Welcome to Walk in the Truth podcast. How do we know where to find answers to the toughest
questions in life? While the simplest answer is the Bible, where do we start this search
and how do we discover this truth? Today, in this teaching podcast, John Meador, lead
pastor of Cross City Church, takes a specific text of the Bible and helps us find truth
for the life we're searching for. So happy that you're with us this morning and kicking
off our Next Step series. Next Step really involves four practices that change everything.
And that's a pretty big promise, isn't it? Four practices that change everything. But
we're going to begin today talking about the practice of worship as we worship God together.
Take your Bibles and turn to Romans chapter 11, if you were at Romans 11. We're going
to start in verse 33. We're going to read through just the last three verses of that
chapter, the first two of Romans chapter 12. And I want to talk to you about your corporate
worship. I want to talk to you about how you worship God. And I'm going to tell you today
that the practice of worshiping God will change everything in your life. The absence of worshiping
God will cause everything in your life to be less than what God has called you to. Romans
chapter 11, beginning in verse 33, let's stand together. I'm going to read just several verses
and we always stand in honor of the reading of God's word. Romans chapter 11, beginning
in verse 33. And we need to begin today realizing that Paul is saying something that he doesn't
normally say in a way he doesn't normally say it. Paul probably is not an emotional
kind of guy, very reasonable, very rational, very logical kind of thinker. His theological
books are amazing. In Romans, there's a book of theology. But there is one portion of Romans,
this verse we're going to read, where Paul burst out. I want you to see that he's bursting
out saying something, moved by all that he's been reading and all he's been writing. And
we need to be moved by the same thing. He says in verse 33, all the depth of the riches,
both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, how unfathomable
his ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord, who has become his counselor, who has
given to him that might be paid back to him again? For from him and through him and to
him are all things. Don't you love that line? For from him and through him are all things.
I think it's one of those great lines that you need to have in your mind, your heart.
And he ends that by saying to him be the glory forever. Amen. And then in chapter 12, therefore
I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice
acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed
to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove that what
the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. This is an amazing
passage today, by the way. And as we sit down in just a moment to kind of break this passage
down, I want you to grab pieces of this today. I want you to put them in your notes and in
your mind and your heart today, because this is something that should live with you for
a long, long time. Father, in Jesus' name, my prayer is that you will allow your Holy
Spirit to illuminate the text in our minds, in our hearts, in our spiritual ears. And
Lord, the second part of the prayer is that you will illuminate our lives. Show us where
we fall short of this. Show us what decisions we need to make, what actions we need to take
in order for worship to be a priority to us. Thank you for every person in this room. I
pray for this new year and all that's ahead of us. And Lord, I know that we can only navigate
this wisely with worship and with you. And I ask this in Jesus' name. And all God's
people said, amen. Please be seated if you would.
Well I'm sure like me, you've read all the articles, you've heard all the little videos
and all the stories, maybe on social media, maybe on television, maybe in magazines where
you're getting all kinds of great advice for 2024, right, the new year. This is the first
Sunday of a new year. And I'm sure you're all aware of that. 2024 is uncharted. We don't
know what's ahead of us. I can't believe it's 2024. I mean, this is a guy that was born
in 1957, okay? Now while you're calculating that, that's just a long time. That's all
there is to it. 2024, who thought we would be here? And 2024, we have no idea how it's
going to go. But everybody has advice for us, don't they? Everybody has advice about
how you're going to navigate the best possible 2024. And I've read all the articles. I've
seen all the things that people have to say. I read an article that talks about having
a spirit of gratitude through the year. And if you have a spirit of gratitude, it'll transform
your life. I don't disagree with that. Someone else said in one article, read books. Just
read books. They don't say what kind of books, just read books. Read instead of doing what
you normally do. Someone else wrote an article on eating healthy in 2024. I'll pass that
article on to you. I didn't really read it off. Someone else said your exercise habits
are the most important things in 2024. That may be true. Another one said, figure out
who you are in 2024. And to that I say, it's about time somebody does that. The one I liked
the best was the article that said, focus on your habits instead of your outcomes. And
I think there's a lot of reasoning behind that because you are the result of your habits.
