All Your Mind

We are in a five-month series that we are simply calling God First, if you are with us for the first time, and we are searching the scriptures to discover what it means to truly put God first in every area of our life, settling and surrendering to now. There is no power in the partially surrendered life. It's only when we commit fully to what Jesus taught in Matthew chapter six when he said to seek first, to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, then all of these other things will be added unto us. God never promised provision from the second position. It was only when we put him first in every area of our life. And this principle of priority, God being the priority, is literally from cover to cover in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, and we looked at a lot of different scriptures, but one of the places where Jesus really doubled down on it was in Luke chapter 10 in this dialogue that he had with this young Jewish lawyer, and here's where we've been launching from for the last three weeks. Behold, a lawyer stood to put him, that is Jesus, to the test, saying, teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And he said to him, well, what's written in the law? How do you read it? In other words, you're a good young Jewish man. You've studied the Torah. What did the Spirit of God give to Moses? And he answered, well, it says you shall love

the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your strength, with all of your mind, these four specific ways, and your neighbor as yourself, and Jesus said, that's it, you've said right. If you do that, you will have life, and I've shared with you every week that this exchange is actually recorded in some of the other Gospels, but in Matthew's Gospel, it takes upon itself particular significance because Jesus actually calls it the first and the greatest commandment. The first and the greatest commandment. That means it's a big deal. That means that it's weighty, it's pregnant with purpose, and it is deeply significant for the follower of Christ. So what we've been doing over these three weeks is what does it really mean? What does it actually look like to love God with all of our heart? What's it actually look like to love him with all of our soul? What's it look like to love him with all of our strength and with all of our mind? That's what we've been unpacking, and if you didn't hear any of those first ones, I wanna encourage you to go back to the app or online and listen to those messages. They are sequential in nature and will bless you, but let me just recap.

Week one, to love him with all of our heart means to love him passionately. We were in Revelation two, where he talks to the church in Ephesus and says, it's not that you've lost your love. I know you love me, and that's why you have been committed to the fidelity of the gospel and the good works and the advancement of the kingdom. He said, the one thing that I see in your heart is that you lost your first love. I know you love me, but I'm no longer the priority of your life, and Jesus convicts them and calls them on that so that they would return to their first love. Second week, what does it look like to love him with all of your soul? And we were in Exodus 33 and 34, where Moses prayed a very specific prayer. God, everybody sees your power. Everybody knows that you're sovereign. Everybody sees what you can do, but I'm not content to just know what you do. I wanna know who you are. I want to know your ways. And he prayed a prayer of intimacy and said, God, I want to know you, not just passionately, but personally. Week three, what does it mean to love God with all of your strength? We found out that means to love him intentionally, and Jesus modeled what it looked like in John 13

when he got up from the table and he washed his disciples' feet, and it means to get involved. It means to engage your life into the life of service for the glory of God and for the good of others. And today, we're gonna wrap up Luke 10. We'll go a different direction next few weeks, but I wanna share this last one. What does it mean to love God with all of our minds? Well, it means to love him intelligently or to love him intellectually, or let me frame it, if I might, this way. To let the word of God and to let the spirit of God shape our thoughts, our perspective, and our entire worldview to his standard and to his way of life. I'll say it again. It means to let the word of God itself and the spirit of God shape our thoughts, our perspective, our entire worldview to his standard and to his way of life. This is what discipleship is all about. This is what it means to be a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, because the ultimate goal that God has for his people, he didn't leave up to speculation. He told us clearly in Romans chapter eight what the ultimate goal for us is when he said this. Verse 29, for those God foreknew,

he also predestined, watch this, to be conformed, to be conformed to the image of his son. To be conformed means to resemble, to be molded like, to take on the shape of a particular thing. In this case, it's not a thing, it's a person. He's saying his will for us is to be like Jesus and to be like Christ in every way. How we live, how we love, how we serve, right down to how we think about ourselves and this world. But I want you to follow this. There's something very particular here that I don't want you to miss. In order for something to be conformed or to take on the shape of something else, it first has to be transformed or it has to be altered in its state. It has to be made pliable. It has to be made ready to be conformed to that thing. It has to be altered and changed, ready to be prepared to take on the shape. So follow me. If the goal is to be conformed to the image of Christ, and now we understand that in order to do that, we must be transformed in order for that to happen, how does God transform us and get us ready to be conformed to the image of Christ? Right here, Romans 12, one and two. And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you.

