Do Not Be Conformed But Transformed

It's been my habit for a number of years to begin the new year by fasting or in preparation for the new year. And I would invite all of you to join me and Abram in fasting tomorrow. I'll post something about it. Fasting is a good discipline for us. And as we contemplate the new year, it's a good... practice for us to discipline our bodies and to seek God's wisdom and blessing upon the plans that we have for the new year, which leads into what I want to talk about. I hope that all of you have had joyful Christmas celebrations or on Christmas Day and any coming up more celebrations.

We're all sort of, I imagine, or most of us are gearing up for New Year's. New Year's is an interesting event. It's, you know, everyone sort of gets sentimental about the past year. I started getting emails from different magazines and stuff. The best books of 2024. All the people that we lost in 2024. You know, can you organize all these world-changing events that happened in 2024? Can you put them in order, right? Everyone sort of starts getting reflective and sentimental. You know, what happened? Often at this time of year, we begin to make New Year's resolutions. People decide what they want to change about their lives, and then they make promises that probably won't outlast the month. There's one fitness trainer.

who I know that he won't take any new clients in like January and February. And maybe even the whole first quarter, I don't remember. He just said, nope, I won't do it because they all wash out. The best clients come in like October or November or something because those are the people who just are actually wanting to commit to being fit. Now, it's kind of fun to laugh at and make fun of New Year's resolutions. If you're a cynic, it's fun to laugh at the nostalgia. It's easy to judge all the people who go out and party on New Year's Eve and get drunk. But there's a reality to it that we need to reflect on our lives. That we do need to look and evaluate where we are. Have you grown in the last year? How has your life changed? Are you at the same spot today that you were?

At the beginning of 2024. Has anything changed in your life? Have you grown? What about your family? Has your family grown? Have you instilled new disciplines? New habits? At the turning of the year, it's a natural time for us to consider. And to take stock of where we're at. And so we should be asking ourselves these questions. More than just at New Year's. But nonetheless, it is a good time for us to evaluate and see where we're at. How are we doing? What changes do we need to make? It's a good time for us to instill new habits and disciplines, to set goals and see what direction we're headed. Well, our passage today is from Romans chapter 12. And as we think about our lives and our families and what we want them to be like, this is a hopeful passage for us to consider.

In this passage, Paul warns us that we are not to be conformed to the world, but we're to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. And so my prayer this morning is that we'll stop conforming to the world and instead we'll be more like God. As we consider this, we're going to take a look in particular how this pertains to our lives as individuals, in our families, and in the church. So we're going to consider sort of three areas. Now, if you would please stand for the reading of God's word. This is Romans 12, 1 and 2. Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. Well, I have a daunting task to get through these two verses. I think Martin Lloyd-Jones preached six sermons on this text. So we're going for one. In Romans, the context of Romans 12. Romans 1 through 11 is, if you want to think of the big division in Romans, the first division is 1 through 11, and then it's 12 through 16. 1 through 11, Paul is making an argument, and it's very, there's application, but a lot of it's doctrine, right? He's making this doctrine. And then as he shifts into chapter 12, he begins to say, talk about what this then means for us based on all the truths which he was teaching in the first 11 chapters. And so he begins by saying that he urges them. He pleads with them. And I just want to say that pleading and urging are not dignified. They're probably not the first tools in our toolkit that we would want to use.

We need to remember that that is a tool in the toolbox that we shouldn't forget we have. Maybe less so with younger children. But Paul is pleading. He is urging. He's saying, listen. Listen to me. Remember all the things that I've just told you. And in light of that, do this. And we're going to get into that. Now, what is Paul pleading about? Well, he's pleading by the mercies of God. Well, in the previous 11 chapters, Paul has explained the gospel. He begins and he proves that all of us are sinners by nature. That we are born into sin. That we have sin. That we're corrupted. We are sinners. And we're not just...

sinners, but we're sinners under the wrath of God. And so we have a problem. We're in need of salvation, but we need a salvation in which none of us can affect the salvation that's necessary. And so then he goes on to show that the salvation is brought about by God and that the salvation that God brings about is a free gift. That's received by faith. But it's not even faith that we can create. Or faith that we can scrounge up. Or faith that we can make greater. We need the salvation that God created. But then we have to receive it by faith. But then the faith is also a gift. That he gives us the faith. And so we cannot earn the salvation. We cannot merit the salvation. When we believe with the faith that we're given. When God calls us.

