Summer in Rome | Romans 12:9-21

Some of us define spiritual maturity by what we know. Others define it by what we avoid. Romans 12 points to something deeper—and far more difficult. Paul invites us to reconsider how we measure spiritual growth and whether we’re becoming the kind of people Jesus is actually forming us to be. Join Pastor Ben Kaempfer as he continues our study of Romans 12.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good morning. This morning's scripture is Romans 12, 9 through 21, marks of the true Christian. Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil. Hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation. Be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints. Seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. For it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For by doing so you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. The word of God for the people of God. You may be seated. Seated, kids, you are dismissed.

SPEAKER_02 1:12

Kids, y'all can take everybody say thanks to Mark. Sarge, as I call him. And kids, if y'all are going into this is Move Up Sunday, by the way. So we have some fresh uh going into sixth grade students with us. Um so if that's you, you're welcome to come back and hang with your parents or or whatever. Some of you guys might not know this. Uh, a couple things, just like church governance-wise, we got a couple things happening, but one of them is uh Sergeant Mark Meadows, or formerly Sergeant Mark Meadows, um, has accepted the position for us as our head deacon, um, which is a volunteer position, but he basically, yeah, a lot of the the functional and the operational ministry um of our church. Um he helps to lead kind of just the the people and to fill the groups and all that kind of stuff. So uh if you hear from Mark in the future, that's that's probably why. My name is Ben, by the way, and I have the honor of serving as a lead pastor here at Downtown Community Church. And I say that in a very sincere way. Um it's it's an honor to be able to sit and talk, uh, especially on a Father's Day uh weekend. And so I want to um just as I'm about to pray for us, just you know, we've said Happy Father's Day a couple times. I just want to acknowledge that any day like today is a mixed bag. But for some of us, I mean, it's an awesome day. We're gonna get to celebrate and you know, have some, I don't know, well, you know, we today is like the classic, well, we're gonna eat barbecue or steak or burgers, you know, or maybe you're like, I eat a salad, which is great. But for all of us, there's a lot of celebration that happens, but for some of us also there's a lot of pain that exists today. And so I just want you to know wherever you are and whoever you are, and whatever today represents for you. Today, if if if it's a if it's a celebratory day and and your dad's still here, if it's a celebratory day but your pop father isn't here, or if it's a difficult day because you never had a father, or just the thought of a father becomes really difficult for you. I want you to notice we're here with you and we're praying for you. Um and I actually know some of the people that I love the most have the most difficult time referring to God as a father because the difficulty they have with theirs. And I just want you to know if that's you, then I just have a special prayer for you today, that you would see the perfect Heavenly Father as the ultimate of what would have, could have, and should have been. And so let me just pray for all of us as we get into His Word this morning. God, I ask that you would help us to see you clearly, to know you better, Jesus. I pray for everyone here who is celebrating today that that would be done well and with joy and rightly so. And for everyone who is in pain today, that you would be close to those who mourn. And you would hold them and you would bind them up. And you would help today to at least be a memory of a day that they can look back and they were loved by you. They're perfect heavenly. As we get into your word, Jesus, would you help us to see, no matter where we are in our relationship with you, for those of us who have been walking with you for a long time, or for those of us who are maybe in the room and we're not even sure what we believe, would you help us to see what it looks like to live a life after you, King Jesus? And it's in your name we pray. Amen. Amen. All right, so we are um we are rolling in a series where we're going through the book of Romans, uh the the second kind of the last third, really, of the book of Romans, chapters 12 through 16, which is a lot of how we should live in light of chapters 1 through 11. 1 through 11, massive um movements of doctrine where he's basically bringing everybody to the awareness that they need Jesus, um, that we've all sinned, we've all fallen short of the glory of God, and God knows this. God made a way for us to be great with him. That was apart from the things that we do, from the things that we say, from the ways that we behave. In fact, it was specifically not just apart from those things, but apart from any version or variation of earning that we could create in ourselves, that God in his mercy did not expect us to have perfect obedience or merit. Instead, he sent his son to die for us so that we could be reconciled to him and not just be forgiven. But he would actually invite us into this new new life. You see, the mercies of God are not just simply the forgiveness that we receive, but the life that we're invited into, this life that actually is light, this life that actually is life, this life that feels like it's this, it's this spring of water that continually, continually just almost projects out of us. But he says it in a way in these verses that I think get at the core, honestly, of what's difficult about being a Christian. The more I've read these verses, the more I the more I see that I think one of the things that we get wrong continually in the Christian life is spiritual maturity. I think one of the things that we continually get wrong is the conceptualization of what that means and what we're actually even going for. And the reason why I say that is if I was to ask you right now, what, what, there's two ways I think you can ask