Let them be a living and holy sacrifice, the kind that he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Do not copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think, by changing the way that you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. The King James Version of this translation says we are transformed by the renewing of our minds, or literally the renovation of our minds. Not the creation of our minds. Our minds have already been created. The problem is they've been tainted. The problem is they've been altered. The problem is they've been conditioned by this world. And so it's not just the creation, it's the renovation. That's a very important distinction because whenever you renovate anything, it requires both demolition and construction. Some things have to be torn down and pulled out before you're ready to build back bigger or better. Some of you know this, some of you don't, but when we bought this entire complex in 2017, this part where our auditorium is in our lobby was the old food line, and so we had to come in and renovate this. I preach about where the T-bones were, right here, where the meat section was, which is very appropriate

because I'm trying to feed you the meat of his word, okay? So, praise be to God. I feel it every time I stand here. But listen, this was an 18-month process. Before we ever put up a wall, before we ever hung a light, before we ever did anything in terms of construction, there was a four to six-month process that we were doing nothing but ripping out, tearing out, tearing down to get this thing ready to create the auditorium and everything that we had in design. This was how God and how God does it in our own minds. There are some things that have shaped the way you and I think. There are some things that have shaped the way you and I feel that we have picked up through what the Bible calls the world, the flesh, and the devil, that are in direct opposition to the ways of God that have to be addressed. They have to be torn down and thrown out, and then God is able to build some things and deposit some things and construct some things to shape us into the image of Christ. So this thinking that we picked up from the world, the flesh, and the devil that says, hey, man, life is all about you. Just do you, be happy, make it all about you, live your life for this trinity, me, myself, and I, that has to be torn out.

That has to be replaced with, no, no, no, the Bible says I've been bought with a price, and I exist to bring glory and honor to God with all of my life. This thinking that says I will never overcome this addiction. I don't just sin, I am my sin. It is the language of condemnation from the enemy has to be torn out and removed and replaced with I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength, not my own ability, but through his ability. This thinking that sometimes tells us this marriage is never gonna work, man. It's so far gone. I don't know how I could ever come back. Must be removed and replaced with, no, man, no weapon formed against me shall prosper. Greater is he that is within us than he that's in the world. If the tomb is empty, anything is possible, and even though this marriage seems dead, that's what he does. He brings dead things back to life, and if he did it with Jesus, he can do it with this marriage. See, there's just a lot of things that have to be torn out before we can be built back, and just like products that we use every day in this country have warning labels that tell us what the improper use of that product will do,

the Bible warns us over and over and over about the dangers of wrong thinking and what that wrong thinking will produce in our lives, so this is a big deal, and today what I wanna do is just do three things, okay? I wanna share with you. Two warnings the Bible gives us about this idea of our thought life or our mind or what it means to love God with all of our mind and why we need to pay attention to it. And then at the end I wanna give you just one offensive move. Two defensive moves, one offensive move that God says to love me with all of your mind is to welcome this into your life wholeheartedly and allow it to do its work and it'll transform you into the image of Christ, okay? Two warnings, one at the end offensive, here we go. The first thing is the Bible tells us constantly to not underestimate the power of your thought life, to not minimize the power of our minds. We need to be very careful and take seriously the power of our thoughts. The enemy takes it very seriously because he knows that whoever controls your thoughts control your life. A nutritionist will say it to you this way, you are what you eat, right? We've heard that. You are what you eat. So if you eat junk food

or you eat the wrong things constantly, your appearance and your performance will be a reflection of that. But the Bible says that you are actually what you think, Proverbs 23 and seven. For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. He is saying that the thought is the progenitor or the father of the deed and there is an actual evolution to what we do and who we become and it all starts with our thoughts. Let me show it to you. Maybe you've seen this before. It's sowing and reaping. You sow a thought, it starts with just thinking something. You sow a thought, you ponder it long enough, eventually it becomes a deed. You reap a deed. You're gonna do something with what you think continuously about and then when you sow a deed, you're gonna reap a habit. What you do daily will eventually become a consistent habit that frames and forges your life. You'll do it consistently and daily and then when you sow a habit daily, you are actually forging your character and who you are and who you are becoming and when you sow a character into life, you ultimately reap a destiny or you reap the trajectory that your life is currently on.