Then he tells us about the peace that we have with God. And he tells us of the love that God has for his people. And that nothing can separate us from the love of God if we're Christians. And he talks about Christ who dies on the cross. And he's risen. There's a resurrection. And so we have this picture of salvation that he gives. And then in light of that, of the fact that you're a sinner. Under the wrath of God, that if you're one of God's people who he's called and you have faith and you trust in him and now you're at peace with God and that you're clothed in Christ's righteousness, then there's this obligation you have. He urges you. In light of that, offer yourself, your body, as a living sacrifice.

And that's a message for us. As a Christian, you ought to give your body as a living sacrifice to God. He's shown you mercy. And the mercy that he's given should inspire you to give yourself to God. You shouldn't want to hold back any part of yourself. What God has done is so great that it ought to engender such a joyful response into us that we would say, as we're going to sing in the last song, take my life and let it be. Consecrate it. All that we are, we ought to give to God in light of the great mercy that he's shown us. And when Paul says that we're to offer our body, You know, often in scripture, we'll make a distinction between the body and the spirit and soul, right? But what Paul's saying here is all of us, right? God doesn't just want our minds. He doesn't just want our physical flesh. He wants our whole being to be offered up to him. You know, some of us, this is hard for some of us, right? Some of us are all about our minds and we don't care about emotions. We just have to think the right thing. And we just have to.

Have the right mindset, right? And our emotions are not engaged in the worship of God. But God doesn't just want you to have the right mindset or the right knowledge. He wants your heart. He wants your emotions engaged. But some of us are all about emotions, right? Sort of doesn't matter. The theology isn't that important. We just have to have the right feeling. That's not right either. Because we need to know who God is. We need to know. Christ's name. And if you love someone, then you'll take the time to get to know about that person. So Paul is calling us to give our whole selves to the worship of God. And this is a living sacrifice. This is in contrast to the Old Testament. All the sacrifices were dead sacrifices. They were alive at the beginning and then they died. We're not to be like that. We are dead in our sins.

But when Christ comes, the Holy Spirit regenerates us. And we become a living sacrifice. We give our whole lives to the worship and service of God. So, first, he tells us that, and he goes on in verse 2. He says, do not be conformed. Do not be conformed to this world. When we think about conforming, think of like a mold that you get kind of squished into and formed around. You take on the shape of. And he says, do not be conformed to this world. And the idea of the world is an age, a time period, a culture. And so Paul is saying that we are not to be conformed to our culture. We should not be conformed into the world in which we live.

Because of the mercy shown to us by God, to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice, which means we will not look like the world. And this is hard for us to grasp, right? Because what does it mean to not conform to this world? It's difficult for us to see sometimes how we are like the world. We're growing up within a particular culture and a particular point of time. And it's hard for us to gain perspective on how we're like the culture around us sometimes. It just seems normal. There are points where we just don't even think to question what's normal to us because we don't know any different. You know, there's the old proverb that is, if you want to know what water is, don't ask a fish. It's all that the fish knows. This is how.

Well, the question is, you know, how do we know where we're conforming to the world? How do we know what it is like not to be part of the world? Like, where does that information come from? We're going to get into that. But here's the thing. We are not static beings. You cannot stay who you are today. You will change. Over time, you will either be conformed to the world or you'll be transformed. See, when we're born, we're born with sin. We're born in sin. We're conceived in sin. So we are going to be conformed to the mold of this world. That's kind of who we are. That's how we're going to be shaped. Unless we become transformed. We're going to contrast those a little bit more. But I want to talk a little bit more about conforming to the world. Have you ever heard the idea that if you eat too much of an orange vegetable, what happens? They say you turn orange, right?

Actually, Keith, when he was really little, really liked squash and carrots and all the orange vegetables. And so he got a lot of orange vegetables. And he actually did start, I don't know, maybe it was in our minds, but he looked a little orange, right? The idea is that if you consume this, you begin to be like that which you're consuming. What you ingest, what you... meditate on will begin to change how you think and act. It may not be super quick. It may be slow changes. You may not realize how you're changing. Like, if you've ever gone to the ocean where there's currents, you'll go out, you'll set up your blanket, you'll be camping on that one spot, right? But then you go out and you play in the water. And if you're not paying attention, you'll end up a quarter mile down the beach and you'll never realize it.