this question. Number one is what does it look like in your eyes and in your mind? And I want you to just think about this for a second. What does it look like in your eyes and your mind for someone to be spiritually mature? Like what does that actually mean? Is it how much they read? Is it how much they pray? Is it how much they know? Is it, you know, that as they're going along and you're you're in a community group, I want you to think about this. Maybe you're in a Bible study, right? And you are hearing people talk. And have you ever been in one of these? There's there's kind of two positions that people, maybe three, there's like one position where somebody comes into a group and you're like completely scared, insecure, like everybody knows the Bible more than I do. Oh my gosh, lions, tigers, bears, oh my, community group, right? And there's some of us who walk in and you're at kind of maybe like a middle state where you kind of know you feel a little bit comfortable, but you're not like the person, person. But then there's some people who walk into a community group, and like every community group you walk into, you know you're one of the mature believers. At least that's what it feels like. And if you were to describe what is that person, it's also oftentimes the thing internally that we feel like we're missing. And it usually comes around to I need to read more, I need to know more, need to memorize more verses. And what's interesting is Paul in Romans 12 says, in view of God's mercy, present our bodies as living sacrifices. God, whatever you want, wherever you want. Then he says, okay, here's what that looks like. It looks like, verse 2, you're no longer conforming to what this world's patterns are, but you're being transformed. Why? By the renewing of your minds. But when he says that, it's an idea of your minds, your hearts, your attentions, your affection that you're looking and beholding the face and the person of Jesus. And then interesting, look what he goes into next as he begins to explain what a transformed life looks like. He begins to look at, say, what this is what it looks like for somebody to live with their life as if they are a living sacrifice. And he continually, and we will see this over and over, goes to this simple idea of how you and I treat people. How you and I treat people. This is what he says in chapter 12, verse 9. Actually, let me read verse 3. You're gonna see how he's building this. For the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. I want you to think about how you see yourself. Verse 4. For in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function. So we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. So he says, okay, here's what a transformed life looks like. Right view of self. In right view of the fact that you have a gifting and somebody else has a gifting and somebody else has a gifting. And so, what do we all do with those giftings? We use those giftings. What do we not do? We don't see our gift as the ultimate and think, man, I wish everybody else had my gift. In fact, when you see somebody else that has a different gift than you, the point is it to be jealous of their gift. It's to be thankful for it. So he says, okay, I want you to understand the grace that God's given you. And I want you to understand that you have a gift to add, to contribute, to help, to love, to serve. In fact, having gifts that differ from one another according to the grace given to us, he says, let us use them. If prophecy in proportion to our faith, if service in our serving, the one who teaches in his teaching, the one who exhorts in his exhortation, the one who contributes in generosity, the one who leads with zeal, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness. So he's just kind of begun to explain this idea that what God is doing as he's renewing the minds of his new covenant community, this new life, this new humanity called the church, which is to bring in and to usher in not just this sense of here's what you need to know, but bring in the kingdom of God. And he says, so here's what that looks like. Number one, understand yourself. Number two, I want you to understand you have a gift that's to build up, not to break down. And number three, I want you to use that to proportion that it's given to you. And then he continues, and here's why I think he has to go to this next movement. Because here's what every single one of us know. If you do those things, engage with one another, serve one another, right? We actually connect, we actually spend time together. It creates problems. You want to know why? Because y'all are difficult, you know? Like you're you're tough, you know. I mean, like I am too, right? Like I get it. Like I'm, man, like my wife will tell you, my kid, like I am incredibly stubborn, but like to me, it makes total sense. Like, I'm not stubborn, I'm just right, you know? This makes sense. For instance, I wasn't stubborn. It just didn't make sense to me that when we first got married, you needed to close the shower curtain. How else would you easily get back into it? As it turns out, if you don't close it, or if you don't, it doesn't dry at mildews, right? Man, I'm stubborn. Right, for a long time I'm like, no, no, right? And so, and here's why I say that. That's a really small version, but let's be honest. The reason some of you don't like your group is because of the fact that there's people in your group that are difficult. Right? When you serve, sometimes you wonder, are they taking advantage? When you serve, sometimes you're like, but why aren't they serving? When you when you love, when you help, you bump up and you come against other people, especially internally in the church. And here's what's so incredible about that. We are all broken people. We all have difficult parts. And so he does not leave us in a narrative blank on the other side of that and say, I know it's gonna be tough, good luck. He says again, this is what it looks like to have a transformed life, to have a transformed mind. He says, Let love be genuine. Let love not be duplicative. Let love that's kind of the idea again of without cracks, without hypocrisy. Churches are places that it's so easy to have the disease of niceness. Without an abundance of love.

