MCC Podcasts
Romans 12 - Living the Transformed Life: Finding a Third Way to Live Within Our Culture | Ben Kerns
Good morning, everybody. Welcome again to Church. My name is Ben. I'm one of the pastors here on staff. And one thing that you might want to know about me, and you can use this information, however you like, is that I will almost always say yes, even, well, unless it's illegal, but even then I've been known to even still say yes. But if you say, "Ben, let's do this," I will pretty much always say yes. And part of that is because I live in my head and left my own devices. I'm happy to just think about things. So I kind of made a conscious decision like 10 years ago. If someone's saying, "Let's do this," you want to come, I'm like, "Yes." In fact, that's how I actually got into surfing. I'm not an athlete. I'm not a swimmer. But a bunch of guys are like, "You should go surfing." So I'm like, "Great. I'm going to learn how to go surfing." And so early on in my surfing career, I got my wetsuit. I got my board. I'm feeling all hip because I'm with the cool kids. And we go out to Boeliness. I'm like learning a little bit and mostly having fun. But there's this one morning where, apparently, where we normally go was not good enough for the people that I went with. And they said, "Hey, look over there by Stinson and the waves are better over there. Let's go over there." And I'm like, "Great." And now what's different is when girls go and plan things together, I've noticed that they actually pay attention to each other. Like, they go, "Hey, are you okay? Are you checking in? Oh, you're falling behind. Some conscientious girl in the group is like, "Are you okay? Boys don't do that." They're like, "You said yes, so away we go." So these guys, they take their surfboards. They start paddling like crazy across towards Stinson. And I go with them, and all of a sudden I'm paddling and I'm finding myself, I'm not going towards Stinson, I'm going out to sea because there's a little channel that creates a rip current and I am heading off to China. And I'm not a good swimmer and I'm not a good surfer and I'm paddling like crazy and I look up and I realize, "Whoa, this is not the right way." So of course, I turn back towards shore and I start paddling as hard as I can. And as I'm paddling as hard as I can, what's happening, am I getting closer to shore? No, I'm getting further away and I'm expending energy and I cannot breathe and I have this thought of like, "I'm so glad I have my life insurance and this, what a way to die." You know, what a way to die. I'm on my way to China and I'm like, "That's the end of it." Because I was like, if I did nothing, I'm going to China. If I worked as hard as I could, I'm just going to China slower. There's no way I was going to swim against this rip current. Now, those of you who are actually ocean aware, what are you supposed to do in a rip current? If you get caught in one, what are you actually supposed to do? Go sideways. I think I learned that in third grade, but I forgot. But finally, I'm figuring out, I'm like, "Okay, I got to get sideways." So you turn sideways and you're still kind of drifting out to sea but you're swimming and finally you get into like open water and you're like, "Oh, I remember just lying on my board and be like, 'I'm so thankful I didn't die.'" And I tell my wife this and she's like, "You need to paddle harder next time." She was not having it. The reason I tell that story is because I think what's interesting about a rip current is I feel like that is exactly what it's like living in Marin, living in our culture, living in our world, because in some sense, it's the ocean. You're surfing with buddies. Like, this is incredible. Like, to be in the ocean, even here, you're going to go out to China and die, like, "This is beautiful. It's so great." And so it ends up happening. There's this way in which the world works. There's the way in which we live here in Marin. There's like certain cultural norms and expectations and there's just this current and if you're not paying attention, all of a sudden you're like, "I'm in a beautiful spot, but I'm really far from where I want to be. I'm really far from the person I want to be." There's something that ends up like, "Gosh, this is just not quite right." And maybe we can't put our finger on it, right? So if we do nothing, we kind of get swept out to sea and then most of us, we freak out. So then what do we do? We just paddle like crazy. We're going to be like, "I'm never going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm not going to participate with this. And we just paddle as hard as we can upstream to try to plant our flag and go, "I'm not going to get to come to this culture that's molding and shaping me into the person I don't want to be." But what ends up happening, right? Just like in a rip current, that just wipes us out. For a minute you can paddle as hard as you can, but at some point you're going to get wiped out. But in a similar way to a rip current, there actually is a third way that we can navigate our culture. And that's we actually, we can't just do nothing and we can't go full frontal attack. We actually need to go to the side and there's this third way. We have to get out of the current totally. And that's what we're going to talk about today. We're in a series called Romans 12 about living this transformed life. And we want to live this transformed life. And the way we need to live that transformed life is we have to get out of the rip current. If we're in the rip current, we're going to always be missing it. And so Jesus I think offers us a really interesting way to step out of the rip current. And we're spending this season in Romans 12. And specifically today that's what we're going to talk about finding a third way to live within our culture. Because for whatever reason, for right now, all of us are living in this community. This is the world in which we're living. This is the community in which we're living. We can't just pick up shop and go somewhere else, I mean we can, but you're here today. So we're not doing it. We have to live in this culture, but we don't want to be swept out to see by going, I guess this is how it's going to be. And we can't just like be hermits in our houses, like I'm never going to like go outside ever again, right? So what is this third way? So if you have your Bibles, why turn to Romans chapter 12? And we're going to spend this morning, continue to walk through Romans 12. For the next this month, we are spending all month on Romans 12, 1 through 2. And today we're going to take a look at Romans chapter 12 verse 2, but let's read the whole thing in context. What page do you want if you have a Bible in front of you? 11, something, 7? 