But please notice that the entire trajectory of your life, this means can be altered by simply altering what you think. You pull this thread and it wrinkles down here at your destiny. This is why the idea of God renewing our thoughts, this is Romans 12, that I wanna transform you, I wanna change you, I wanna reposition the trajectory of your entire life by changing the way that you think. It's such a big deal, it's such a big deal. We don't get in life what we want, ladies and gentlemen. We get in life what we are and what we are is a reflection of how we think. See, the question is not are you going to be discipled? No, you are. You're being discipled right now. I'm being discipled right now. We are discipled and going to be discipled. The real question is who is doing the discipling? Because if it's the world, we're in trouble. If it's the flesh only, we're in trouble. If it's the enemy, the devil, we're in trouble. Or is it God and his word? Whoever shapes your thinking truly shapes your life. Let me show you a verse right here that's so to me powerful that Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus and he deals with this former and this latter. He deals with this, the old man, the old self, and then this new transformed self through Christ

and there's this bridge that pins them together. He said, since you have heard about Jesus and you've learned the truth that comes from him, because of that, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life which is corrupted by lust and deception and instead, watch what he says, let the spirit of God renew your thinking, renew your thoughts, renew your attitudes, your prevailing ideas, let that be led by the spirit of God and if you do, now verse 24, you can put on your new nature created to be like God, righteous and holy. Don't miss this. Verse 22 describes our old nature that is corrupt and full of death. Verse 24, he describes our new nature in Christ that is righteous and full of life and the difference between life and death is verse 23. Allowing the spirit of God to change the way we think. By allowing the spirit of God to alter how we think and see ourselves and see the world. Because of Christ, we are not victims. We don't have to be slaves to sin anymore. The enemy knows it but he also knows it doesn't matter how free you actually are if you don't believe you're free. If you don't know you're free or believe you're free, you will never live in that freedom.

I told you not long ago about when I was eight years old, my dad took me to the circus and I was enamored by a lot of things. The clowns wigged me out. I mean, clowns look demonic as all get out. I never understood where people had fun with that but I was. Afraid of them and then I was all the animals was kind of cool, but I was enamored I'll never forget this as an eight-year-old boy By this I was I pondered this four thousand pound elephant that i'm looking at And i'm looking at this thing and they got him in the middle of the ring And they got this little old chain wrapped around his ankle and this little old stinking peg about that deep in the ground And he was just standing there not even trying to get away and I thought to myself man This thing is a giant not only could he pull the stake and walk away and run away He could pull this whole big top town and everybody in it and then I learned later why that works Because when he was a baby elephant they chained him to a wall And he tugged and he tugged and he tried and he tried and he pulled and he pulled to no avail And eventually they broke his spirit and he just gave up ever trying again And as long as they just put that little chain around his ankle He thinks in his mind that he'll never be able to be free now He is free and he can be free but they have detained this monster only by deception They've caused him to believe That he's not free even though in reality. He's as free as he wants to be This is what the enemy still does to you and I he will try his best To make you believe You'll never be free. You'll never break this addiction. You'll never overcome this sin You'll never rise above that thing in your life, but verse 23 happens and the spirit of god shapes your thoughts Renews your mind you now become aware of and know the truth of god that he took your sin to the cross And paid for it once and for all so that you might live free because whom the son sets free Is free indeed and when you know, you're free you start living

Like you're free So as long as the enemy can just lie to you and deceive you and cause you to believe you'll never be free Eventually, we just stop trying to be free all together But once you are convinced That what god says about you is true What the word of god says about your new nature is true and you allow him to reshape your thoughts your life begins To change so it starts with this don't underestimate the power of your thinking whoever shapes your thoughts Shapes your life But then number two the bible warns us to not listen to the lies because they're coming and they're everywhere I want to show you a scripture where paul actually writes to a group of people. He loves very much in corinne And he said i'm fearful of something that's happening In you that i've witnessed in this church and here's what he writes. Let me show it to you first second. Matthew's 11 He said i'm afraid That as the serpent deceived eve by his cunning Watch it your thoughts He's he's getting in your minds And he's changing and altering your thoughts. He's controlling your thoughts and because of it you're being led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to christ Paul said it's important to guard your thoughts now watch this because we're going to do it together It's important to know the truth. Paul said because the way the enemy came at eve in the garden is a pattern He don't have anything new y'all there's no new Why would you change it if it works? It's been killing stealing and destroying for thousands of years and for millennia Why would he change his pattern if it's so effective? It's the same thing he did to eve that he does to us. It is a pattern with him and it goes this way It started with doubt It graduated to denial and it ended up and resulted in full-blown deception It started with doubt it graduates to denial and then eventually it resulted in full-blown deception. Let's walk through it together. I want you to see this