unknown 13:20

Right?

SPEAKER_02 13:20

We smile at people. Oh, man, that's awesome. Good for you. Blessings, brother. He says, No, there should be this sense of genuineness about it. And he says, this is what I want you guys to think of. He says, Man, abhor what is evil and hold fast to what is good. Abhor that idea of abhor means be horrified. Be horrified by what's evil. And hold fast, cling to what is good. What's interesting about this when he says this, this this in some ways kind of captures all of the rest of what is about to be said. But it's this idea of hating the things that God hates and loving the things that God loves. And I'm gonna hate those things that are evil. And there is absolutely a sense in this which we are living towards and for holiness. But here's what I've found is that some of us view maturation as information. And some of us view maturation as simply the avoidance of evil. Right? Like, like you avoid the big sins. You don't drink, you don't smoke, you don't cuss, you don't look at porn. Like, like you here, here are the big things that I avoid. And is the Bible saying that don't avoid those to embrace those? No, no, no, no, not at all. Is the point, so we should just not know information? No, not at all. It's actually the opposite. And I think here's what Paul's fighting for, and I think here is why he spent 11 chapters unpacking doctrine and information, not because doctrine and information wasn't important, but you have to see this. The entire purpose of all of those things, of the way that we're living in holiness and the truth that we excavate and come towards God is really simple. That we would be a people who are more loving towards God and towards people because, because we're living and looking in holiness more like God, we know things, we know God, we know who God is, and it's not puffing us up, it's actually building the body up. We're hating what's evil and loving what's good because to not hate what's evil and to not love what's good is not loving. It's not loving for me to see my kid and say, Yeah, you know, Abe, that's a hot stove. Why don't you just put your hand on it and see how long you can hold it sizzle, you know? That'd be terrible. So I want you to cling to what's good, put yourself from what's evil. Continues. In fact, he just does a ton of it. This is continue. He says, he says, so love one another with brotherly affection. This was radical again in their day. This was Jew and Gentile coming together, young and old coming together, rich and poor coming together. Did you know that in their context, they were doing church with people culturally, they would not even sit at the same table as. Now I don't mean like culturally it was in common. I mean culturally, it was it was reprehensible. That you would eat a Jew with a gentile, a young with the old, a slave with the free. And he looks around and says, Not only do you put up with them, I want you to think about them like your brothers and your sisters. In fact, I want you to outdo one another in showing honor. You know what that means? I want you to competitively try to outhonor one another. Let me just pause here. If you're in here and you are skeptical of church, Jesus, Christianity, there's a good chance that you would think about Christians differently if they just did this one verse. If then you actually saw this sense of affection, of care, of course, you are part of my family, you're part of the family of God. And what you saw in churches wasn't people and wasn't yelling, it wasn't screaming, it was people who were committed to competitiveness. But the competitiveness in their soul was that I'm going to competitively put you above everybody else. I'm going to competitively honor you. I'm going to outdo in how I honor you. No, it's hard to hate your brother or your sister and honor them. It's hard. In fact, I would say it's impossible. To sleep with your boyfriend and your girlfriend and honor them. And at the same time, to hold a grudge and not forgive your spouse and honor them. You see that? It's the same thing. This is why the informational and the moral parts are filled in love God and love your neighbor. And that's the point he's making. Is you begin to see that, oh my gosh, this is listening to God, hating what's evil, loving what's good, actually is what creates and clings to human flourishing. It's what brings life. He says, so don't be slothful in zeal. Be fervent in the spirit. In other words, and don't just mail this whole thing in. Don't just think, okay, you know, I'm just, you know, this is my thing, this is my sin. He said, No, no, no. This is it. I want you to be fervent in the spirit. I want you to serve the Lord. When life gets difficult, I want you to rejoice in hope. In other words, he says to the Christian, I know that this life of loving and serving, of outdoing, of honoring, of this radical reconciliation of different tribes, tongues, nations, peoples, all coming together under the banner of Jesus. Why? To glorify Jesus. He says, I know it's going to be difficult. In fact, you're