37, I think. There's Calvin. I got your voice. That's the new crowd. All right, 11, 37. So Romans chapter 12 verse 1 says this, "Therefore, and Shelley did an awesome job last week talking why that therefore is there for. So therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy to offer your buys as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, this is your true and proper worship." That's the picture. That is the big picture. And Shelley did such an incredible job mapping that out for us. Then it goes on to verse 2. So then how do we begin to do this? Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good pleasing and perfect will, excuse me. So this morning we're going to take a look at that middle phrase. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but rather be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And that's it, right? We are not to conform to the pattern of the world, but we're not to conform to the pattern of this age, the rhythms and structures that this world we live in. We are not to just conform to them. So we have to actually recognize that we're being swept out to see, get a bearing of where we are and going, "Gosh, what are we supposed to do?" But before we can even do that, we have to recognize, man, we are being swept out to see. So what are these patterns? What are these patterns of this world? And what's funny is I think just like being in the ocean, some of the patterns where we live are incredible, right? I mean, we live in a context where people genuinely care about the environment, not just for like a political club, but because they care about how beautiful it is where we live. We want to be good stewards of the environment, and so we care about that. We care about diversity and inclusion. We care about the poor and the marginalized. We care about justice. It's like those are things that in our culture, like there's parts of the other parts of the country that could care less about those things, but in America, yes, we care about those things and we should care about those things, right? There's also parts of those patterns of the world, though, that are challenging and we kind of get sucked into, right? We have to make a certain amount of money to live here, and so wealth and the income and equality of where we live and what it costs to live here and what that costs to our souls and what we jobs we say yes to, right? There's a pattern that kind of sweeps us away because of that. There's a bunch of hidden things too, but I don't want to get too gnarly about that. We can have coffee about all those things, but I was thinking, but this is the ocean. It's the beautiful in some things, and there's an undercurrent in other things, but one of the things I did want to talk about the pattern of this age, because this pattern actually matters for, it doesn't matter if you live in Marin, anywhere you live in our country, anywhere you almost live in Western civilization, this is a through line that's kind of happening that we need to pay attention to because I think what ends up happening, like a rip current, it's underneath. Like if you look at a picture at top, it's like, "Oh, everything's great," but there's this current underneath that is sweeping us aside, and what's happening is this current, this pattern of our age is that we as human beings have gone from we are human beings who were made in the image of God, and we had our whole life and our purpose wrapped up in faith, and in who God was, there's a sociologist and they talk about religious man, right? Religious man was the person who grew up in the era before the enlightenment, who's understanding of who God is, kind of framed who they were, who their tribe was, and it didn't even matter necessarily Christian man, it just meant religious man. Every tribe over the whole world had a world of view in which there was a God or God's, right? A hierarchy of power structure that they were under and God was that person, and then the enlightenment comes along and they say, "Actually, you don't need religion, God's dead, wipe out God," but actually, you still need to have duty and purpose, and your purpose was to still serve the civics, you know, to have high morality and like classical liberalism is that, right? And many of us, kind of, that's how we, that's our world view, like whether there's God or not God, we're good people, we love our neighbor, and we want to do the right thing. But we're autonomous people, we're not accountable to God anymore, but we're now we want to have duty, right? That's kind of like moral man. And then the last, basically, since, well, sociologists go back, man, it could have been in the 1880s or the 20s, but in the 60s was really when moral man gets thrown out of the window, and there's no more moral man, now it's therapeutic man, and that's the pattern of the age that we live in. We live in this moment where we as human beings, we're not human beings, we are individuals, right? We are our own people. If that's Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I don't know if you're ever