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so father we come to you lord if we accomplish nothing else today we've accomplished everything in declaring that you alone are worthy now we recognize that today lord you're worthy of all glory and honor and praise lord as revelation says jesus you alone are worthy to open the scroll not another being in heaven not someone in the earth not some other power or other leader but only you jesus are worthy to open the scroll and receive all glory and honor and praise forever we thank you for your love jesus we thank you for your sacrifice we thank you for your care father we love you yes and we declare your goodness today in our lives we declare your goodness with our breath we declare your goodness and it's all in your name jesus that we declare your goodness we declare these things amen amen amen hey you can grab a seat as we continue forward in service what a what a powerful moment man for real if this that's all we do today that is the whole point of why we gather to declare the glory and the worthiness of jesus and so so glad that we're able to do that in worship and we're going to just move forward into uh more worship in our tithe giving if this is where you call home and you're a part of move church then this is for you if you're not a member of the church you're not a member of the church you're not a member of the church you're not a member maybe you're a guest and you're just trying to figure out where god has you then hey this isn't for you but for those who call move church home this is our time to give and what a great hopefully you had a a good week of work maybe it was full of problems maybe it was full of different things maybe blessings maybe good opportunities this week but we know that all of those things come from the lord every bit of work the hard stuff and the good stuff the blessing the stress all of it comes from the lord and from that we we give back to him because we acquired money in those places this week and so this is an opportunity for us to to thank him for that and also to declare that money is not our master that money is not our god come on why we need that right we we need to declare those things and when we the way we combat that is through our tithe and our giving of generosity and so if you give on the app this is your time to give on the move church app if you have physical money you can give in the giving container in the back in this back corner or over here in this well at the end of service but let's pause for a moment and let's posture our hearts if you practice this giving here on the app then let's posture our hearts and let's declare this together everyone read with me holy father there is nothing i have that you have not given me all i have and am belong to you bought with the blood of jesus to spend everything on myself and to give without sacrifice is the way of the world that you cannot abide but generosity is the way of those who call christ their lord who love him with free hearts and serve him with new minds who withstand the delusions of riches that chokes the word whose hearts are in your kingdom and not in the systems of the world i am determined to increase in generosity till it can be said that there is no needy person among us i am determined to be trustworthy with such a little thing as money that you may trust me with true riches above all i am determined to be generous because you father are generous it is the delight of your daughters and sons to share your traits and show a trust in you and in you and in you and in you and in you and in you and in you and in you amen all right if you have your bibles we're going to be in ephesians chapter 4 verses um 17 through 24 i was talking to my brother yesterday and he goes to a different church and in the area and uh this is funny but he goes to desperation hayden right over here and uh we were just talking about church because we don't go to church together and uh and he said yeah my brother he just tells it like it is and he's like he's like uh yeah they're we're in this series right now we've been in it for like two months but it's just like the same book of the bible we're just going line by line and all this stuff and i just started laughing i was like man you would hate to come and move church then because we've been in the same book for a whole year and he's like yeah i wouldn't like that it's like it's okay buddy there's not much that you do like but ephesians chapter 4 verses 17 set verses 17 through 24 that's where we're going to be at today and there's no way look i just want to get like fox isn't here today so i can't publicly uh give him kudos but man that is i love that graphic my goodness that's that's sick but there's no way that he like does anybody else when you see walk it out you think of the rap song anybody am i the only one for those of you who are like not as saved go ahead and just say yeah yeah right charles there's no way brother sing me two lines to that song right now get up and walk it out charles who wants to see charles walk it out everybody everybody in the place i mean we are pentecostal this is 2026 pentecostalism we're walking it out but i'm just like the whole time i'm just looking at like man that's what i think about so if you've thought about that and this is we see you and we recognize you all right ephesians chapter 4 verses 17 through 24 that's where we're at today somebody use ai later and have charles walk it out please somebody make that video we'll send it to courtney courtney will put it on socials it'll be good you had to be there right if they weren't at church today they missed charles walk it out in church all right ephesians chapter 4 verse 17 says this now this i say and testify in the lord that you must no longer walk as the gentiles do in the futility of their minds all right so paul's giving it i'm gonna break i'm just gonna break it down then we're gonna get deep into it but he's saying this right here he's saying