Mike Bickle emphasizes the transformative power of renewing our minds as outlined in Romans 12:1-2, urging believers to present their bodies as living sacrifices. He highlights five key truths that empower individuals to overcome despair and engage in meaningful kingdom relationships. Bickle warns against conforming to worldly standards of success, encouraging a focus on God's evaluation of our lives instead. He reassures that even small acts of obedience are holy and pleasing to God, and that His leadership is ultimately good and perfect. The sermon calls for a realignment of our goals to reflect God's will, which is centered on being conformed to the image of Christ.

Two, it's one of the most well-known passages in the New Testament. It's referred to often. Paragraph A in this passage, Paul identifies five truths that we looked at briefly last week. And these truths equip us to experience the grace of God in a transforming way. And these truths will empower us to overcome despair. Now at a quick read, that may not be obvious, but that's what he's talking about. And equips us to walk out kingdom relationships. Because the rest of the chapter is about kingdom relationships. So the first two verses is really a foundation and equipping for that. These five truths I want you to really pay attention to and think of your own life. I speak these truths over my heart regularly. But these are also five truths that I think of when I counsel people, care for people, disciple people. I think specifically if they buy into these five truths, they're going to be empowered to give themselves wholly to the Lord. They're going to be empowered to walk in kingdom relationships. They're going to be empowered to overcome despair. The enemy will attack these five truths in a very specific way. And his goal is that he would cause us to feel aimless, despairing, hopeless. That we're kind of kind of drifting in life with no real relevance. God's not moved. We're not succeeding. We're failing in God. We're failing in life. These five truths will speak the opposite of that. But the enemy wants to keep them obscured in our thinking so we feel hopeless and aimless. Let's read the two verses again as we did last week. Paul said in verse 1 Romans 12, I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice. That you would see it's holy and it's pleasing to God. The word pleasing and acceptable is interchangeable. Many translations use the word pleasing here. It is your reasonable service. Verse 2 he continues on the same theme. Don't be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So that you would prove what is the good acceptable and the perfect will of God or leadership of God in your life. Let's read through it again. I'll make a couple brief comments and then we'll look at a little bit more of the notes. The reason I want to read through the second time is just so we really get familiar with the language of this passage. Now I know everyone's familiar with this passage sort of but we want to be more familiar than that. We want to use this and get this these truths into our language with God. Again I use these these phrases when I talk to God about me and when I resist the enemy's lies that attack my heart like they attack your heart. Paul says in verse 1 I beseech you. He says this is of the utmost importance. He draws attention to how important the next phrases are. Paul doesn't do this often. Use this language. Pay close attention to what I say next. This kind of is really what he's saying. I'm urging you to not let this slip by. He says I beseech you therefore. The therefore is a reference to the 11 chapters before because we're here in Romans 12. The first 11 chapters he outlines the mercy of God the grace of God. I mean develops it. He goes in the light of what I've just taught you for 11 chapters. I urge you by the mercy of God and of course that's one of the themes of the 11 chapters. It's a call to wholeheartedness. He goes give your bodies to God. Present them as a living sacrifice. Now this is the language of costly abandonment to God. They were all familiar with animal sacrifices but now in the New Testament we have a spirit of dying to ourself. Dying to our own interest to give ourselves in a wholehearted way. In a costly way. In a wholehearted way in love to God. This living sacrifice we embrace dying to our fleshly self-interest. To give ourselves fully to God because the God that gave himself so fully to us it's only logical we would give ourself fully back to him. What a glorious relationship. He says when you do this when you present yourself this way to God the offering of yourself is holy and it's pleasing to God. He goes it's a reasonable it's a logical response to give yourself a hundred percent to give yourself fully back to the God who gives himself extravagantly to you. It's reasonable it's logical. Verse 2 now verse 2 is actually elaborating on verse 1. He's not changing the subject. He goes don't be conformed to this world. The point we're going to highlight is don't be conformed to the standard of evaluation. Don't evaluate your world by the way the culture tells