saying, "Oh, pyramid, very top is like self-actualization," like, "Who am I? What makes me happy? Am I happy? Am I fulfilled?" And what happens is we're not tied to any other person, even our spouse, even our children, even our job. We're not tied to those things. It's our personal happiness, our personal autonomy, our personal pleasures. Those are the highest value. And even as Christians, we just see that in us, like you just think of what we want to do and who we want to be, and it's almost always rooted and framed in my personal happiness, my personal pleasures, my personal joys. Jeff turned me on to this book, this giant book I'm only like a third of the way through. It's called The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, and Carl Truman is this incredible Christian sociologist, and it is a thick, thick book. But I love this quote. It says this, "The modern self is driven by a relentless pursuit of individual autonomy and self-expression." Does that just not check out? It's not just like a noble pursuit, it is relentless. We have coaches and therapists, and even when we do that, it's not to how do I be a better person for civilization, or how do I be a better Christian for the Christian world is, how do I feel most fulfilled and most content and most happy? And what's interesting is, I mean, you're like, "Yeah, that's exactly how it is." And that's why it's like a rip current because it's beautiful, we're in the ocean, but if this ends up being the foundation of who we are, man, and we just get swept out to sea. So how in the world do we not conform to that worldview? That I think is the ultimate question because that is the rip current, that is the undercurrent that is pulling all of us. Our personal satisfaction, our personal joys, our personal emotional well-being is our number one thing. And while those things are important, having that be the primary thing is going to sweep us out to sea. But what I love about the scriptures is Jesus and the scriptures and the way the teachings of the scriptures always give this third way because almost every culture, that's almost, every culture, every cultural current has some little beautiful picture of who God is, and then there's some broken shadow side in it. The reason why this resonates with us, that the therapeutic man resonates with us, because we do want to be good people, we do want to experience happiness and joy. And Jesus even says, "The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but I've come that you might have life and have it abundantly. Who doesn't want to have life?" Jesus says, "If you want to save yourself, if you want to have eternal life, then follow me." That was a jacked up version of that verse. I'm like three slides ahead, I apologize for that. Okay. Let's slow down a minute. Okay. So, how in the world do we conform? And have you heard this phrase before, "Be in the world, but not of the world," right? We've heard that Christians have said it forever. Did you know that that's actually not in the Bible? Like there's not Bible verses, "Be in the world and not of the world." But there's actually some pictures that we get through scripture that do kind of draw that out. So there's a couple I wanted to highlight. In Philippians chapter three, verse 20 says this, "But our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ." So one of the ways that we combat our culture, one of the ways we get out of the rip current is to recognize that our citizenship is not in America, our citizenship is not in Marin, our citizenship is not in Larkspur, right? Our citizenship is in heaven. That is our home, that is what shapes us, that is home-based. Right? When we go and you travel to places like, you know, you bring your culture with us. You try to be good, you know, good guests somewhere. But that's it, you're a guest because you're a citizen of here. And so if we want to understand and not, we want to start stepping out of the rip current, we have to recognize, "Oh, I'm a citizen of heaven." That's my true home. That's my true place of belonging. In first Peter chapter two, verse 11 and 12, it says this, "Dear friends, I urge you as foreigners and exiles to abstain from sinful desires which wage war against your soul." Oh, did I write that wrong? Live such good lives among the pagans that they excuse the wrong doing. Dude, I've been out of control this week. Right before that, it talks about that we're supposed to live as foreigners and exiles. I'll fix that for the 1045 service. Okay, great. So not only are we citizens of heaven, but we're also then to live as foreigners and exiles, which is verse 10, not verse 11, okay? And then, and then lastly, it says this, that we are ambassadors of Christ. We employ you on Christ have to be reconciled to God. And so, the way that we step out of this is we have to look up and realize we are being swept out to see and instead of just fighting against the current, we step out and go, "Oh my goodness, this is not my home." And not only is this not my home, we're not even just visitors here. We're exiles here. Like God, for whatever reason, has us in this moment on earth to live in the world as citizens of heaven, but we're exiles. We're not going to get absorbed by the world. We have to have a live, a distinct life while we're waiting for Jesus to do whatever he's going to do next. And not only are we just waiting, what I love is that Jesus actually gives us purpose. He says, not only are we supposed to have purpose, but what the purpose is that we're to live as ambassadors, that even in this cultural moment where it feels like everything is being swept out to see, even though individual autonomy is the king and people just do their own thing and be careless, we as Christians are supposed to be ambassadors to Christ, supposed to offer reconciliation and grace to people who need it. What I love is one of my favorite theologians, Karl Barth, says this. He