We have all kinds of goals, but unless we have habits to get us there, then we won't
get there. And in some ways, what I'm talking to you about has to do with your habits, your
spiritual habits. What you're going to do with your relationship with God, specifically
today, the aspect of worship. There are three others that we'll talk about in the next three
weeks, but this one is the most important one. What will you do with God when it comes
to worship? Do you understand the importance of your worship? Do you understand the importance
of what it means to have worship with God? I'm going to make a statement to you today
that I hope that you'll take note of and keep in mind. If you'll make a commitment to consistently
worship God, you'll be positively and powerfully changed no matter who you are, no matter what
your background has been, no matter how far away you are from where you need to be. If
you will make a commitment to consistently worship God, you will be both positively and
powerfully changed. I'm going to spend the rest of my message convincing you of that.
That's a very serious kind of argument because you'll never be who you're called to be without
consistent worship. You were made to worship. You're going to worship something. You're
going to make an idol of something. If you don't, worship God. Today, the talk about
worship is coming from Romans chapter 11 and chapter 12. There are some principles here
that I want to give to you that I believe have made all the difference in the world
in how I worship God and how He changes my life from day to day. More importantly than
that, we're going to bring a theology of Paul's worship to the tables today. With all the
practical application he gives us in chapter 12, we're going to talk about the theological
reason that this practical application will work in your life. First of all, I want you
to stay with me in chapter 11 for a moment and those last three verses of chapter 11
that we read. I want you to think with me for just a moment that really the platform
for worship, the foundation of worship is that you would be in awe of who He is, that
you would be in awe of God. Worship involves awe. Worship involves the adoration of someone
that's greater than us. Worship involves having some sense, some taste of who God is that
makes Him the worthy object of our worship instead of everything else that we could worship,
instead of everything else that we could idolize. It's Him that we worship because we have
an awe of Him. Again, if you look at verse 33, Paul kicks off this section of scripture
with this emotional adverse. I call it emotional, but it's Paul from the very depths of his
heart saying words that we need to hear. Oh, the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom
and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are His judgments, how unfathomable are His ways.
Paul's basically saying, I can't get to the depths of God. He's so immense, so powerful.
I am awe-inspired at who this God is that I worship. Paul, the preeminent theologian
of the day said, I can't explain everything about God. He's greater than I am. I can't
explain to you everything I know about God. I just know that God is unfathomable, unsearchable
in all of His ways. Man, that's a great way to start a thought about worship. And that's
where Paul was. He's getting ready to talk about worship to us. But in doing that, he
starts with the awe of God. As you work your way through verse 33, verse 34, and verse
35, he's asking questions. He's excited he's saved. He's excited about God's sovereign
plan of salvation that he writes about in Romans chapter 11. And he basically asks these
three questions. Who knew God's plan? Who else could have imagined the kind of plan
that God had? Who deserves this mercy, this love, this salvation? He's moved in his heart
by those things before he comes to that last line that we looked at for a moment in verse
36, for from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. Man, that's a great conclusion
to make about God, right? What role does God have in my life? Well, from Him and through
Him and to Him are all things. Everything I have comes from Him. Everything I'm ever
going to receive comes through Him. And everything, all of a sudden, should go to Him. I want
to make sure God is the center of my universe. And the only way I'm going to do that is if
I am in awe of God and I place Him there because God does not demand that of you. He does not
remove your will in the matter, but He calls you to be in that place where God is the center
of your life. And all the transformed people in scripture have these kinds of outbursts
and these kinds of exclamations about God when you read about their lives. I went through
the Old Testament and looked at some of these outbursts that different prophets and different
individuals make about God. And they all make this outburst after they realize that the
theology of what they knew about God and the experience they were having about God met
together in an experience in their lives, which is what worship is. Moses, for example,
says, your right hand, O Lord, is majestic in power. Your right hand, O Lord, shatters
the enemy and in the greatness of your excellence you overthrow those who rise up against you.