Genesis 3 now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field the lord god had made Here's what he said to the woman before we read it. Remember this god put him in the garden Now I did research one time and I found out there were between 3300 and 3500 Fruit trees in the world. So i'm just assuming that let's just say there were 3500 different kinds of fruit in the garden of eden and what god said to adam and eve was I love you You're my children. I wanted you. I want you to have a wonderful blessed life. There was perfection in the world There was no sin. There was no pain. It was beautiful There was no dying no crying and he said you can eat of every one of these trees As often as you want as much as you want all day every day There's just this one tree in the midst of the garden that i'm asking you to honor me By not touching it or by eating of it. It's not unreasonable It's not unreasonable at all All these other trees you could eat for years and never eat all those trees And so god says here don't eat the one and here's what the serpent said. He said to the woman. Yeah, but Let's analyze this for a minute eve Did he really say Did he really say? That thou shall not eat of any tree in the garden. You see the first thing that he does The first thing that he does is he sows just a little doubt. He puts a question mark where God had clearly put a period. And he makes her ponder and wonder, well, I mean, what did he actually say? Let's go back and review what God said. Listen, he's still doing it today. He blurs lines. He causes even people who claim to be sold out followers of Christ to compromise things in God's word that are not nebulous, that are not ambiguous. They are as clear as they can be. I have been shocked over the last decade or longer

to see entire denominations of churches that no longer believe, for example, that God's design for biblical sexuality is one man and one woman in the covenant of marriage for life. And it is as clear as it can be, but the enemy has caused them to doubt it and to fall away from the teaching of scripture. I know a brilliant author who used to be a pastor of one of the fastest growing churches in North America in Michigan, who has abandoned the teaching wholeheartedly that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and now he is a full-blown universalist that says anything is spiritual is good enough. Just figure it out, find your own way, and in eternity, it'll work out. No, it won't. It won't. Jesus is not a way. He is the way, the truth, and the life. But I ask these questions. How does this kind of stuff happen? How do entire denominations lose their way? How do brilliant, brilliant pastors, brilliant Bible teachers lose their way and begin to compromise the same way he did it to Eve? They came across the moment where the enemy said, you know, does the Bible actually, you think God's really that much of a stick in the mud?

You think God really is that serious about this? Do you really think that the Bible teaches that strictly? Do you really think that this is a clearly delineated boundary, or could it be, and as soon as he makes you begin to, that's all it takes. As soon as you put a question mark where God had put a period, he's off and running in our lives. He slips in, and he starts us to question the word of God, the word of God. I have said this to you as your pastor. I'm gonna say this to you again. I say it with reverence, but I say it as being a faithful pastor to you. Whenever you and I read the word of God, and you read something in it that opposes your flesh or rubs you and I the wrong way, we must immediately assume that we are wrong. Thank you for the three of you that believed. I appreciate that. Three of them's with me, boy. Because here's what happens if you do it the other way, and this is the danger. Listen, it's happening now in the world. I see it, and it scares me to death. I see a whole group of young people. Now, I think there's a revival happening. We're seeing it in our church and in our community, but there was this time when a bunch of young people would say they were not going with the word of God.

If they read it, and they didn't feel that it was right, they just said, well, then I'm not sure about that. I cherry-picked the Bible. I like this, I like that, I like this. This over here about purity, I'm not sure about that. I think that's too strict, and that's too out there, but here's the deal. Whenever you do that, you are actually creating the kind of God you wanna serve and worship, and you're creating the kind of Bible you wanna believe in, and the enemy's got you right where he wants you, right where he wants you. We have to come with humility to the word of God and humble ourself before him and say, we are the creation, and you are the creator, and we trust that you love us and know what's best, and that you want what's best for your children, and we receive your instruction with a grateful and obedient heart, and when we do, we find life, and we find it more abundantly, but it starts with doubt, then it graduates, watch this, to denial. And the woman said to the servant, well, we may eat of the trees in the garden, but God said you shall not eat of the tree that's in the midst of the garden. Just this one, neither shall you touch it. God said we're gonna die if we touch this thing. The enemy said, oh, Eve, come on.