that you must no longer walk as the gentiles do so he's here's the thing though he's talking to gentiles gentiles who have been saved and brought into the family of god right so he's saying hey you have now been brought into the family of god but you can't walk like you used to walk so how did the gentiles used to walk well he says it right here in the futility of their minds they are darkened in their understanding alienated from the life of god because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart that's super important there's a lot of things man if you're like an underliner there's so many things here i would say darkened in their understanding is one alienated from the life of god double underlined because of the ignorance that is in them due to how why are they ignorant because of the hardness of their heart they have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality greedy to practice every kind of impurity then he makes a switch but that is not the way you learned christ talking about these gentiles who are now a part of the family of god that is not the way that you learn christ what was not the way the hardness of heart the cows of heart all the things he listed out before that is not the way you learned christ assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him as the truth is in jesus to put off your old self which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds that's where really we're going to land at today renewed in the spirits of your minds big underline big star there and to put on the new self created after the likeness of god in true righteousness and holiness so that's what we want to talk about today there's we're talking about walking out our life now the first three chapters of ephesians is all about the the doctrine of the gospel of the gospel of the gospel of the gospel of the gospel of the gospel of the and the theology of what Christ has done for us through the gospel. We spent the whole morning singing about what Christ has done for us through the gospel. But through that, it can't just be head knowledge. It can't just be heart knowledge. It actually has to move forward in how we live and how we walk out our lives. And that's what we see in Ephesians 4 and 5. This is all really practical things for those who are believers. If you're in here and you're saying, yeah, I believe everything in Ephesians 1 through 3 in my life has been transformed and it's been changed by the gospel, then the next step in that is walking out this faith life. I think about James where he says, faith without works is dead. This is it. How do we work this stuff out? Well, we walk out this life with God.
So it's not necessarily works based to what we can do, but it's how we walk with God. And that's what the whole point of today is, is how do we walk with God? And hopefully you can see the difference because there are two different walks in front of us. There's the way that the world walks and then there's the way that we walk by the Spirit. And I don't know about you, but maybe you're the same way because this is where I was so frustrated in early life with Christ. And that's why I love the call on our church that there's so many that are here from like infancy, all the way through. We've dedicated kids. We've prayed over them in services. Now we've seen them like grow up from like move juniors to move nursery to move nursery and move kids from move kids to move youth. And now full blown like adults, right? Like it's cool to see. I love that God has that call on our life, call on our church to see that this could be a place that you could raise up a kid and go through all the stages of life. But I know there are like, there's hurdles and obstacles in those things. And it's not just for that age, but it's for anybody who is a believer at any point in time. Maybe you've said yes to Jesus, but you still find old things in your life that you're like, why is that still there?
Why do I still walk like I did in certain instances how it was in my old life, right? Has that ever happened like to you before? Like where you find yourself like, I mean, God really has transformed and he's changed my life. But some of the things that I used to do in my old life, like I used to do in my old life, they still happen and I'm not proud of it. And I wish that that wasn't the case. I think about what Paul says, like the things I know that I should do, I don't do. And the things that I don't wanna do are the things that I end up doing. So if it was the truth for Paul, the super apostle, then it would probably be the truth for us today in 2026. So, but don't be frustrated here. Old me would have been like, that's why I ran to the altar almost every other week because if I felt like, if I didn't go to the altar and asked Jesus back into my heart, that if I died, I would go to hell. Anybody ever like, you don't have to raise your hand, but maybe you've thought that before. Like, if I don't get this right, then I'm just eternally separated from God because I didn't ask for forgiveness. Well, brother, that was me. Like the only time I talked to God was to repent and say, please forgive me, come back into my life. Like God was just like in my life and out of my life. That's just not the truth of the gospel. And hopefully we can understand that what Paul's saying here, like if we really understand, understood this, we would understand what's going on in our lives as believers. So I do want to talk to believers in the room. I am going to talk to non-believers in the room as well. But those of you who are believers, if you find yourself maybe frustrated because you're like, man, I accepted Jesus, but like, why is this stuff still going on in my life? Like, well, hey, look, there's these two walks and we have to continually choose to walk by the spirit, even though we might remember how we used to walk in the flesh. All right, and that's what we really want to dial or deal with today. But there is a new walk that you're on.