David said, great is our Lord and abundant in strength. His understanding is infinite.
It says Psalm 147. Isaiah, when he was able to see the glory of the Lord, just fell on
his face and said, woe is me. I'm a man of unclean lips. My people are a people of unclean
lips. John, in the book of Revelation, says, when I saw him, I felt at his feet like a
dead man and he placed his right hand on me saying, do not be afraid. I am the first and
the last. And what's happening is these people and their theology of God met them in their
experience with God and it overwhelmed them just like it did Paul when he started his
sentence with the word, oh, oh man, I've seen God and he's so big I can't explain him,
but I know he's real and I've met him and he met me. That's what Paul is saying. That's
what Moses said. That's what David said. That's what Isaiah said. That's what John said in
the book of Revelation. God was not this idea. God was very, very real to them and met them
where they were. You say, well, where do I meet God like that? Where do I have those
kinds of experiences? I'm going to tell you three places I believe you can find those
kinds of experiences, but before I do, I want to say this to you today. I want to say that
you need to know him and who he really is for worship to be the highest priority of
your life. You need to let what you read about him become real to you. So that's not just
an idea described with words, but it's something that has passion behind it because it's more
than just words you read on the page. It needs to be personal. It needs to be intimate. It
needs to be overwhelming because that's who God is. And for you to see God and experience
God in a very real way means you are in some way overwhelmed by who he is. God should never
be an idea that bores you. God's ways should never be something that makes you yawn. God
's ways are those that make you say, oh, how unsearchable are his ways, how unfathomable
his judgments are. So what are the three places where you can meet God where I believe all
of us can? First of all, I would just say this to you today that I experience awe when
I contemplate his universe. Now I know that's something that all of us can connect with
in some way, but I really do experience the awe that leads me to worship when I experience
the universe. There's something powerful to me about going outside early in the morning
and everything is quiet, all the lights are off, and to look up in the sky and to see
the stars and the solar system, to see the moon, to see the reflection of all that brilliant
light that God placed in the heavens. And the reason this moves me so much is not because
of the beauty of a dark sky and the bright stars against that darkness, and it's not
because of the amazing personality of the moon or anything else that I see. It's not
because of some of the brighter stars that are in our universe either, even though I
love, like anybody else, to look into a telescope and just marvel at all that. It's not because
all those things were up there that I'm in awe. It's because I know the creator that
made those that I'm in awe. It's because all those weren't there as an act of nature.
They were an act of revelation and creation. Because God put all those in place and because
God has spoken to us about those things and because God is the real one who has held this
universe together, then I am in awe whenever I see what his creation has brought about.
It's during those times, times when I look at creation, that I am in awe of God, amazed
at God, and feel very, very close to God because he has also made me and he's also made you.
I experienced this early in the morning. I experienced this in the mountains when I go
skiing and I get up on that ski lift and I go to the top and I look at all those mountain
ranges and all that beautiful snow that we have so much up in Texas, you know, and I
go up there and I look at that and I think, God, you're amazing, you're awesome. I stand
on the edge of the Grand Canyon and look at how he created that. When I'm in an airplane
and I look from a height and see even the curvature of the earth and say, isn't God
amazing that he's given us so much, he's created so much. I'm in awe of God during those times.
Those are times that you ought to look at the God who made heaven and earth and have
the same kind of exclamation that Paul had. It is unfathomable to me that God could create
all this and hold all this together somehow, but he does and he's the one that did it.