says, "We're supposed to hold the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other." You'd say, you know, TikTok in the other if it was today. But the reality is that as Christians, we recognize we don't just live in the Bible and we don't just like, we don't just close up our doors and live in a sheltered community and just keep our head down and just read the scriptures and pray, pray, pray that God will someday rescue us. And we also just don't live in the world ago. I mean, you can't beat him, join him, right? That's not how we live. We live in this middle ground where we know the scriptures. The scriptures mold us and shape us and train our brains. And then because it does that, we know how to live in this world. So we go, oh, this is where the cultural current is going and we're going to step out of it and we're going to step out of it so that we can be ambassadors of Christ and bring grace and reconciliation. What's so cool, Paul, this is exactly what Paul did in Acts, right? He goes to Athens and he's wandering around the streets of Athens and he sees this, he sees a statue to the unknown God and he goes, oh my goodness, you know this poem that you like, the song that you like singing and the statue? He says, gosh, you are such religious people, but you're just barking up the wrong tree, right? And then he tells this whole, he turns up sharing the whole gospel with them and he was able to do that because he was, hey, walking around the city and you can see those statues. He actually knew the poets of the time so he could say, oh my goodness, just like this and he could connect those two things to the gospel. And so if we want to not just be swept out of sea and we're not just fight against it, we need to be people who understand the scriptures, who understand what God is saying about who we are, the world that we're living in so that we can then help the people around us get out of the rip curtain as well. So do not conform to the patterns of this world. That's the first thing. But then it says, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That's how we do it. Is we need to recognize that there's a pattern of this world and it is conforming us whether we like it or not. We are being swept out to sea and the scriptures say, okay, do not be conformed to the pattern of this world. We need to step out of that. But then what? Well, the then what is that we are to be transformed by the image, I mean, be transformed. Oh my gosh, by the renewing of your mind. Thank you. So here's the deal that we have been made new. I hope these scriptures are more accurate. We're going to find out. So but this is the good news of the gospel. This is the good news that we get to live into. This is the things that we need to tune our minds forward. We are not just people who are trying to be better people. We're not people who are just trying to live a more holistic life or a more fulfilled life. We are people who have been made new. The reason why we gather, the reason why we sing worship songs is because we are people who have encountered the living God who have saved us, who's forgiven us, who's given us the Holy Spirit and has transformed us. We are transformed people. We are made new. We're not just worms, right? We've gone through the process and now we're these beautiful butterflies ready to be used by God's purpose. Here's a couple of passages, scriptures, right, that just point this out. 2 Corinthians 5, 17. This is the truth. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation is gone. The old is gone, the new is here. If you've given your heart to Christ, the old is gone. What I love is Benny, right? You gave your life to Christ. You're like, "Oh, man, I was such a wreck," blah, blah, but you're not a wreck. You're a new person. You gave your life to Christ. You've been made new. When you're thinking about, "Gosh, I'm such a horrible person. I can't believe this. I can't believe this." We have those tapes in our heads go over and over and over again. We need to be transforming our minds because the truth is those are old tapes. That's not who you are. You've been made new. You're a new person. And if those old tapes are there, then you cannot be transformed. So we're transformed by the renewing of our mind. One is knowing the truth. In Ezekiel 36, verse 26, it says this, "I will give you a new heart. I will put a new spirit in you, and I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." I love that passage of scripture because, again, it's the work of the Holy Spirit. It is not on you to go, "God, make my heart better. Make my heart bigger. Give me peace. Help me be at peace with all the chaos that's happening in my life." We don't just work hard, hard, try to make it happen. The truth is renewing our mind is reminding ourselves that the Holy Spirit is the one who comes inside of us and gives us a new heart. He gives us his spirit, and we need to renew our minds and remember those truths so that we quit trying to do this on our own but to let the Holy Spirit do the work in us. Ephesians 4, verse 22 says, "You were taught with regard to your formal way of life to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires, and then you made new in the attitude of your mind to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." What I love is this is the process of sanctification. The transformation that happens with the renewing of our minds reminds us that we are these new people, and we live into this new reality, and what's hard is that so many Christians and the way religious people forever and ever have just basically had this worldview of behavior modification, just do this, do this, do this, and then you can fit in with church people. And it's just in us, like if we're just good religious people, then we're going to fit in with church people, but that is so boring, and it actually doesn't even get us where we want to get to. We want