We're on a new walk with Christ, but now we have to actually walk it. You are called to walk in this life with God. He doesn't just want to like save you and say, all right, I'll see you later on. We'll deal with you in eternity. He doesn't just poof, show up, save you, go to heaven and just wait for you to get to the pearly gates, right? I don't know, maybe your grandparents told you there's pearly gates. Pearly gates and all that stuff, right? But he doesn't know life with God is where he walks with you daily, a daily walk, a friendship, a father to a son. And you know, if we say that, a father to a daughter, as friends would walk. That's what the life with Jesus, that he's inviting you into. Not one with a distant deity that's far off that you really don't understand, but you're thankful that somehow he just like graced you. But then you don't know what to do with all of this other stuff and you're just limping in life. No, the Christian life is not one where we limp, but it's one that we walk confidently with God. There may be instances where you do limp because of life circumstances, but we're still walking confidently with the Lord. But there is a walk and we have to walk in it. We have to walk in this walk. That's a lot of saying the word walk.
We have to walk in this walk. But let's talk about the way the world walks. It's in your notes. It's not really on the screen. So if you don't have the app, this is a great time, a great plug to, if you don't have the app, you should definitely get the app so you can see these things. But here's some ways that the world walks. We just read through it in Ephesians verse 18, but I just want you to see it because I think this is important. And if you don't have that app, put this note in your phone, keep this, because this is the scheme that the world uses. This is the scheme that the enemy uses to get you to change. Try to continue to walk the way the world does. We know as believers through this scripture, the Lord is asking us to walk in a different manner. He's asking us to walk in the spirit, right? And I think if we can understand this today, if we can identify this today and have it readily available to us, we can see some of the schemes of the enemy. We can see some of the schemes of the world. And guess what? That means we can identify so we don't walk the same way the world walks. Let's start with number one, hardness of heart. That's where it starts. Hardness of heart, all that means is you're obstinate. You're for yourself. Like you're no longer, like your heart's not softened to the things of God, but you kind of harden up just a little bit, right? Because you're like, because you care more about yourself than in certain instances than you do about the Lord. So it's a hardening of your heart. Like think about like calluses. I don't know if anybody has calluses more than my working men in the house, right? I have calluses, but they're not from, from like weed eating and cutting grass. They're from doing pull-ups for years, but I have calluses right here, right? It's just a hardening of a place, right? And then that's what the scripture says. Their hearts were calloused. Their hearts were hard. And this is the way of the world. This is the scheme the enemy would love for even for you to walk in, to have a heart that is hardened. And that is like really hardcore language, but you're like, no way, Trace, my heart wouldn't be hardened towards God. Well, let's just look at it for a second. Because how does your heart get hardened towards the Lord? When we really focus on self and our wants and our desires and say, hey God, look, don't mess with this part. You don't have, like, don't, I'll take care of this one for you. Like you, I'll deal with all the other things that are cool and great, but like this one, this one, and we begin to harden ourself towards God. You don't just like wake up one day and say, oh, you know what? Today, I'm going to murder someone. I know that's an extreme example, but that's not where it starts. Probably, but think about any sin in your life. You didn't wake up that day and decide, today's the day I'm going to sin. Today's the day I'm going to do whatever the thing is, the sin in your life. I guarantee you don't wake up saying, oh man, I can't wait to sin today, right? There's a natural progression that gets us there. The first part in this walk towards the world is the hardening of your heart. So there's an area. So if you find yourself deep in sin in some sort of area or constantly in this place of sin, let's look beyond just the actual sin. How did we get here? How did you get to that spot? Because there was a walking out that got you from where you were to this place.
And it always starts with a hardening of your heart. Where have you hardened your heart in a particular area? And again, Hardening your heart is just where you're saying, I'm choosing my way over God's way. That's all hardening your heart is. It's not something deep, not some like crazy thing where you're like, I hate you, God. It's just where you're like, no, I'll take care of this one myself. I don't wanna go down the example, like all the different examples, because if I leave one out, then you're like, oh, well, that's not a big deal.