Paul said this in 1st Timothy chapter 1 verse 17. He said, now to the King eternal, immortal,
invisible, the only wise God, be glory and honor forever and ever again. Amen. And I
think about that verse a lot when I look at creation. The second time in place I think
we can find awe with God is when we worship with others who hold him in awe. Think with
me for just a moment. Why would God from the beginning want his people to come together
and worship him as a group and not just as individuals? And someone will say, well, I
love to worship God by myself. So do I. And if you ever heard me sing, you'd know why
I like to worship God by myself in song. It wouldn't help your worship any. But you might
look on my face when I'm singing to God in gratitude and realize God is very real to
me because there's that man standing on the front singing with joy on his face because
he knows the God he sings to is real. And you may look across the room and see someone
who just went through a tragedy in their life, heartbreak, hardship. And here they are. They're
worshiping God because they know God is ultimately the giver and the taker of life. You see,
there's something powerful about being in a room filled with people who are worshiping
God, whether it's a large room or a small room is really immaterial. But God has from
the beginning said, I want my people to gather together in worship. And the reasons behind
that are encouragement and the fact that God is worthy of our praise and our worship, a
reminder that we all see God in powerful ways in our lives. And we may not see him today
or last week, but somebody else next to us did. And it brings encouragement to us. In
1 Chronicles 29, David gathers Israel together as they open the tabernacle and prepare for
the temple. And David blessed the Lord, the Bible says, in the sight of all the assembly.
And David said, blessed are you, O Lord God, Israel, our father forever and ever. Yours,
O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty.
Indeed, everything that is in the heavens and the earth, yours is the dominion, O Lord.
You exhaust yourself as head over all. Can you imagine David standing up in front of
all those people and saying, look at what all God has done. Be encouraged through all
the hardships and challenges of life. God is still on his throne. He's the one we
worship. The pandemic affected us in a great way. I believe as the church of Jesus Christ
in America, maybe more particularly than other places in the world. It's a time when
we didn't meet for a period of time, but for a longer period of time, we're hesitant to.
I know all the medical reasons and all the contagiousness of COVID. I realize all that's
real. But most people who study the church of Jesus Christ, especially those who study
the church in America have said that what happened to the church is they began to value
content over the experience of worshiping God. And they began to make the experience
of worshiping God more of an option for them. We can always get content. We can always go
online. We could always hear the message later. But in some ways, many people made that the
priority. But there's something powerful about being there in the moment where other people
are there with you and you have an actual experience of worshiping God. Now we don't
really have this kind of reasoning with anything else. We want to make it home by the time
the football game kicks off, right? Even though I can look at it later. I want to experience
it as it unfolds, right? You need to experience worship as it unfolds. Because it's a journey
that all of us have together as we move towards God. We take advantage of the open door of
the veil, rent from the top to the bottom, coming boldly before the throne of grace,
coming to the altar and kneeling, coming away from that time of praying, saying, God heard
me. God is going to answer that prayer in some way. Listening our voice up, shouting
even about the God of the universe who meets with us and who gives us grace. I find that
when you worship God among a group of people who love God, who revere God, who exalt God,
you find yourself experiencing God in the midst of that. Amen. Yeah. If you think God
doesn't enjoy being in the presence of people who love him and who worship him, then you've
got it wrong. He loves it. He loves it. Thirdly, I've experienced all of God when he's met
me in my pain, my heartbreak. How many of you have experienced pretty deep pain in your
life? Would you raise your hand if you have? That's nearly all of us, I think. I've experienced
God when I didn't think I would experience anything good. Paul wrote about the thorn
in the flesh that he had on his life. A messenger of Satan buffeted him, as the Bible puts it.
For a tough time in his life, most say it was probably a physical ailment he dealt with,
but don't rule out the fact that it could have been just wicked people who were opposing
him. All of the above was probably taking place with this guy named Paul, who was the
preeminent apostle of the day. He prayed, God, take this away from me. Remove this thorn
in the flesh. God never did remove the thorn in the flesh, but he did give him something
better. God met him in his pain. Paul said this in 2 Corinthians 12, verse 9. He said,
and he has said to me in regard to that prayer, Lord, remove this thorn in the flesh. He has
said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly,
therefore, I would rather boast about my weakness, that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
Amen. Look at me for a moment. If you're going through hard times and dark times, let me
tell you, that's some of the best time in your life where God meets with you and gives
you grace that nobody else can give you. Nobody else can give you that. And it's a time when
you can be in awe of God and walk away worshiping God. Have all the people on the planet that
could have reached out to me or helped me? They didn't. But God, you were there. And
your presence and your peace was so strong that I am in awe of the fact that you know
who I am and you know what I'm going through and you are there with me in that moment.