going to face some persecution. He's going to talk about it in these things. He says, but I want you to rejoice. Rejoice in what? Not because this world is so rejoiceable, not because everything's good, everything's good. He says, I want you to rejoice in the hope that at the end of this life, God is going to make everything right. That He is the keeper of justice. That He is the keeper of vengeance. We're not going to rejoice in the hope that He's going to wipe away every tear from every eye. Rejoice in the hope that He died for me. I'm eternity with Him. And He's actually put His Spirit in me, in dwelling. As a down payment. Not as God would say, I did that 2,000 years ago. Now good luck. Because that wouldn't be a very thoughtful father. He says, I'm never going to leave you. I'm never going to abandon you. I will be with you. In fact, it's better if I go. And the Spirit is going to be in you. The Spirit's going to create a continual desire. So I want you to rejoice. Through the Spirit. And the hope that you have. Which means that I want you to be patient when things get difficult in tribulation. And not only patient in tribulation. But it's patient because hope is hope that this life is not real life. Hope that what Jesus said is real. Hope that God, and not hope is in, like I hope it's true, but hope is in this firm, clear conviction that this is why I'm doing this, because I know what God has for me. And this anchors me because things get crazy and tribulation and people get difficult. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to be constant in prayer because, man, to do this, to live this life, you have to. You see this? Whenever you actually begin to do these things, right? Whenever we actually say, okay, I'm going to love you. I'm going to serve you. I'm going to come together with you in such a way that these things that I'm holding fast to what is good. I'm loving you with brotherly affection. I'm outdoing with honor. I'm not being slothful in zeal, being fervent in the spirit, I'm serving the Lord. What does that mean? Oftentimes I'm serving you. And so I'm rejoicing in hope. That's difficult. Tribulations, it's difficult. He says, okay, so pray. Pray. When we don't pray and bring these things to God, it's incredibly difficult to be patient and Tribulation and rejoice in hope. At least in my life, and I don't know if this is true of you, but at least in my life, a lack of prayer means that my hope is oftentimes in myself. Because I can control it and I'm gonna work it and I'm gonna figure it out and I don't have time to pray. Let me tell you, that's continually difficult for me, especially in our culture, which is kind of like a self-made culture. You can do it, hustle, work, grind. I think we should be absolutely energetic in our zeal. But if my grind and work ethic and intellect and emotional intelligence are my hope, then they're gonna fail me. Because I'm human. He says, so be constant in prayer. Continue, continue, or contribute to the needs of the saints. Be generous. And not just generous with what you give, generous with who you bring in. One of the things that's that's that I know that we struggle with this, especially and I maybe globally, but I know especially in the United States, over the last 50 years, and you can look at different versions and variations of statistics and surveys, over the last 50 years, we have smaller relational circles and friend groups as a country than we ever have before. And we have bigger home sizes in our country than we ever have before. Have more room for less people. Because it's all about you. He said, No, no, no, that that's not with my people. Because that's not what I did. I didn't come to be served, but I came to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many. That I welcomed people, I ate with people, I died. Did you know, by the way, us as a church, we do our best if we have at times people who are going to need something that they're gonna need to eat later. But when we do any type of feeding type thing, eating type thing, we almost never feed people, we almost always eat with people. And the reason is it's because it's hospitable, it's sharing our lives, it's not a doctor-patient relationship. So he says, I want you to continue to contribute to the needs of the saints because sometimes you're gonna have needs, sometimes I'm gonna have needs, but we all just have this life of continued hospitality. And then he goes on, he says, and I want you to bless those who persecute you. I mean, the difficulty of these things, it's funny because each one, you're kind of like, oh, independently, it's like nice and do this and do that. He's like, okay, I want you to think about actually blessing those who persecute you. Bless them and do not curse them. In other words, that person that you feel like is persecuting you, I want you to go love them, I want you to go serve them, I want you to go bless them. I want you to be a blessing to the people who are in opposition to you. He's like, man, the level of selflessness. That when somebody is persecuting