Where's an area, and I guarantee, because we're all really good at saying, God, I'll take care of this. So where's an area where you're hardening your heart where you're obstinate from the Lord, you're more focused on yourself? That's the first part. The second one is this, from there, the hardening of your heart, the callousness of your heart, the next part would be the darkness of mind. All right, so if we're going down this journey, it starts with a hardening of your heart. The next spot is from there, the result of your heart hardening is darkness of mind. Your mind begins to get, contorted, distorted, distorted would be a bit, contorted is turned and all that, distorted. That's the word, but darkness of mind. I love what Dennis Peacock, he says, your mind will justify what your heart wants. This is that, right? My heart has been hardened because I want something. What do I want? I wanna be God. I wanna be my God. I wanna have a say in my life. On these things. And then the next spot is a darkness of mind. Your mind will then justify where your heart has been hardened. Have you ever like, we've made, like, I love the Instagram video, like the girl math things, right? Like, where things that don't make sense, you do math and now they make sense. Well, let's do that with like devil math, right? Because our mind will justify what our heart wants. Let's call it world math. World math would be better, right? World math. World math. World math. But my mind gets darkened and I begin to think things differently. And I begin to create my own realities in my mind. And I begin to justify things, ways I think, actions that are not of God. I begin to justify those things and make them right in my mind because now my heart has been hardened. But we haven't committed a sin yet, right? We haven't committed a sin.
We haven't acted on those things. We haven't. We haven't walked down that path to where now it's exposed to everyone else. But in our minds, we've already thought it, right? You ever given somebody the what for in your mind before you've given them the what for to their face, right? Ooh, I have blessed some people out in my mind before. Or you think about someone in a romantic way, way before you act a certain way or do a certain thing. The thoughts are already there in your mind. But our mind will, we'll justify those things or we'll make sense of, okay, like, of course, my life is frantic and busy. But if I just add one more thing to my plate, of course, it's gonna be totally fine. I'll figure out how the times in my calendar will just sync up perfectly to where everything will get taken care of, right? Our mind, again, those are just, I said I wasn't gonna give examples, but those are the first three examples that popped in my brain. So I think those are things that we can, as a church, deal with. Like, I know our lives and I know our stories. Those are things that we can do. Those are things that are darkening of our mind, which then leads to a deadness of our soul. So we've thought the things, we've justified the things in our brain. We've made the decisions of why this would be good for us and how we'll make it work. And then we just ignore the Spirit of God. We ignore the Holy Spirit's urgings where the Holy Spirit might be convicting you. Say, hey, buddy, I don't know, this is probably not good for your life. You know, where you get that idea of like, hey, before you make that decision, like, before you do that, like, are you sure this is good?
Like, the Holy Spirit might be checking you in that spot, but then we get to a point where it's just, our soul's dead and we're like, we don't care about what the Holy Spirit says. We don't care about what God's Word says. We don't care about what spiritual authority in our life might say, right? We're just like, it doesn't matter anymore because our soul's dead. We begin to become our own God in these instances. We create our own morals and our to-do-you. This is the moment where now it's become a reality because our soul's dead. Our soul is dead in this instance, which then leads to, if we go from hardness of heart to darkness of mind to deadness of soul, the next place is recklessness of life. That is where now our actions become reckless. And now we just don't care anymore. This is just who I am. This is what I'm gonna do. And we act. But you didn't wake up one day and say, you know what, I want to be reckless today. There was a natural process that we're walking out. And this is the way the world wants you to walk. This is the way. In everything in life, the world wants you to, hey, God has nothing to say about your money. You take care of it yourself. God really doesn't have much to say about your love life. You take care of it yourself. God doesn't care about where you work or what you do. You just, you figure it out on your own. God doesn't care about who he puts in your life to be friends with or to be in relationship with. You just, you just figure that out, guys. Like you, you take care of that. That's what the world says. And what happens, we walk out this process with anything in life. If there, I guarantee if there's a spot in your life that you would say, yeah, this, this part of my life might be reckless. I promise you, you did not say, man, Lord, I want this to be reckless in my life. I want to be reckless in how I spend my money, right? I want to be reckless in how I treat people that I'm close to. No, that's not it. But that is the way the world wants you to walk. I just want you to see that because you can find it. Like in yourself, if you find places where you're beginning your heart to be calloused, you're like, whoa, if it starts here, I know where it's going. I don't want to go there, okay? So that, that's just good to see that walk.