You want to be in awe of God. Look for him when you're going through hardship and difficulty
and take the awe that you get from that hardship or take that awe that you get from being in
nature and seeing the glorious creator in nature or take the awe you get while you're
in the assembly of people who worship God. Take that awe and you make that motivational
fuel for your worship of God day in and day out. You make it a diet in your life, a steady
diet. You want to be healthy? Worship God. You want to exercise? Well, worship God. Worship
God. Paul begins by saying you must have an awe of God. And as you have that awe of God,
there's something else that's going to happen. And when you get to chapter 12 verse 1, he
says you're going to be moved by his mercy. We're talking about change. The message is
about change, things that change your life. Worshipping God takes place when you have
an awe of God, but it doesn't just stop there. You need to be moved by his mercy. You see
what it says in chapter 12 verse 1, it says, therefore I urge you brethren, by the way,
every time you see a therefore, you know what you're supposed to do, right? You're supposed
to find out what it's there for. That's why chapter 11 is so important. Don't just read
a chapter that starts with the word therefore without looking to find out what it's there
for. And everything Paul's going to say in chapter 12 verse 1 and 2 is based on the worship
that he's expressing in chapter 11. And that will be true of you as well. Chapter 12 verse
1 says, therefore I urge you brethren by the mercies of God that you present your body
a living and holy sacrifice, accepted of God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
I want you to see the word mercy there for just a moment. It means to have compassion
and pity on someone. Therefore I beseech you or urge you brethren by the mercies of God,
by the compassion, by the pity of God, to present your body a living and holy sacrifice.
Jesus uses the idea of compassion and pity in the story of the prodigal. And you all
know the story of course that the prodigal asks for the inheritance from the father and
goes off and spends it and rides its living. And then when he's at the end of himself,
literally he says, I know what I'll do. I'll come back to my father and say, I need to
come home. I can't even eat food here. I don't have anything at all. I've been totally
embarrassed. I'll just be like one of your servants. And of course as the story goes,
the prodigal son comes home and the surprise of the whole story Jesus tells when he tells
the prodigal is the response of the father. Because most of us would say he does not deserve
to come home. The older son said he does not deserve to come home. That father ought to
teach him a lesson right there. But the surprise of the story is that that's not what the father
does. Instead the father shows compassion and pity and forgiveness and restores him
completely. Kill the father calf. We're going to have a party because my son who was lost
is now found. He was gone and now he's back. That's compassion. So Paul says, I urge you
brother and by the mercies of God that you present your body a living and holy sacrifice.
He's saying, I want you to think about all the responses God could have towards you.
He's a righteous God and we're not righteous so. He's an angry God that has wrath against
the ungodly and we're ungodly so. He's a holy pure God and we're not holy and we're not
pure so. But God is also compassionate, loving, merciful, forgiving God. Because God surprises
us the way Jesus said a compassionate father would surprise the prodigal son. And when
God surprised Paul, a religious terrorist, by the mercies of forgiveness, he said that's
what you're going to do when you worship him. You're going to come and realize the mercies
of God and you're going to say, you loved me, you forgave me, I present myself to you.
That's worship. It's worship. Don't you know the prodigal son was different after he saw
the love of the father? How could he not be? Aren't we different when we come to God expecting
one thing and God pours out his mercy and his forgiveness and his compassion. He surprises
us by all the amazing things that we don't even think about and that moves us to surrender.