Come on now, I've heard that one too. I mean, I'm telling you, Eve, you will not surely die. Now, listen to this. You have to understand about the enemy that he peddles and he specializes in half-truth, and the reason he specializes in half-truth is because he's smart enough now to understand that a half-truth is actually more dangerous than a whole lie because it sounds like the truth. Henry, come on. They bit of it and they didn't fall over dead. Adam lived to be 930 years old. It was half-true. The problem was they spiritually died, were separated from God. Childbirth became difficult the birth the earth began to fill with thorns and thistles. He cast them out of the garden They would have to earn the sweat of their brow their children rose up and killed one another over time and all that sin has been passed down to us and all of this death has been passed down to us that Jesus had to redeem on the cross all because He gave her a half-truth and she believed it and she denied what God said and because she rejected it It left the whole of humanity Reeling and in trouble and then ultimately it was just deception For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be open. You'll be like God you see what he's doing He caused her to doubt the Word of God first And then he caused her to just reject and deny it and then he's caused her to question the very motive of God Oh, come on Eve. God's just trying to keep you down He's not out for your best interest He likes being God and he likes keeping you on a leash He's just not being up front with you. God does not have your best interest at heart He knows that if you go to that tree and eat it

You'll be just like him and he don't want nobody to be like him. He likes being him alone And she doubted and she denied and ultimately she was deceived and You and I have been the recipients of the fallout of the fall of this doubt denial and deception He's too smart to come in the front door y'all. He's too smart to just tell you a flat-out lie What is most dangerous a clock that's 10 minutes off or 10 hours off? If it's 10 hours off, it's clear, you know, it's not right and you won't even pay it another mind But if it's 10 minutes off, it's so close to the truth. You'll think it is and you could miss your flight It's so close to the truth you could miss the business opportunity of a lifetime and be late It's so close to the truth. You could miss out on some of the best things in life It's too close to the truth. This is how he operates. See he's not trying to tell people don't believe in Jesus He's too smart for that. He's just trying to teach people. Yeah, you can believe in Jesus, but just not the Jesus of the Bible He's too out there It's good to be religious just don't be too religious it's good to be spiritual just don't be too spiritual see we just came out of Christmas Everybody and their brother loves the baby Jesus There were people in your neighborhood that never darken the door of a church that never opened the Bible that had nativity scenes in their front yard Everybody loves Ricky Bobby's six-pound eight-ounce baby Jesus in his little golden fleece diapers Anybody else seen that cinematic masterpiece Talladega Nights, come on Dear six-pound eight-ounce baby, everybody loves six-pound eight-ounce baby Jesus everybody, you know, why because he's cute He's cuddly. Everybody loves him. You know who the world hates and rejects righteous Jesus They hate righteous Jesus. They hate the grown-up Jesus that said no there is a standard of right and wrong No, Matthew chapter 5 There is a way that seemeth right into a man But the end thereof is the way of death that there is a standard that God has for his people But because people are deceived and they walk away from it They embrace this sloppy version of who God is and they say well, I mean Bible says God is love So I guess that means that if he loves me unconditionally anything goes so just do you be spiritual have a good heart try to Be a moral person. You'll be fine You won't be and the enemy knows you won't be but he tries to get us to think the way he wants us