Deuteronomy 30 verse six is this. And the Lord, your God, will circumcise your heart and the heart of your heart. Of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord, your God with all your heart and with all your soul that you may live. So the Lord deals with number one, the hardened heart, the callous heart right here in Deuteronomy. It's been his plan since the beginning that he would take your heart of stone and turn it to a heart of flesh. He would make it different and he would bring life to it. Not by you working harder, but trusting that God is going to do it for you.
The spirit of God is going to do it for you. The spirit of God is what softens your heart. Again, Ephesians repeats this time and time again. Hey, there's things that I want you to do. There's things I want you to move into. I want you to understand the ministry gifts and I want you to understand the gifts of the spirit. I want you to understand that I want you to walk like Christ and I don't want you to walk like a Gentile anymore. But don't do this in your own strength. Don't do this in your own power. It's over and over. The scriptures are saying, the only way you can do this is through God. The Lord, your God, it says, will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring so that you will what? Love the Lord, your God, with all of what? Your heart. God wants all of it. He doesn't want a calloused heart. He moved heaven and earth. He sent Jesus here. We just sang about it.
We just glorified. This is why Jesus was worthy to open the scroll that Cam was talking about. Because he put on flesh and he obeyed the father to the point of death. He was before the foundations of the world. The lamb was slain for what? The sins of the world. Why is that possible? Why did he do that? So that we could love the Lord, our God, with all our heart, our soul, our mind, and our strength. This is how we walk by the spirit. So this is what it says in your notes for spirit walk. We see it in Ephesians where we just read. First is this, you learned, you're created in the likeness of God. I love, where does it say it right here?
Verse 20, but that is not the way you learned Christ. This is awesome. He says, this is not the way you learned Christ. Assuming that you have heard about him. Another version would say, assuming that you have heard him and were taught in Jesus as the truth is in Jesus. There's really a lot happening right here. How do we, we learned Christ. Those of us who are believers, what are we believing? We learned Christ. We learned that before the foundations of the earth, the lamb was slain. We learned that Jesus is the one that put on the flesh, he, life. He obeyed the father till death on the cross to cover our sins. To be the sacrifice so that we could be the righteousness of God. We learned Christ. Not only did we learn Christ, but we heard him. That's what the scripture says. It doesn't, this, I feel like that's a really, I love the ESV, but I feel like it's a poor translation where it says, you learned of him. And other translations say, you learned him. You learned by him, not just of him, but you learned by him. So Jesus, not only that we learn about Jesus, Jesus teaches us about Jesus, right?
That's what he's trying to say here. Like not only is Jesus the subject that we're learning, Jesus is the teacher of the subject, right? That's what he's saying there. That's why sound doctrine is so important. That's why we, we labor for it. That's why we, we fight for it. Sound doctrine matters because what some theologians would say, and I love this quote, like if it's sound doctrine, if sound doctrine is being taught, then this is, this is Jesus teaching Jesus. This isn't my opinion, because if it was my opinion, there would be trace teaching Jesus. But if we're fighting for sound doctrine, what does the Bible say? What does the Bible say? Not how I can get like my own opinions here. Then when I'm, if I'm saying these things is it's Jesus, sound doctrine, teaching Jesus. So you can rest assured knowing, hey, like this is God's word. That's why we fight for this stuff. So we like, we spend time, and energy and effort to make sure that we're not teaching blasphemy or false doctrine. So we submit our, our, our messages to, to, to spiritual authority. I know sometimes we still get cracked on for how much we, we talk about folks in Oklahoma, but those are like our, our spiritual authority for our lives. Not from some weird way, but like, hey, I want to make sure I'm not teaching something that's not true. I know I'm only 37. I'll go back and listen to some of my messages from when I was 30 or 20. I'm like, I think I might've missed it there. But I want people to like, I want to submit what I'm saying to others to make sure, because that's a weight.