You see this whole other level of worship, being in awe of God and then moving to the
place where we are motivated by the mercies of God, we surrender ourselves to him. See
the scripture again says, present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice. All these things
lead us to what worship truly is, presenting your bodies a living and holy sacrifice. It
basically says I'm so moved by your love, so moved by your presence, so moved by how
amazing you are, how awesome you are and you still love me. I'm so moved by all that. If
you love me, I'll give myself to you. I'll give myself to you. You see you don't bring
a sacrifice to a worship service. You are the sacrifice in a worship service. You don't
just bring something that you think God deserves. God is asking you for you. You say, Lord,
here I am. I give you my heart. I give you my life. I give you everything I have. I am
going to give you a personal surrender of myself. And it's not the surrender of obligation.
It's not the surrender of fear. It's not the surrender of wondering what will happen if
you don't surrender yourself. It's the surrender of gratitude that says you have left me. I
am yours. More than 45 years ago, I stood at a wedding altar. My father, who's a pastor,
was doing the wedding service and I stood there waiting for my wife, her name is Kim,
to walk down the aisle. And man, I about lost it when she walked down the aisle. She was
absolutely beautiful. Is absolutely beautiful. But you know what was going on in my heart
is that same kind of thought that you love me enough to marry me. Commit yourself to
me. You love me. I'm going to surrender myself to you. I'm going to love you. Hopefully you've
experienced that in a good way on this planet. But God intends for you to experience that
in an eternal way with Him. You love me. You have me. The true end of worship is walking
away different because you've surrendered yourself to the one who loves you, God.
Well, there's a third piece of this that I need to get to. And that is to be changed
by His presence. I talked about change. We talked about practices that would change everything
in your life. And that's where this change comes from. In verse two it says,
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,
so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good, acceptable, and perfect.
We often talk about wanting to do the will of God. I just want to do what God wants me to do.
People say. They say I'm praying about the will of God. I want to do the will of God.
And you ought to want to do the will of God, but sometimes we forget we have to be transformed
before we're really willing to do the will of God. In fact, God doesn't often reveal His will
to people that are not willing to do it first. He's not often going to give us the secret
of the next step until we're willing to say, you know, whatever that secret is, I'm going to do it.
Whatever you lead me to do, that's what I'm going to do it. Because I have surrendered myself to you,
so surrender comes first and then change and transformation take place.
So how does that work? What does it mean to be transformed by the renewing of your mind?
What does that mean? Well, first, it means it's the ultimate end of worship.
It also means that you're going to want Him to do the transforming, the changing,
you're going to want Him to make a bigger impression on you than anything and anyone else on the planet.
You're going to want Him to shape you into His image. I've written this down several ways.
Don't be conformed by making yourself impressionable to the world, Paul is saying,
but be impressionable to God. Or don't let the world shape you into its image.
Let God mold you into His. This is such a big issue. I don't even think we realize how big of an issue this is.
We look around us and we see the image of the world everywhere we look with our eyes open.
You know, the average individual today looks at eight hours and 56 minutes of media in some form today.
Maybe it's on a computer screen at work where they're doing work on a computer,
but also through television, through social media, through your ever-present phone.
Most of us have between six and ten thousand images a day flashed across our vision. Six and ten thousand.
It's real easy to be conformed to the image of this world today.
And everything associated with all the images that we will see, advertisements, enticements,
everything you can think of, you look at. Do you know what they do to us?
They make us feel in a certain way. That's the design of them.
You'll have a desire to order that on Amazon. You'll have a lust to fulfill that as you see another image.
You'll feel pain. You'll feel panic. You will be discouraged or disheartened.
You'll be moved this way or that way politically and you have no idea why you're being moved around.
But what's happening is the world is shaping you into its mold.
I would say the people of Paul's day probably had a lot less that they had to deal with when it came to
don't be conformed to the world. But if ever there was a command that was important to the people of this day,
it's this day. Don't be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Somehow we're going to have to think about and look at Jesus a whole lot more than we normally do.
A whole lot more than what we allow the world to let us see from their perspective.
You see, when you focus on him, you're going to be focusing on the one that you want to be like.