you to evaluate your life. This verse means more than that but that's the part we're highlighting today. Paul says don't be conformed to the world's value systems to evaluate your life because if you do you're going to feel like a failure like so much of the human race does. You're going to be comparing yourself to the wrong standard. You're going to get offended at God's leadership over your life. You're going to get offended at your lot in life. If you conform to the world if you evaluate your life by how the culture tells you to evaluate success he goes you're going to end up the really wrong spirit. You're going to end up with again offended at God's leadership in your life. You're going to give up and give in and say what's it worth anyway because I can't make it work anyway. He says don't conform yourself to the world. That's one of the applications of what that verse means but rather be transformed on the inside out by the renewing of your mind by agreeing with what God says about you. The renewing of your mind is the same concept of being engaged in faith with what God says. That if you do this you'll change the way you think and agree with how God evaluates you and what God calls you to and you aim at the target for your life that God puts in front of you and not what the culture puts in front of you. He goes you will prove or you will experience that the will of God or the leadership of God in your life the master plan of God in your life. It is good it is pleasing to you and you'll find that leadership is perfect. You may not see it every step of the journey but you'll eventually experience you'll prove you'll put on display that the leadership of God the will of God is perfect. Now the enemy doesn't he doesn't want you buying into this at all. He wants us conformed to the image of what the world says is successful and how it evaluates what's valuable. So that you're always off-center you're always grappling with despair and feeling hopeless and aimless. I mean most the human race struggles with this in a profound way on a regular basis. Paul's saying the answer through this is to renew your mind to agree with what God says. Let's look at paragraph B. We're going to start at the end of verse 2 the will of God. Now in place of the word the will of God it's the idea the master plan of God for your life. The Lord wants you to be able to prove or experience that God's master plan for your life your life destiny is another way to say it is perfect. It's glorious. It's good for you. It's pleasing even to you when you connect with God based on aiming at the will of God for your life. A lot of folks are they want the will of God but they're aiming at the wrong target. And they end up in all kinds of uh just confusion and despair and feeling negative and discouragement. So in paragraph B instead of the word the will of God put the master plan of God. Put the destiny of God for your life. Paragraph 1 Romans 8. Now remember we're in Romans 12 now so go back to Romans 8. Because in Romans 8 Paul describes he lays out what the will of God is or the purpose of God. Romans 8 verse 29 he calls it the purpose of God. A few chapters later here in chapter 12 he calls it the will of God. The purpose of God the will of God is interchangeable. He says here again a few chapters back and in chapter 8 because in chapter 12 he's talking about what he said in chapter 8. He says we know verse 28 all things work together for good. I mean when the enemy attacks you the Lord says I will sovereignly intervene and cause it to rebound for your good. Even our own failures when repented of they'll end up working back for our good. I mean that's the leadership of God. Talking about good leadership. I mean the attack of the enemy and our own failures when we come with the right spirit of repentance and wholeheartedness and faith the whole thing rebounds back and works together for our ultimate good. I mean only the Lord can make that happen. He said now this happens to those that love God. To those who love God and those who are called according to His purpose. Now that's the phrase His purpose. We're called according to His will. They're committed to the will of God. Now he lays it out here. He goes here's the number one will of God in your life. To be conformed to the image of Jesus. Now we all know that. I mean there's not a Christian around who couldn't on a true and false test get that right. That answer yeah true conform the image of Jesus. But what Paul's doing here he's defining the will of God. The primary will of God is not about your function and not about your location. But our the primary will of God in our life is our response to God. Meaning when I talk to a lot of young people and they talk about the will of God they're mostly thinking about their function. I'm going to be an evangelist. I'm going to be a pastor. I'm in the marketplace. They're talking about their function or their location. I'm going to be in Asia. I'm going to be in Africa. I'm going to be in America. I'm going to tell you what, what nation, what area of service. That is a part of the will of God. But that's