you, your determination is to simply do what you can to bless them and not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. Rejoice when they got a raise, even though you didn't. You see, he doesn't have to tell people to rejoice with rejoice when they're naturally rejoicing. If my wife gets a raise, I'm not like, all right, well, I guess I'll rejoice. I'm like, let's go, right? But if the person who's going for the same raise as I am gets a raise and I don't, do I rejoice? Because I want you to think about this. Weep with those who weep. What it doesn't say is feel somewhat self-justified because you told them a bunch of times that they ought to stop. And now that it happened to them, they're finally weeping, and that's about right. I hope they learned their lesson.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

Live in harmony with one another.

SPEAKER_02 26:49

And do not be haughty. Don't be irrogate. Don't be fooling yourself. And you know what he says the mark of that is? But associate with the lowly. I just want to pause there. Isn't that actually our heart? Like genuinely. That we would see the lowly and think, I mean, this person's no different than me. This person's no better than me. The thing is, is following Jesus, it changes this stuff. He says, never be wise in your own sight. One of the things I often say, or I've said before, is one of the best pieces of business advice I could give to you. This is not the point of this sermon, by the way, is to spend some time being homeless. And the reason I say that is if you know my story, before starting the church, I spent about two months being homeless on the streets of Tallahassee, eating at the shelter, sleeping in a park around some bushes where I thought no one would disturb me until the morning. I met this guy named Michael. Michael was a former Marine I love. He was awesome. I called him, I called him the Godfather. Michael was an older gentleman, former Marine, and living homeless. Faced a lot of difficulties. And through days and weeks, and over a few months, we went from knowing each other to being a good friend. Years later, he would call me. Years later, his wife Sandra would call me. Years later, I when I see him still, we I just we have this massive, I just I love this man. The reason I say it's the best business advice is about a year after I spent week after week sitting with my friend Michael. We'd hang out most of the time at Lake Ella amongst some other friends as well. I got the opportunity to sit in a business meeting with me and two other people, and most of the two people in the meeting that mattered were me and this other guy. And the other guy was a CEO of a company who had just passed a billion dollars in revenue. You know what I saw? He has strengths, he has weaknesses, he has insecurities, he has problems with his marriage and his family, just like my friend Michael does. It's the same humanity. We think of ourselves as highly than other people because we don't realize that we're all just sinners because our minds really haven't been renewed, because we really haven't spent time saying, God, I am a sinner in need of a savior. And Jesus, I want to look at your face, I want to see you, I want to be transformed into the likeness of you. So we associate with the popular and with the powerful. Because it makes us better. And that makes sense because it's the pattern of this world. But as you look at Jesus, as you see the person of Jesus, you see that his heart was nowhere close to self-absorbed, self-consumed. He said, in fact, man, I am going to, I'm gonna do everything I can. In fact, I'm not only gonna serve you. The very next verse, the very next verse, he says, this. So never be wise in your own sight. In fact, not only that, repay no one evil for evil. Beget thought to do what's honorable in the side of all. In other words, and when somebody does something to you, I want you to think, I want you to think, how would this look to everybody with what I'm about to do? In fact, evil, evil never responds in a Christian way or good, never responds with evil to overcome that evil. He says, repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. You want to know why we don't repay evil for evil? Because evil wins. Even though it's meant for good. So he looks at it and he says, okay, so so when that person has done that thing to you that frustrates you, when, when, when, in fact, not just does something that frustrates you. When someone has said something about you and you know it's not true and it's damaging and it's hurtful, I don't want you to repay it with evil. In fact, I want you to do what's honorable. If possible, so far it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourself, but leave it to the wrath of God. Now I want to pause. And you say, but wait a baby, wait about, what about, what, what, what's that? Let me remind you, he is writing this letter in A.D. about 56 to 58, maybe a little bit later, but somewhere, maybe in the early 50s, but somewhere in the 50s, you know, mid-50s category. You know who is