You just sort of be playing and the water's moving you down the beach and you just don't realize it. All of a sudden you look up and your stuff's way over there, right? And so often that is what will happen to us is we just ingest the things of our culture. It will begin to change how we think. It will begin to change our affections. It will begin to move us in a certain way. And if we're not on high alert, we will not realize it's happening often. It won't necessarily be a quick change. What are the things that cause us to conform to the world? Well, often peer pressure. And this is peer pressure from the littlest kids all the way up to us, right? We all feel pressure where we're at. If you're in school, there are things that are normal in your school. And so if you don't do the things that all the other kids are doing, You're not allowed to dress the way that they dress. You don't have a phone like they have a phone. You're going to feel all the ways that you're different, and your natural desire is going to be to conform to how everyone else dresses, how everyone else acts, how they talk to teachers, how they talk about kids behind their back. It's not any different than at work. You'll feel the same pressure to talk like they do, to laugh at the jokes that they laugh at.

And it's not any different than at your family gatherings where when you traipse in with a whole bunch of kids and no one else has that many kids, you feel pressure. It also comes through movies, through social media. Social media and movies normalize so many wicked behaviors. You look at what some of the TV shows and things are on today and just the sexual deviancy and things that are in them. And then you look at even shows and things that were maybe 10 or 15, maybe 20, whatever, some years ago. And they don't have some of those same things and they almost seem benign. But I remember there were different shows that kids would talk about that my mom would never let us watch. The reason why...

was because of the way they'd treat the dad, right? And she was like, I don't want my kids, I don't want you guys talking to me like that. I don't want your kids talking to your dad like that. So there are different shows that she wouldn't let us watch. Why? Because it's normalizing sinful behavior. We get messages from our podcasts, from the books that we read, even from games that you play. There's a lot that games can teach about winning and losing. that can normalize things that aren't godly. What we have to see is that nothing in our lives is neutral. Everything that you do is geared towards, has some end and goal. And what you are ingesting can change your habits of thinking and the things that you do. They want you to conform to its way of thinking. And it's not given that it's a biblical way of thinking or acting.

Most things are not out there for your good. So our books and our podcasts and our movies and our peer pressures, right? They're not there to help you think about politics in a Christian way, but in pragmatic terms, right? But as Christians, we need to remember the ends don't justify the means. And there are much worse things than being imprisoned or put to death. That's what all the martyrs believed. Your approach to media consumption needs to not be as a mindless consumer. It needs to be like a Christian. Think about this. As a Christian, your approach to sex must be very different than the world's. And we all will probably agree like, oh, yeah, so don't look at porn. Yeah, that's basic. That's a good start.

As a Christian, you also shouldn't be watching TikTok reels and YouTube reels full of seductive women who have their clothes painted on. I mean, what's the difference? Just because they wear a few more items of clothing. It's seductive. What about TV and the movies we watch? Oh, we just skip that scene. Yeah, but you don't skip all of the seduction that comes up to that scene and all the things that surround it. And so. it normalizes sin. What about alcohol? The Bible says that drink can be good, but drunkenness is a wicked sin. And if we're around a brother who struggles with alcohol, we should happily and joyfully get rid of the alcohol for the sake of our weaker brother. That's a Christian attitude towards drink. What about money? Christians tithe.

Christians do not live or spend their time worrying about money. They know that money is God's. Their money is God's money. God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. He's no man's debtor. And we could go on and on and on, right? Like these are just a few things that popped into my head as I was writing this, but we could go through and every aspect of our lives, every part we could talk about, what is a Christian approach to this? Are we being conformed to the way the world thinks about these things? Or are we being conformed to how the Bible speaks about these things? Now, it's actually not conforming to what the Bible says, right? I'll tell you what the Greek word is because I think you'll know it. It's metamorphosthe. Metamorphosthe. Which is what? You all know the word from butterflies.

It's a metamorphosis, right? It changes from a little caterpillar into a butterfly. It's an essential alteration in the nature or the character of whatever is changing. At Christmas time, what do we all do? You drive around and everyone put up Christmas lights. Everything's decorated. It's not transformed. It's decorated. You may say, oh, they transformed their yard. No, they didn't. They decorated it. And then a month later, all the decorations get put away. It's gone. As Christians, we're not supposed to decorate our lives with Christian things. We're to be transformed. Our lives are to be stripped down to the studs and to be rebuilt in the image of God. We're not repainting the kitchen. We're tearing all the cabinets out, all the drywall, all the wiring, all the lighting, and we're...

rebuilding from the ground up. This is being transformed, not being conformed to something. We're transforming it, becoming something new. The nature is changing. So how do we renew our minds? Well, a renewal will happen by diligent work in the spiritual disciplines and the means of grace that God's given us. And so I urge you, I plead with you, in light of the mercy that God has shown you, that you integrate some of the spiritual disciplines that I'm about to call you to in your lives in this coming year. I want to challenge you on your personal worship and devotion to God, your family worship, and your corporate worship. And I encourage you as well to write some of these things down. Take something from each one of these areas and put it into practice in your life. Create a new habit.