secondary. That beloved that's really secondary. The primary definition of the will of God in our life. We'd be conformed to the image of Jesus. Now what that means is that we would practically the primary will of God in my life is that I would grow in love, humility and purity. Servanthood you could put a few words there. If I'm growing in humility, if I'm growing in purity, if I've set my heart on it. Doesn't mean I'm constantly gaining new ground every week. But I mean I'm tenaciously locked into it. Though I three steps forward, two steps back, three steps forward. I gain ground, lose a little ground. I grab again, gain a little ground. But over the years you gain ground. You grow in humility. You grow in purity. You grow in servanthood. You obey God in secret. That whatever you do, you do it in the spirit of Romans 8 verse 29. The spirit of being conformed to Christ. You do it in your marriage. You're in a difficult time in your marriage. Raising your children in the marketplace, in your ministry. Things are rough. But you in this you're doing little acts of obedience, little acts of service. But in the spirit of verse 29, being conformed to Christ. So you're in a conflict. You're not appreciating the what's happening in your home. But you're responding thinking, Lord I'm growing in humility. I'm growing in love. I'm growing in purity. Though the family members may not catch that, you and God, your dialogue, that's what you're reaching. I'm wanting to respond and grow with this. It's what I'm after. Now the reason this is so important, here's what God knows that we lose sight of. That's the only response that's going to be gold in the age to come. Meaning when our time of our natural life is over on the earth, the only thing you will bring with you from this life is your growth in love, humility, purity, etc. Wisdom, servanthood, that's all one big sentence. You're not going to bring the size of your impact of your business or your ministry. You're not going to bring your reputation. You're not going to bring your physical beauty. You're not going to bring your winsome personality. I mean the reputation of it. You're going to bring what you did in terms of growing in love. That's the currency of eternity. That's all you're going to bring with you. God knows that. We know it technically, but we lose sight of it. So God hymns us in. He goes, trust me, you really want to grow in this. And we get so focused on the will of God that in the eyes of man we'll be applauded and be big and seem powerful and see impactful and we feel good about it. The Lord says, you're not going to bring that with you. Oh that's okay. It feels so good now. He goes, no, you really want to live in a way where you bring things with you from this life to the age to come. So he engages in that wrestling match with us that he always wins. Well not always because he does honor our free will. But we wrestle with him. He keeps redirecting us to this dimension of the will of God. And we keep focusing the will of God on our function and location. He redirects it to our response. And this wrestling match goes on throughout our spiritual life. He goes, I promise you as a good father you're going to be glad I redirected you back there a thousand times a thousand. Because you're not going to bring any of the other stuff with you. And beloved the age to come you're going to live for billions of years. Billions and billions and billions of years. You only have one moment on the earth in your natural life. Now paragraph two, the stumbling block in the will of God. The stumbling block is that outwardly in the eyes of man the impact is very small. For most people. And there's a few Billy Graham's in history. But most people in the eyes of man our impact, our sphere is very small. It's meant to be in the will of God. That's not a mistake. That's not bad leadership on God's part. Here we have in Luke 19 the familiar verse. Jesus saying on the last day I'll say to you, well done. Because you were faithful. In very little meaning, very little in the eyes of man that men could measure. You were faithful. Your sphere was small but your response was faithful to me. Here have authority over 10 cities. He goes now I'll give you a large sphere in the eyes of man. This 10 cities is literal. This is in the eyes of people. Now the point of eternal rewards isn't to do something in the eyes of people. Eternal rewards they are Jesus expressing how he feels about the way you loved him in this life. Eternal rewards is about his enthusiasm about your love in this life. Beloved our destiny is great. God wants us to lock into the will of God of being conformed to the image of Christ. Romans 8 verse 29. Our destiny starts as a small seed. It starts as an internal seed of transformation into the image of Christ growing in humility, growing in purity, growing in love, growing in servanthood. But that seed blossoms into a tree that lasts forever and the fruit lasts forever. Now the problem is that many of us, myself included, we get caught up in the rigors of life. We're aiming at the wrong target. We're aiming at function. The will of God our