John Paul Bevere writing a book called The Awe of God said,
Whose image do you aspire to be conformed to? The celebrities of our day or the one who created the universe?
He said, Choose wisely and take heed to what you hear and give your attention to.
Years ago, some of you will remember this song, but not many of you will.
There's a song that I used to sing when I was a kid and we'd go to church camp and we'd sing this song a lot.
I don't even know the name of it, but the line is, Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look forward in his heavenly face,
and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.
I didn't know who wrote that song. I didn't care for the melody of that song.
It was kind of melancholy as a 16-year-old, what kind of discernment did I have? And very little did I have.
But I knew that that was true.
And the reason I knew that was true is because I'd had enough few moments and experiences where I did turn my eyes on Jesus
and all those things of the world became less valuable, less attractive, less tempting to me as a 16-year-old young man.
Eventually I realized I just need to always be turning my eyes upon Jesus.
I just need to always be looking in his glorious, holy face.
I just need to worship more than I do and need to make it a priority in my life.
Do you want to change your life? Do you want to let God change your life?
Worship God. Worship God.
Come to the place where you say, You love me like that? I'm giving you my life.
And more than that, I'm going to let you transform me into your image.
You say, but pastor, before you close this thing, what about the Bible?
What about the Scriptures? Because don't we use the Scriptures when we refer to this verse over and over and the answer would be yes.
The word of God does transform your mind.
But so does worship. The context is worship.
The context is in every way God reveals himself to you.
That of course is affirmed and validated by the word of God.
That's what transforms you day in and day out.
I know people who know everything about the Bible and they'll tell you everything you want to know about the character of God,
but who have not yet been transformed by him.
You can know it, but it's not transforming you if you don't come in awe of God,
if you don't begin to worship him, if you don't surrender to him.
And that's what my call is to you today.
Surrender to him as you worship him.
Follow him.
Make him the most important habit you have in your New Year.
Just a few moments, we'll close the service with a prayer.
Three invitations I would give you.
First of all, we have decision stations that are at the back of each of our worship center areas as you move towards the doors in just a few moments.
If you'd like to talk with someone and we would love to talk to you about what we've talked about today,
we'd love to help you with decisions you may make.
You know, it's really important for you to know this, that Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay for our sins,
to give us a place in heaven and a relationship with him.
And unless you by faith put your trust and confidence in him, you really won't have the opportunity to do that.
You'll never know the awe of God.
You'll never really be able to know who he is and what he's done in your life until you accept the greatest gift he could give you, and that is his son.
So we want to talk to you about that decision.
Maybe there's something missing in your life.
You've never really had a relationship with him.
You've never really realized if you've ever had your sons forgiven or not, we want to talk to you about that.
Stop at the decision station.
Secondly, I invite you to bring folks back next week as we get into the next practice that will change everything.
And we'll do that each week this month.
It'll be something I think you'll value as we talk about this week after week.
Thirdly, I invite any guest to come back to the guest reception room right outside the center exit door.
There is a glassed-in room, and I'll be in that room in just a few moments.
I'd love to meet you personally.
If you're going to hang around for the food trucks, I have free tickets to the food trucks, which I mean people are attracted to me like, I don't know, like bees on honey, flies on honey.
When they know I have these free food truck tickets, I'd love to meet you though.
I seriously would love to shake your hand.
Thank you for being here today.
It's important to me that you know who we are, what we're about.
Would you stand with me as we have the closing word of prayer?
Father, I want to thank you today.
It's a privilege of being in this room to worship you with your people.
Father, my prayer is that every one of us will seek to experience you, that our theology will collide with our experience and that we will be in awe with you.
And that Father, it will flavor our lives.
It will create a desire to know you more and walk with you closer.
I pray for those making decisions today, decisions to worship, decisions to surrender as Lord and Savior to you.
Surrender our lives, our future, Father.
We ask you today to move in hearts.
Thank you, Father, for all these here today.
I pray you'll give them wisdom as they leave this place today to live life as you called them to live it.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
God bless.