Transform your life to look more like Christ. Don't just sprinkle on Christian things. Don't just decorate your life with something to make it look like you have a form of godliness. But we want powerful godliness. Transforming godliness. Seek to actually rebuild your life as a Christian. To look more like Christ. There really is a Christian way of approaching things. And to learn it. We must put some of these things into practice. So what do we need to put into practice? Well, the first thing is personal worship. And under personal worship, as you as an individual, we're talking about you as an individual, what should you do? You should read your Bible every day. When it comes to verses about God's law and the response that we should have, Psalm 119 is like...

Ground zero. Start there, right? It's hard to pick out which verse you would like to read because there's so many verses. So if you're struggling, I encourage you to read through, as you're struggling to read your Bible and to have a good attitude, read through Psalm 119. Pray through it. Ask God to change your attitude. Read through it multiple times. One, two, which we sang earlier says, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. And in his law, he meditates day and night. Think about this. What is the psalmist meditating on? I mean, he's meditating on the word of God, but like, what is he hoping to do? What is the goal of meditating on it right now? Well, you think about David as the king. Why would David meditate on the law of God? We supposed to be ruling Israel.

And he needs direction. And he needs to know what's right and what's true and what's holy. And so do we. I mean, think about how the verse 2 ends. So that you may prove what the will of God is. That which is good and acceptable and perfect. How will you know the will of God if you don't know his word? If you can't meditate on his word and think how you should live in light of what God has said to you. So read through the Bible this year, the entire Bible. Get a plan, a simple plan, nothing complicated. All you need to do is read five or six pages a day, and you'll read through the whole Bible this year. Do it. You'll have days to spare. If it takes you two years, that's fine. But get a plan and read through the whole Bible. I mean, I kind of want to ask. I won't ask you to do it, but have you ever read through the entire Bible?

How many books have you not read through? God didn't just give you the book of Habakkuk to ignore it or Zephaniah or 1 John chapter 3, right? Or 1 John 3. There's only one chapter. 1 John 3, right? Those are actual books of the Bible that God gave for your edification to teach you to be more like Christ. And so you need to get a plan because that's how you'll be sure to read through the whole of God's word. And then you need to stick through it. And it's really great if you can do that every year. The word of God will teach you, guide you, direct you, help you learn how to approach every situation you come to like a Christian. To be transformed rather than being conformed. And if 24-7 the messaging we're getting is from social media and from news outlets and from X.

then you are going to be conformed to whatever loony tune you're listening to, not transformed by the word of God and the renewing of your mind, because they're not there to renew your minds. You should also be listening to the Bible. It's helpful. It will hit you differently. With that, you should also read old books, not modern ones, not X, but read old thinkers. Why read old thinkers? Well, C.S. Lewis wrote a really helpful introduction. I believe it was In a book called On the Incarnation. And he just lays out the argument. Saying that. What we started talking about in the beginning. That we're part of our own culture. And all the people that are tweeting. On X. Xing. I don't know what it's called now. They're all in your same culture. They have blind spots that you have. But if you go back and read J.C. Ryle. His blind spots are different. And so when you.

allow J.C. Ryle or Matthew Henry to help you walk through the scripture, then you're going to have better eyes to see how you're conforming to this world, right? Because the problems that they had with men and women and family and sex and all these things were very different than the messages that we're getting. And so by being the students of people of the past, of godly men of the past, it will help us to see how we may be conforming to the world today. Because trust me, you're not going to find it on X or YouTube or Facebook. The best that you will have is by finding older men who will instruct you. Because older men come from a slightly different culture and can see better than we can about the sins and foibles of our own age. Pray.

James 5.16 says, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. Prayer should be a priority in your life. If it never has been, make 2025 a year of prayer for you. We have three men's prayer groups. If those times don't work for you, start one at a time that works for you. But pray. Spend time in prayer. You don't know what to pray. Well, pray through parts of scripture. Scripture will teach us how to pray, especially the Psalms. You can pray all the Psalms. Learn to pray through the Psalms. Spend time each morning and throughout the day praying. Make it a habit that when you run into something, your first response is to call out to God to help you through it, to give you wisdom in how to deal with it.