Emperor that he's writing this to when he's saying, beloved, don't avenge yourself, don't come overcome evil with evil, because we have all of these thoughts in our head about well, what if, what about, well, what about Hitler? You know who is Emperor? Nero. He's writing to a group of people who are looking. Nero is our president right now. You know the guy who lit Christians on fire a few years later. They were there about four years from that, about 48 months. I can get a middle auto loan for longer than it was about to take for them to light Christians on fire. And he says, Leave wrath to God. He poured out his wrath on his son for us. He deals with wrath and vengeance. To the contrary. If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he's thirsty, give him something to drink. For by so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil. But overcome evil with good. One of the really difficult parts about preparing for this is there are s you can take any one of these. I mean, just between verses 10 and 16, before you even get to verse 17, depending on how you count, there's 12 to 13 different commands of what we ought to do. And we can look at them as each piece and parts of a sliver, look at the whole and say, what is God doing? What God is doing is He's creating this people, He's creating this group, He's creating this humanity. I think it was Francis Schaefer who said that the church is the final apologetic, the way that we love one another is the final apologetic of God. That it is the means by which, then the way that we love each other is the mean by which the entire world would look at us and say, they know God. They know Jesus. And I know that they know Jesus because I've seen the way that they love one another, and not because of the way that they love one another, because it's easy. In fact, it's the opposite. It's because it's difficult. It's because, how does this place where young come together with old? How does this place where black comes together with white? How does this place come together where rich comes together with poor? How does this place come together with the homes beat those without, with jobs beat those without, with this entire group, and no one is a separationist, no one is an isolationist, no one is an elitist, but every single person looks to one another and says, and I love you as if you were my brother, I love you as if you were my sister, I'm gonna outdo you with honor. And in fact, if you do something to me, I'm gonna do my best, not only to not repay you, but to good do good to you, to honor you, and to continue to do that. I'm gonna see the evil things and I'm gonna hate those because they tear you down, they tear me down, they tear us down. As a parent, you guys know this, you get to a point as a parent where you go from pick up your shoes, get ready in the morning, to like, would y'all get along? Would y'all love each other and care about one another? And you wanted to do both, right? But my experience as a Christian, and the reason why I've been thinking about this so much, is my experience as a Christian is we're like the kids who God says, I want you to get to pick up your shoes, and I want you to start treating your brother and your sister better. It's just constant backbiting, it's just constant, you know, and there's always a part of that that's kids and humanity, and you know, 100%. But what we do is then we'll get a group of people together and we'll say, okay. We know all about what it means to clean up and pick up your shoes. In fact, we read pick up in the Greek, and we realized that shoe was actually a derivative from the Hebrew. Shah. And we did a whole study on pick up your shoes. And in fact, when you said treat your brother, we actually understood that brother, you actually meant like a sibling. And you've got somebody in the community group who they said, oh yeah, I remember the first time I read that verse. And they start going off on this whole disposition of what they've learned and how all this stuff write, and you think, wow, this person's mature. We're like a group of kids, oftentimes with God, who then comes back and says, Man, I learned. I learned exactly what it meant to pick up your shoes, and I learned exactly what it meant to treat my brother or treat my sister with love and care and respect. I learned exactly we, in fact, we prayed about it and threw it and over it. And in fact, they've been keeping the room really clean. He said, That's great. But why did you punch your sister in the face? Why did you slap your brother? Well, you know what I mean? Like, like, it's like great, like God, I, you know, I did all of this stuff, I learned, I prayed, I went to the session, I did the things like, okay, okay, okay. At what point, let me just ask this, church, at what point does the acquisition of information in our minds and hearts actually move away from heart transformation, the gospel moving in us in such a way that we are more and more and more and more and more like Jesus. Because I learned something new and there was a different word