to get to the point where we are transformed people. The old self is gone, and we're living into the new self. Sanctification is this idea that God has already saved us, that in God's eyes we are already made new, we are already righteous women and men, and then sanctification is just owning that and living into that new reality. And so there is work to be done, but that work is not that God will love you more, that work is not so that church people love you more, that work is simply to, it's like the paddling to get out of the rip current. That's all that is. We all have work to do, but we have to understand it's not work in the classic religious sense, it's work that connects us to Christ, so the Holy Spirit is what does the work. And then lastly, I love this in Revelation, he says that he was seated on the throne and says, "I am making everything new." He said, "Write these things down for your words are trustworthy and true." This idea of newness and transformation, this is the heart of God, and this is the thing that God is going to do at the end. At some point at the end of it all, God is going to make all things new, and because they're not made new now, we feel this unsettledness in us, and that unsettledness in us is actually just longing for our true home because we're citizens of heaven, we're longing for the things of God to come and be made new here. So we do that internally, and we do that ultimately, longing for God to do that in the big thing. So God has made all things new. So here's how transformation begins. I think one of the ways that transformation begins is by we actually have to embrace new narratives, because at the end of the day, how we think matters, how we view ourselves, how we view God, how we view the world actually matters, and we know it matters because many of you are therapists, many of you have been to therapy, and so much of therapy is you're unpeeling these narratives of your life. You have a way in which you understand the world because of our families of origin or things that have happened to us, and you have this demented view of yourself, and a therapist gets to sit back and go, "Hey, let's unspool those things, let's figure out why you think those ways about you," and if you actually walk through that process, you actually have a new sense of who you are, and those things that happen to you, you have a new place to put them, and those narratives actually help you find wholeness. Well, really, that's just a picture of what happens in Scripture, because Scripture is the thing that ultimately shapes our narratives, ultimately shapes our understanding of who we are, what we belong to, and what we were called to do. Eric Erickson, another one of my favorite sociologists, he came up with his idea of how we individuate, how we become healthy adults. These are the three questions we have to answer, "Who am I? Where do I belong, and what am I supposed to do?" Those are the three questions that all of us are wrestling with. I know adults in their late 60s who are still like, "I don't know how to answer these questions," and if those questions aren't answered, there's all this anxiety, all this stuff has jumbled up in us, and what's interesting, the current of our culture, where our individual happiness is the center, we think the way that I answer those three things is I'm just going to be happy, and I'm going to do what I want, and I'm not going to be accountable to anybody. And the people who live like that, it seems really fun for a short term, but we're not wired to live that way, and it always ends up flat. So what's incredible about the Christian narrative, the Christian super story, is there's a way to answer those questions that I think is the most beautiful way ever. It's why I've given my life to Jesus, it's why I've given my life to the church, it's why many of you are here today to remind ourselves that, "Oh, I'm not the center of the universe." However, I am made in the image of God. I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. God knows the hairs on my head. He's fascinated with me. He loves me. He sings and dances over me. I'm his precious daughter, I'm his precious son, I'm a co-air with him. Like all throughout the Scriptures, we get over and over again that there's this heavenly Father who loves us and cares for us and has adopted us into his family. So who am I? I am a child of God, a child of God. And where do I belong? I belong with him. I belong to you, right? We're saved later on in Romans 12 that we're the body of Christ and we belong to one another. I don't just belong to myself, I don't just belong to my wife, I don't just belong to my family that shares my DNA, but I belong to you and you belong to me. When you grieve, I grieve. When you celebrate, I celebrate and the church at its best, we belong to one another. That's why we start with having barbecue meat and roll and dice. That's just the very beginning. It's just a hook. It's a little thing that we do, but the idea is that ultimately we find true friendship, and not even just true friendship, but true belonging. The picture of the Christian life, the meta-narrative, is not that you were out there all by yourself as an adopted kid by yourself, but you were in this giant family with other Christians. Not just here in Marin, but all over the world. So who am I? Where do I belong and what am I called to do? Did you know that you have been empowered by the Holy Spirit, that you've been gifted and called in a very unique way? You have gifts and talents that are your superpower that are mesmerizing to me. I have my little gifts and talents, you have your little gifts and talents, and God longs for you to understand what your unique gifts and talents are and for you to employ them for the betterment of his kingdom. So you have a calling, and part of the Christian discipleship, the Christian narrative is to explore those, to learn those, not