I don't want to lead you guys. I teach the wrong style. Cause if we're going to walk in the spirit, we need sound doctrine, not just opinion. So not only did we, we, we learned Christ, we heard him, but finally you were taught in him. So not only is the subject matter, Jesus, not only is, the teacher Jesus, but the room that we're in that we're learning and teaching is Jesus. Jesus is all encompassing in us learning how to walk in Christ, us to walk by the spirit. Jesus saying, look, I'll be the room that you learn in. I'll be the subject matter that you're learning. And I'll be the one that teaches you. How great is that? That's what we need is all about Jesus. That that's why I can say that this saying is Christ is the truth. You have learned Christ. You were taught in him, in him as the truth is in Jesus. So if we're going to walk in the spirit, we're going to walk in truth. So we fight for truth. We want to know the truth. We don't want to be like pilot who says, what is truth?
It's his last conversation he has with Jesus. He's like, well, what is truth? That's the world that we live in today. What is truth? You figure it out. You make up your own truth. And we're clinging to Jesus is the truth. And if Jesus is the truth, he is worth walking in the truth so that our hearts are not hardened so that our minds are not, are not darkened. So our soul is not dead. And so that our lives are not reckless. We walk in the spirit. So how do we do it? These are the two walks. We're going to spend the next few weeks talking about different areas of walking in Christ, walking by the spirit.
But today, I want you to walk in the spirit. I want you to just see the difference in the two of walking by the world and walking by the spirit. We can turn on some music and I'll be closing here, but how do we do it? How do you walk by the spirit? Well, first we're created in the likeness of God. That's what the scripture says in Ephesians. We're created in the likeness of God. That means we know that we were made in God's image. He is our creator. We are not the masters of our own ship. We are not. We are not the rulers of our own domain. We're made in the image of Christ, created by God, not a God who's distant, but a God who loves us. And from that, we love God. You cannot walk in the spirit without loving God. You can't do it. Why would you want to? So walking with the Lord in every spot of your life, a lot of times we get really Christianese with it. And if I were to ask you or make a poll, how do you walk with God? Probably the two most common answers would be that we would pray and read our Bibles. Maybe third would be that we would attend services. And while all three of those are great, those are not the only places we walk with God. Now hear me. I think I do all three of those things, but you walk with the Lord and how you carry yourself at work. You walk with the Lord and how you talk to your spouse, how you talk to your friends, how you talk to coworkers. You walk with the Lord in those places. Any time that you make a godly decision, you're walking with the Lord. Any time where there could be a crack in a conversation where you could become someone else, that when you choose to combat your flesh and say, no, that's not a place I want to go. That's not a thought I want to have. I need the mind of Christ. That's walking with God. That's walking with God too. And that's important. That is life. Your whole life.
Your plumbing, your staying at home, your stay-at-home mom, your running your Chick-fil-A numbers. If you're going to be tempted to clock out early, but you're like, no, you know what? I'm going to work unto the Lord. I'm going to stay. I'm going to keep working until it's time to go. Because I know I said I was going to be here from this time to this time, and I want to be someone who holds to my word and do what I say. That's walking with God. That's not being a boss pleaser. That's just being a basic Christian. When you decide that something, you know what? I can't view that. Because it's going to send me down this place to be reckless. And you choose not to. That's walking with God. When you're scrolling Instagram and you see some people hanging out, you're like, man, why does nobody want to hang out with me? I must be unlovable. They must hate me. They just really don't care. But you shut it down and you say, no, that's not true. I don't know that to be true. I've never even talked about that with someone. And you shut it down and you don't let it take up root in your heart. That's walking with God. That's walking with God. Can we see that? Can you? That's how you walk by the Spirit. This is not two different things. We're not living in a dual world where there's this material world and the spiritual world and all the spiritual stuff's here. No, this is, this is all of life that we're walking in. Okay? So we're created in the likeness of God. We're walking with God. The second one is righteousness and holiness of life. We are submitted and we're obedient to the Father. We're longing for righteousness in our life. and we're longing for holiness. Lord, make me holy, set apart, different than the rest of the world. So how does he do it? Right here, verse 23. And to be renewed in the spirit of your minds. How do we start this off earlier? Verse 17, now this I say in testifying, Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do. How do they walk? In the futility of their minds. Down here, verse 23. So how do we not walk in futility of mind? Verse 23, we are renewed in the spirit of your mind. Renewal is not a moment, it's every day. Our minds must be renewed every day. Hear me, every day, not just some days, not just the days that you wake up and you have your five minutes with God that you didn't snooze through your alarm. Every day, every day.