I remember one time I was playing in Lake Michigan with some of my cousins, and I had a face, you know, goggles. And my cousin asked to borrow it, and I let him borrow it, and then he dropped it in this dirty water. I was pretty upset. They were pretty new. They were mine. And I was mad. And his dad came up to me, and he was asking me, like, you know, where around did it fall, whatever. And then he goes, did you pray? I said, no, I didn't pray. And I was, you know, too much of a good kid to say it out loud. But in my head, I'm like, why does God care about my goggles? He said, well, we need to pray. So we prayed. And I went underwater and it was next to my foot. Right there, you know. It shocked me. And it was like, oh, I guess God does care about my goggles. And that was something that sparked, like, oh.

I should pray all the time. It doesn't matter what the problem is. I should cry out to God, right? The other thing is memorizing. Psalm 1911 says, Psalm 119.11, your word have I treasured in my heart that I might not sin against you. By memorizing, you're meditating on the Bible. It helps you to know what to do to be able to put it into practice. And you can recall it when you're confronted with situations and you don't know how to react. You can quote scripture to yourself to comfort you, to help you fight temptation, to help give you wisdom in how to interact with the person that you're not sure how to interact with. Right? You pray and you memorize scripture. And then those things will help transform who you are to be more like God, more like Christ.

So in our own personal lives, read the Bible. Read it every day. Read through the whole Bible. Pray. Memorize. Put those disciplines into your life. Now, the other thing that we should do is we should lead our families in worship. Deuteronomy 6, 6-9 says, These words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and you shall talk to them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. As fathers and mothers, if we want our children to not be conformed to this world, We need to teach them how to worship God. We need to teach them the truths of God's word. And so you should do family worship every night if possible, but as close to it as you can. Do it right after dinner. It's the easiest time to make sure it happens. And what does that look like? Well, you should teach your kids songs. Singing is a powerful way of teaching kids how to think like a Christian.

Songs will linger in your minds and they often will come back to us. Think about how many commercials have jingles with them, right? Because they stick with us. I could sing commercials from 20 years ago that, you know, I could go da-da-da-da-da. And you all know what I'm doing because it all goes together, right? And so... We teach our kids songs, teach them kids songs, teach them hymns. But with the little kids, teach them little verses. And what you'll hear is the kids will be playing and they'll start humming it and singing it. And now they're meditating on God's word. They may not realize that's what they're doing. But if you teach them good songs, that's what they're doing. Bible reading. We need to read scripture to our kids, especially if they can't read, then we read it to them. But once they begin to read, when you do family worship, have your kids read.

sections of the scripture. It's a good exercise for them. It's not too hard. That's how they used to teach kids to read. If you had a book, it was probably the Bible. And that's what they learned to read on. And that was King James. Reading scripture with your kids is a great and natural time to teach your kids how to think and to act like Christians. How to get them to be transformed by the renewing of their minds rather than conformed to the world. Prayer. We pray with our families. You should pray for your kids. It's very striking to read Charles Spurgeon and the comments he has about his mom's prayers for him. Or you have Monica and her prayers for Augustine. Those are mighty women. Women, if you want a good example, read about them and who their sons were and how much grief that the mothers had at one point for the thought that their children might not follow God.

And so they prayed endlessly for their sons, right? So lead your kids in prayer, teach your kids to pray, have them repeat after you. All of these things are things that we're, by doing personal worship, personal devotions to God and reading, then you'll be filling yourself with God's word. So that's naturally going to fill you up so that when it comes to leading family worship, you'll have too much to say. Your wife will be saying, honey, the kids need to go to bed, right? Like, but it will come out of you because you filled your mind and your heart with these things that then you'll be able to lead your family in that. And if you're gone, right? Fathers, if you're gone, have your wife do it, right? You should be helping your wife and helping her to be able to lead the family if you're not there to do it. Or if you're sick and your voice is gone, right? Just have your wife do it. It's great.

So we have, if we want to be transformed, we have personal worship, your personal devotions. You have family worship. Then there's corporate worship. Corporate worship, what we're doing right now, is one of the most important things that we can do as Christians. It is one of the greatest ways that God has given to revitalize us, to strengthen us, to encourage us. And so when it comes to corporate worship, Be on time. In fact, be in the service five minutes before it starts at least so that you can sit, you can clear your mind of all the problems that you've been having this week so that you can pray for your pastors and your elders and the musicians that God would be with them and help them to lead you in worship, right? It's work to be up here.