To think he has caused too many to doubt Deny be deceived but we must if we are going to survive this thing and not just survive but thrive and live what Jesus again called in John 10 The abundant life we have to know the truth It's the only thing that insulates us from the lie, which is my third offensive point The Bible tells us that whatever you do as a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ Your number one priority should be to learn to fully embrace and welcome the Word of God It is the only thing see if you don't know the truth, you can't spot the lie My mother my mother worked in the banking industry for 25 years and sometimes she would come and get me When I got off school and she wasn't off work yet So I'd have to go sit at the bank for a little bit wait And my mother was a head teller and I was amazed at how fast she could count money man It was it was incredible First of all, I've never seen that much money in my life and I'm a little kid going whoa, bro But then she's counting and I asked her one time. I said you ever get like, you know, I hear counterfeit on TV She said oh, yeah, we get counterfeit bills and I go well man as much money as you're handling as fast as you're counting it How do you how do you know it's counterfeit? Here's what she said. I'll never forget it She said oh, baby. I've handled the real stuff for so long That they have not yet duplicated the material that can take on the shape of the real currency of the United States of America And so it feels just a little bit different and she said I could be like this and as soon as my finger touches one that ain't right, my mind says this ain't right. She became so proficient with the truth that when the lie even showed its head a little bit, she could spot it and identify it. If you don't know God's word, we're sitting ducks because he is gonna feed us these small little lies that are half-truths and it'll sound right to the mind, it'll sound right to the flesh that it won't be right and he has sown us a counterfeit experience of what we're supposed to have in Jesus Christ. Bible says that you got to become prolific with the truth, but what is the truth? John 17, sanctified them of the truth. God, your word is the standard. Your word is the standard of truth. How about Psalm 119, 142? Your justice is eternal. Your instructions are perfectly true. Not some of them are true and some of them are sketchy, they're all perfectly true. How

about verse 160, the sum of your words, all of them in other words, every single word in the Bible is true and every one of your righteous laws endure forever. When you become proficient with the truth, you will be able to spot a small lie or a half-truth a mile away, but if you're not, you will constantly be fed lies and it will take your life down trajectories that you really don't want it to go. So let me give you four ways to welcome his word. I got one minute and 10 seconds left. Y'all think I can do it? Y'all new to Canvas, aren't you? I'll tell you what, who'll give me five minutes? Raise your hand. Five, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. Okay, I got what I need. Okay, thank you. Come on. Number one, you got to major in his word. Major in his word. Here's what I mean by that. You got to make it your primary focus as a follower of Christ. Come to church. I love church. Worship together. Let's worship together, but nothing should take preeminence in the followers of Christ's life than the Bible itself, the word of the living God. Develop a working knowledge of his word and the principles that it teaches about every area of your life. In Hosea chapter four and verse six, God said, my people perish not for lack of military skill. My people perish not because they don't have good weapons. My people perish for a lack of knowledge. They don't know enough about me and about my commandments anymore, and the enemy has come in. Biblical illiteracy makes us incredibly vulnerable to the subtle lies and tactics of the enemy. Listen to great Bible teaching. Yes, I'm going to do my best to be a faithful pastor to you. I'm going to do my best to rightly divide the word of truth, but listen, I want to encourage you. There are some exceptional Bible teachers in this country, and many of them I'm friends with that converge here at Voices every year in June and teach the Bible to us. Pastor Jobi, Pastor Phil, there's some incredible teachers that you should be listening to to arm yourself with God's word. Get a life application Bible and study it. It is full of side margins that will give you commentary and explain what the text means and how it applies to your life. Make learning God's word a priority in life. And then number two, look, you need to memorize the word of God. Now, you don't hear a lot about this anymore, but man, this is a big deal, and I did so much of this in my life and still do. You need to be armed and dangerous, okay? So you need to have the word of God. The Bible says what in Psalm 119? Your word have I hid in my heart. What's he talking about? Memorization. He said, I remember it. It's in my heart. I've got it in my heart, not just on the scroll or the parchment. I've got it in my heart. The ability to have it refresh your soul, have it on demand, makes you armed and dangerous against the enemy. Now, I know what you're saying

right here, because I have people say this to me all the time when I bring this up. They go, Pastor, that's the problem, man. I can't memorize anything. And I go, really? What's your phone number? And they go, well, 866. And I go, how'd you know that? That's incredible. What's your address? Where do you live? Do you not know where you live? Oh, yeah, I live at... I said, oh, how'd you know that? What's your social security number? They'll rattle it off. I said, oh, oh, so it's not a matter of can you memorize, it's a matter of motivation. I'm not trying to be cynical, y'all. I'm just saying, what if I said, I'll give you $1,000 a verse you memorize? Y'all would kill me, quoting chapters to me in the lobby next week. Y'all be in line standing, waiting to empty the coffers. So what we're talking about here is not the ability to do it, it's motivation. And you have to understand that we are in a world that we have been armed by the Holy Spirit. We've been armed with God's word, but if you don't... Don't pick it up and carry it with you. You're still a sitting duck for the enemy. Meditate on it, or memorize it, major in it, and then meditate on his word. Meditate on his word. Psalms chapter one says the blessed man not only delights in the law of the Lord, but I love this, it says he meditates on it day and night. In other words, he takes a verse and he thinks about its implications. What does it mean for me? What does it mean for my life? What is God asking of me? What is God requiring of me? What is God speaking to me about right now? You need to take a verse every day and just ponder it. Take 10, 15 minutes, turn your phone off. Turn it off.

