesus, and more a lover of others, more a forgiver of others, more, Lord, one who concerns, not thinking more of ourselves, but thinking more of others.

[48:55]  We don't do that naturally, so Father, we pray you help us do that. Help us walk with you, help us learn from you, transform us, we pray in Christ's name. Amen.