for your personal fulfillment, but for the fulfillment of God's glory. And what's wild is when you actually do that, when you understand who you are in God, you understand that you're willing to submit and belong to one another, and you're willing to use your gifts for the kingdom of God, but it ends up happening, oh my goodness, you are somebody who is going to live an abundant life like Jesus says. So those are the narratives. A couple of things I think that are helpful, no, that's good enough, okay, all right. So how are we going to adjust the grooves in our mind, right? We have these stories in our brains, we have these narratives in our brain. How are we going to adjust them? How are we going to unspool them so that we can actually live this transformed life? Because that's really the bottom line. So I'm going to offer a couple of things, very practical. You can be offended and hate them, you can never try them, you can pick something different. I'm just going to offer a couple of ideas, okay. We have things that form our brains, usually we're just being swept out to see, most of us aren't thoughtful enough or reflective enough with all the things that shape our brain and we're just being swept out to see. So here's a couple of things to try. This week, try, what if you gave up pornography this week? What would be like for your brain? What if you gave up your romance novels and just gave those up? Those are things that shape our brain and we just slip right into it, we don't even realize how it's impacting our soul. And maybe you have a PG-13 version of those things, I decided to be dramatic just to have a quiet pause, but there's a PG-13 version of all those things. Maybe this is a week to give up TikTok, give up MSNBC. What would it be like to step back from the things that shape us and shape our world and cause anxiety and cause us to send us out to see and we say I'm not going to do those things? What would be, if you replace those things, what if this was the week that you memorized Romans 12, 1 through 2? And filled your brain with that and began to change the narrative inside of you. There's this passage in Philippians, right, says that we're going to consider one another above ourselves. The cultural moment is that we are the epicenter, our happiness is the center of our being. What would it be like for this week that every time you were feeling unhappy or unfulfilled or feeling selfish or in the center of your universe, if you're like, oh, that's my trigger to put someone's else's needs above my own and to try to trick your brain. What would it be like to care for somebody above yourself? All right, those are a couple of things to try that I think you should just, and maybe God has put something different for you to try as well, but I think that's something for you to try because the whole reason is we just don't want you to be swept out to see. Every single thing that we talk about here at church, the whole reason why we preach the way we do, why we set up community, the way that we do is that we don't want you to be swept out to see. It is beautiful in the ocean, and it's beautiful on the way to China, but at the end of the day, right, that is a lost cause, and it does not bring fulfillment, even though the culture around us says that being self-absorbed is the thing. We want you to be transformed people, to live transformed lives, and I'm a little partial because I love our church so much, but this room is full of transformed people. All week I spent time with transformed people. That's one of the benefits of being around a church long enough is like, "Oh my goodness, I remember these kids when they were high schoolers, and now they're young men who have been transformed by the Holy Spirit and are living these incredible, godly lives." We had a leadership team retreat this last weekend, and I sat around this room with Jeff and I, and we sat around with these leaders who are the leaders of our church, and God has met them and transformed them, and you get to know their stories, you're like, "You did what? You came from what?" Because in a Sunday morning, you say, "Oh, you're just a nice beautiful marine person." But you get to know their story, like, "Oh my goodness, you have been changed, and you have been transformed." And that is our goal, that is our dream, that is our hope for you, is that you would be transformed people, right, so those little things to try out are just, are not in a religious way, or you're going to be a better person, or Jeff and I are going to like you better. Those are things to try so that you too can be a transformed person, that you can take your place and your calling as God's precious daughter, his precious son, that you would belong to me, and I would belong to you as part of the body of Christ, and that you would live out your calling to be an ambassador, to use your unique gifts and talents to help other people out of the rip current. Let's pray together, and we'll worship, and we'll call it a morning. Heavenly Father, in our gracious God, I'm so thankful that you love us. And I just have to confess, I love living in the world. I love the TikToks, I love getting distracted, and I'm not even paying attention to how my poor heart is being deformed, and how I'm being swept out to see, and so I just pray for me, and for some of my friends, that this week would maybe be a week that we simply just put our head up above the water and look around to recognize where we are, and really stop the movement of moving out to see, and to swim out of the rip current. That this might be a week that we would get a little glimpse and taste of what it's like living the transformed life, and that you would already be doing the work of renewing our minds, changing our meta-narratives so we can live into our true identity and our true calling. And may all that be for the glory of your son Jesus, and all of God's kids said, Amen,