Chris Hodges, he's one of my absolute heroes of life. He said this, I'll never forget. He says, we are one decision away from salvation. You hear that? One, one decision away from stupid. And I don't say that to scare you. I didn't get scared. I was like, oh my gosh, that's true. One, it takes one decision to be reckless. How do we make that decision? Well, we go back and we see the road of walking. The calluses of heart, you're one decision away from dumb. And if I know I'm one decision away from dumb, that means every day I have got to renew my mind. Every day. That's not a game. Every day. If you're 12 years old in a room, or you're 80 in the room, you've got to renew your mind every day. That requires humility. That requires beating down your pride. Because who wants to say, God, I don't need you today. We need God every day. Because we are one decision away from stupid. We've got to renew our mind daily. There's probably, you could say it that way if you want to. I think it would be good some days to renew your mind by saying, God, I don't need you today. I am one decision away from stupid, and I need you today. If you've got to say it that bluntly, cool. Other ways to say it, like, Holy Spirit, I really do need you today. Because I would be crazy to think that I could do anything outside of your power and outside of your will. Romans 12, one and two says this. It says, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual work, worship, do not be, this is just the same imagery here, the same wording, to a different group of people. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed how? By the renewal of your mind, that by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. The renewal of your mind. Every day, our mind has to be renewed. I love this quote from John Stott. He says this, a daily, indeed a continuous, inward renewal of our mind. Our outlook is involved in being a Christian. If heathen, heathen, if heathen, degradation is due to the futility of their minds, then Christian righteousness depends on the constant renewing of the mind. Constant renewing. If we don't want our heart to be calloused, if we don't want to be darkened in the mind, if we don't want to be dead in the spirit, if we don't want to be reckless, then we need daily renewal of the mind. We need it daily.
And this is where I want to close because I want you to see it. Because even though we're on this new walk, this new path with God, our feet still remember the old road. We still remember some of our old tendencies. And the best way I could really like, because I understand like, man, I am this new person. Hear me say this. Like if you've accepted Jesus, you are the righteousness of Christ. You are no longer a slave, but you are what God calls a son or a daughter. You're a son of God. You're a daughter of God. That is who you are. You are not defined. You are not defined by your old self, your old past, your mistakes, your shame. That's not you anymore. So imagine like you were a prisoner at one point. You were in jail. What do prisoners wear in jail for the most part? One of those orange jumpsuits, right? Old clothes. That orange jumpsuit represents something. It represents, hey, they are a prisoner. Say you made it out of jail, out of jail. I guarantee if you could make it out of jail and you get a job. Say you, say you, one day, you're in jail. The next day, you're out of jail. The next day, Sunday, and you just so happen to go to move church. And then you go to move church and then boom, you get a job at Chick-fil-A because apparently that's how it works. But you get a job at Chick-fil-A and you go to Chick-fil-A the next day to go to work. I guarantee you, you're not going to wear your orange jumpsuit to Chick-fil-A for the new role that you have as a greeter or as a, I don't know, the freaking slaves that are outside with the iPads. And son, I don't, you're not going to wear that. You're not going to wear an orange jumpsuit there. You're going to get a new, you're going to get a new outfit. You're going to get new clothes. You're going to get one of those red polos. You're going to get some gray pants. You're going to get some of those hideous dad shoes that are all black that makes you not slip on the ground. You might get an umbrella hat because it's 9 million degrees outside, but you get a new, you get new clothes to wear. So of course you're not going to wear your old clothes anymore. We have a new outfit. So of course, all of you who are believers, see the spiritual side of this. Of course, you were once a slave, but now you're a son of God. So you have on a new outfit, new clothes. So you're not going to go back and put those on. Of course not. But say it was your first day at your new job. And all you knew for years was if you wanted more food while you were hungry, you would probably have to like sneak it if you were in jail. I have to like, try to grab a little extra off. I