Turn off the TV. Turn off all of the distractions. Get with God's word for just 15 minutes and ask yourself, God, what are you challenging me out of this verse to do? What are you convicting me about in my life where maybe you're not first? What are you trying to encourage me with knowing that I'm struggling? And listen, Lord, I need your encouragement. I need to know what your will is for my life. Get into it and think about it. God, who are you wanting me to serve? Who are you wanting me to encourage out of this verse? Just meditate on it, think about it. I promise you when you do, you attract the power of the Holy Spirit and God's word will come more alive to you than ever before. You will begin to hear the voice of the Lord. And then number four, finally, man, you gotta take action. You gotta actually do something with the word of God. You gotta respond to it when it speaks. You can't wait and see what it says and then whether or not you're gonna do it. I'm telling you, just like I told you a minute ago, there's gonna be some things in it that are gonna rub your flesh the wrong way. There's gonna be some things in it

that you're gonna go, man, I don't wanna do that. There's gonna be some things in it that you're gonna go, man, I don't know if I can do that. But when you humble yourself before the Lord and say, God, I trust that you're my heavenly Father, that you're not trying to do what the enemy said you're trying to do, you're not trying to pull a fast one on me, you provided all of this for me. You love me more than I love my own children. Luke 11 says so. And that you want what's best for my life, what will bring joy to me and glory to you, I trust it. And so Lord, whenever I read something in the word that instructs me, I am just making up my mind that I am going to do it. I've heard it said this way, this is so good. I heard somebody say one time, perfect willingness always leads you to his perfect will. If you're perfectly willing, and he sees that you are willing, and that you are ready to walk and flesh out his word, he will, the hound of heaven will seek you out. You won't have to pursue the will of God. The will of God will find you when he finds a willing soul, a willing heart, a willing follower. So wherever this lands on you today, I think it's a couple different places. For those of us that are here that are followers of Christ, that we love the Lord, listen, there's a next step for you.

There's a next step in discipleship. I don't know what it is. Maybe some of you have never given to the Lord. Maybe you've never surrendered that part of your life. Maybe you've never trusted him in your finances. Listen, this is a part of discipleship. It's not just to give the church more money, it's because he wants to be first in your life, like the garden that was in the midst of the Garden of Eden. God wants to be acknowledged in this area of your life. Maybe it's to lead someone to the Lord. Maybe it's to invite somebody to church. Maybe it's to go out and get a Bible. And your next step is, man, I'm actually gonna start studying the word of God on my own. I've always came to church and heard good sermons, but I realize now it's not enough. I've gotta get deeper into God's word. Maybe there's just this area of your life. It's this small little thing. And it's just this corner that's really touchy, and all of this over here has been surrendered to Christ. But every time the Holy Spirit gets close to this, it's almost like a sore. You get defensive about it. I've learned in my own life that things that I get the most defensive about are the areas that God wants to get in the most. Because there's something in there doing war against the work of God.

And if it goes unfettered and unchanged, it could be destructive. And then there's, I think, groups of people that are gonna be watching online that are maybe even in this room like there was in first service that you've never really fully surrendered your life to Christ and you know it. I'm not saying you're not a good person. I'm just saying you've never taken your sin and your shame and brought it to the foot of the cross and never surrendered all of you to all of Christ. Maybe you know about God, but you don't know him. You've been around church, but you've never come and said, Lord, would you forgive me of my sins? I repent of my sins. I'm asking you to forgive me. Lord, what you did on the cross, I believe it counted for me. And God, I want to appropriate that in my life. Well, your response is simple, but not small. Your response is to say yes. Your response is to say, Lord, I believe that your grace is greater than my sin. And that there's nothing that I've said or done that can outpace the blood of Jesus. And that you've invited me to come home and be free and know peace that passes understanding. And I'm not living like this anymore.

I'm coming home. He loves you. He loves you. and know that Christ has given all for you,