And everyone who's up here leading in worship has a lot of work to do to focus on that and not to focus on themselves and to repair their hearts because they might have been fighting with their family on the way here too, right? And so your prayers for them are so important. be in the service early and begin praying and preparing your heart and asking God to be here in the midst of our worship so that it would be powerful. One way to help with that is on the way to church, pray, have your kids pray and sing songs the whole way. Do it. It's one of the best ways to not have arguments and kids fighting with each other on the way to church. Like it's good for you. And also if you want peaceful car rides, Sing hymns together. Sing kids, like, it's amazing. It's great. Another thing, if this is so important, then we ought to stay in the worship. We ought not to be getting up and going to the bathroom and letting our kids be in and out of their pews. We should sit and we should listen. We need to train our kids to sit still and to listen.

Or to sit still and color. But to be in the worship so that they learn and that they'll be transformed as well. Teaching them to be quiet. And when we do take our kids out to the mother's room, we should not be talking to the other mothers. Fellowships after the service. And if we're sitting with our kids on the couch over there, our phones should be turned off in our pockets. They shouldn't be out. Think about it. We're worshiping God. How do people at lunch, when you have a lunch meeting, like it when you're there sitting, going like this with them, right? How much more so when we're in the presence of God worshiping him? If you have questions, look around today and see whose kids are sitting in the rows quietly and listening, and then go ask that parent how they did it. Your kids are doing this. How? Teach me. Help me learn. It's work. I tell you, it's work.

But it gets easier. Okay. So what else? Sing. Music helps guide our emotions in worship. It helps us. Because remember we were talking about when God says to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice. And we said it means all of us. Right? Music is a way to help us. This is why music is so important. The kind of worship you listen to. And the kind of music you listen to. Because it helps guide our emotions. And so you want good words. And you want good music that helps you to lift your hearts to God that don't distract you from the worship of God. When we sing, put your body into it. Lift your hands. Use your body. When we kneel, kneel. Not just physically, but humble yourselves as you come to confession. When we stand and honor the word of God, then actually pay attention to the words. Don't just sort of mumble through the creed.

We listen to this sermon. The point of sermons, right, are to teach us, to convict us, to encourage us, to exhort us. The preaching of the word of God is the word of God. And so we ought to listen. If that's taking notes for you, if that's what helps, then take notes. We'll listen. And then there's also the other aspect is fellowship, right? After worship, we shouldn't just rush out. But we should take the opportunity to be around other Christians, and we should take the opportunity to learn from them. We should seek out counsel. We should seek encouragement. We should seek prayer. All of these things are going to help us to be transformed, to renew our minds, and to transform our lives to be more like Christ. And don't forget how it ends, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

God's will is good, acceptable, and perfect. And if you would know God's will, these are ways in which to help you discern God's will in your life. Because you'll be so steeped in scripture that you'll know who God is. And when you know him, I mean, how many of you could say, I know what my spouse is going to do in this particular situation, right? The longer you're married, the more... ability you have to sort of know what your wife would say, how they would respond, how they'd react to these types of things, right? Like you begin to learn the habits of each other. But that's, if you want to know God, then spend time in his word and you'll begin to think like a Christian. And that will transform your life to be more like Christ.

But it all begins with what are you putting into yourself? What are you feeding on? If it's social media and movies for hours and hours and a little bit of scripture crammed in for five or ten minutes maybe at the beginning of a day and then an hour and a half of worship on Sunday, then you are going to be conformed to this world. So you're either going to be transformed into the image of God or you are going to be conformed to the world. You are either being transformed into the image of God or you are being conformed to the world. If you're filling your mind with worldly chatter and neglecting the spiritual work of scripture, reading, and prayer, then you will inevitably be conformed to this world. So I urge you, give your heart and mind to the work of studying the Bible.

and to teaching your kids and your wives and those around you what you've learned. Do not neglect corporate worship and being preached to. If you give your heart and your mind and your soul to these things, then you will be transformed and you will look more like Christ. And this is my hope for this new year, that we would be like that, that we would read God's word and that it would be powerful. And we'd not have a form of godliness lacking power, but our lives would be transformed in lives of power. Let's pray.