study, and all of a sudden, because I have information and because I have these outward things of holiness, now I'm not kind, I'm not loving, I'm not glow-growing in my care, I'm not forgiving, I'm not saying you're dishonoring to me, I'm gonna figure out ways to honor you. In fact, I'm not competitively up honoring everybody around me, I'm actually just a jerk. But I learned something, and I attended a thing, and my life looks clean on the outside, and the Bible calls that a whitewash tomb, and it's not that those things aren't important, and hear me incredibly clearly, church, it's not that those things are not important. Christianity is not less than knowledge, and it is not less than character formation. But the essence of those things is to create there's a beautiful edifice called the church, which is defined by how they love. We don't, if we were a team, we don't work out so we can be the best fittest group of people. We work out so we win the game. The mission of God, the kingdom of God. Cool, you can bench press 315. Did you win? Did y'all win? So here's the point. I want us to continually be a church that doesn't decide we're gonna do all this stuff. See, this is where you gotta see it. This stuff is incredibly difficult. I mean, the the level of selflessness that he's calling to is incredibly difficult. It's a new people, it's a new earth, it's a new heaven, it's a new humanity, it's the kingdom on earth. And we will never do that under our own power. What's our job? To present ourselves as a living sacrifice. God, I want to meet with you every day. Behold him every day. Spend time looking at the face of Jesus in his word, spend time looking at the face of Jesus in his prayer, but not in the checkbox of God. I'm actually going to spend time with you. If you have not done this, let me tell you, your first step, the best first step I might be able to give you possibly completely. Go and do exactly what Jesus said. Go into your room. Go into your closet. I kid you not, close the door and pray, especially if you have ADHD. It's the only way. I gotta go into a cave and spend time with your Father in heaven. You do that every single day for the next week. I'm telling you. There's gonna be a sense in which we are transformed into the person into the likeness of Jesus. But not because we decide to, not because we're good enough, not because we're strong enough, but because we rejoice in the hope that this world is not because we see Jesus. We can endure the tribulations, we can be patient with one another. We can love one another, which means for some of us we say the really kind thing. For some of us who are kind, you say the really difficult thing. And if we spent time with Jesus every day, our lives become transformed. What does spiritual maturation look like? It is not head knowledge, it is not a surface-level veneer, it is inclusive of knowing, it is inclusive of beginning to reflect, but it culminates in a life, in a heart, in a posture that says, the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. I love the man who did that, I love the God who did that, his spirit is now indwelling in me, and now I'm gonna do that for the entire world. Not because I'm good, but because of what God did for me. For most of us, our version of spiritual maturation looks like very good moral willpower and a whole lot of information. But the Bible defines it as growing in love. That we would love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. Let's pray. Jesus, I pray that you would make us into this. Help us to grow into this community, this people, this new reality. Help us to be transformed. As our minds become renewed, as we see that this way, this life, this kingdom that you're bringing is actually where life is meant to be lived. And sometimes we're like the kids who come back and say, I studied what you meant by clean. I studied what you meant by don't hit my brother, don't hit my sister. And yet we still do it. We still haven't cleaned it. Would you help us to be people who are transformed by your love for us? Our lives are a living sacrifice because of your mercies, because of how you've forgiven us, because of how you've adopted us, because of how you've called us sons and daughters. Now we live for you. Help us to not be defined by the amount that we know. Help us to not be defined by the veneer or the facade. Help love to be genuine. Help us, God, to hate, to be repulsed by what is evil, and help us to absolutely cling to what is good because you are good, God. We want to do things like you and be like you. And we hope that the culmination of that is that we would love one another. We would love our enemies. If people would see the love that we have, the way that we serve, the way that we serve our enemies, and they would see you King Jesus. God, we cannot do that. But I pray that you would help us to see, to behold you, to be transformed by you, to present our bodies as living sacrifices to you. And as we do that, would you transform us? All of us. Your sons, your daughters, for the glory of your name.