don't know how jail works. Maybe, who knows? I'm just assuming. Or you have to beat someone up and take their casserole. I don't know. But all you know is that before, now you're in this new place, you might be tempted to, hey, there's some waffle fries right here and grab a few waffle fries. Oh crap, that's not what I'm supposed to do. Here's the whole point. There may be instances in your new role where you still act like your old self and you have to work those things out. In your life. Because that's not who you are anymore. You can't act like a prisoner at Chick-fil-A. You can't. You can't act like that anymore. You can't do the same things anymore. There has to be a process. And as base level, ground level as that stance sounds, that's what life with God is like. And that's what Paul is saying to these Gentiles. Hey, you can't act like the Gentiles anymore. We can't go around sleeping with whoever we want to sleep with. We can't go around worshiping all these people. We can't go around worshiping all these other gods. Sacrificing to all these other idols. Doing all these things that bring pleasure to your life. We can't do that anymore. We're Chick-fil-A employees. That's it. Sorry, all the prisoners, they're Chick-fil-A employees. I didn't mean to do that. I always end up pointing one side against the other. But I hope you see that there's these walks. And that's what Paul is saying to the Ephesians. It really is what is a good word for us today. We have this new life, this new walk. And we're walking it. We have this new role that we have as a son and as a daughter of Christ. We can't act like we used to act. We can't act like the ways the rest of the world acts. And we have to work those things out of our lives. How do we do that? By renewing our minds daily. Not just when you feel like it. Not just on the Sundays you make it to church. Daily. Daily. Daily. Please.
If you don't hear anything else, and you only remember, or one thing today, don't let it be Charles walking it out. Let it be. Let it be that you have to renew your mind daily. Please. For believers in the house, you have to renew your mind daily. Is there anyone here today that you don't know God? Man, what a case that's laid out before you. That there would be a God that says, of course you can't do this on your own. That there would be a God that says, yeah, I see that your life is reckless. And I don't want to give you a way for your life to no longer be reckless. I don't want your soul to be dead. I don't want your mind to be darkened. I want your heart to be softened. And I've moved heaven and earth. And I've sent my only son to soften your heart. What a great opportunity for you as well today. So let's pray into it. Father, I thank you for today. I thank you for your word that is true. God, if my opinion got in there anywhere, I pray that it would go in one ear and out the other. And I pray that the only things that would remain is your word. And God, I pray for us today that you would renew our minds, Lord. Please, we cannot do this on our own. We desperately need you. God, as we're walking out this life in the spirit, Lord, that we would no longer walk in our old ways. God, while those tendencies may still be there, Lord, you are working those things out in our life. Lord, by simple obedience to you, Lord, please, would you strengthen us? I thank you for your word. It's in your name. In your name we pray, amen, amen, amen. Well, hey, let's go ahead and stand and get ready to go. But before we go, just one announcement. We do have the State of the Church coming up on Sunday, August 30th, 5 p.m. here at the church. We're just gonna give you an update. We try to do this once a year. Hey, where are we as a church? You know, last year at State of the Church, we said, hey, we signed a letter of intent. Here we are a year later. We wanna give you some updates on just the State of the Church, where we are, where we're headed, all those types of things. So it's like a business meeting to a degree. For those of you who wanna know the business side and all that stuff, that's for you. And you can come be a part of that just because we wanna be fully transparent at all times about what's going on at the church. So just put that on your calendar, August 30th, 5 p.m. here at the armory, all right? So let's get ready to go. But before we go, let us read this liturgy together. Ready? Here we go. We are not leaving this place. We are being sent. We are obeying the command of our Lord to go. So send us, Lord, to find you in secret in prayer and devotion, to love and care for our families, to strengthen and encourage our brothers and sisters in Christ, to faithfully work as unto the Lord in the marketplace and home, to wisely steward all you have given us, to recognize our place and ability in our community, to witness of your goodness and grace to the neighbors and nations. Send us now in your presence and power. Amen.