function and we want it bigger. We want it better and there's nothing wrong with wanting it bigger and better. But to get overly preoccupied with that you'll end up bitter at God. You'll end up offended at his leadership. God I thought the will of God was bigger, better, easier. What is this? Because now the will of God is transformation the image of Christ. You're doing it. This is it? Yeah, yeah, yeah you're doing it. Well it doesn't feel like I've gained that much ground. Oh you've gained a whole lot more ground than you would have if I would have taken my hand off of you. He holds us to the right target. A lot of believers are burned out. I've heard this many years. Burned out. Burned out is code for I'm disappointed with God's leadership in my life. Burned out is code for I'm really disappointed by the way believers respond to me. I should have a lot more impact, a lot more influence, a lot more recognition, a lot more power, a lot more everything. But I don't have it. God's not helping me and people aren't responding right. That's normally what burned out means. What Paul's saying here is you're aiming at the wrong target. Shift your target over. You can actually find the will of God is pleasing. You can encounter God and actually feel the glory, the presence of God even when it's a struggle outwardly and things are small outwardly. Something inwardly can be taking place. It's powerful that you feel. That will make sense to you. But a lot of believers by nature, myself included, we aim at the wrong target and we realign to the right one. That's called renewing your mind. Then we get into the rigors of life. We refocus on the target the culture tells us is the right one. The big one, the better one, the easier one, more favor, more impact, more everything. And there's nothing wrong with aiming for more. But when the aiming for more becomes the primary preoccupation, that's when we get bruised. Because we can't feel joy in the primary will of God. That is being conformed to the image of Christ. That's what it's after. That's the dimension that brings gold in the age to come. Jesus said, buy gold from me. He said that in Revelation 3. Make choices that result in gold in the age to come. And that gold means a bunch of things. Paragraph C, Ephesians 2 verse 10. We are his workmanship. What a statement. Created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand we should walk in them. There's a whole lot of important truth in this every phrase here. We are his workmanship. We are created in Christ Jesus for good works. Now here's the issue. Most of the good works, 99.9% of the good works you do will be very small. And most of them will be weak. They'll be small and weak. Encouraging somebody. You're responding kindly. When your spouse is responding roughly. Or when your children are. Or when your parents are. When your siblings are. You're in the workplace. You're blessing those that are annoying you. You're serving people that aren't serving you. Those are the good works. A lot of that kind of stuff. Now the good works that were created in Christ Jesus for us are small. 99.9% of them are small. And they're weak. And they're hard to measure. They're hard to even remember. They seem so small we don't even remember them. I mean I encouraged that guy three years ago I think. I can't remember what I told him. They're created in Christ Jesus means through the lens of the cross. Giving someone a cup of cold water is now sanctified by God. Through Christ Jesus and remembered forever and rewarded forever. That's the small works that you were that were created in Christ Jesus and given to you beforehand. He says I've prepared you for this. We are his workmanship. It's more about his workmanship in you than your work for him that's outward. Now we want to do work for him that's outward. We want to do the good works that are outward. But we're doing it in the spirit of Romans 8.29 being conformed to the image of his son. Meaning we're valuing the acts of servitude. We're valuing the responses of kindness and patience. We're valuing the blessing the people that don't bless us. We value that. We are his workmanship that those small things are sanctified and dignified because God's the author of them. God values them. He's the judge of them. He's the one that originated and came up with the idea to do these things. He came up with the Sermon on the Mount. He prepared us beforehand we should walk in it. Now the we that walk in it are weak and broken people. All the same through history. That's the only kind of people God has is weak and broken people in the flesh. So the we that walk in the small weak works or weak and broken people but it works. But because God's the author the source and the judge of the good works they're sanctified. They last forever. They move his heart. They're important. They crown our life with meaning is the idea. We were created in Christ Jesus to do these works. Now again when we look at the works up close we go oh that's kind of a boring little work. Philippians chapter 1 being confident that he who began a good work in you will complete it. If you have a yes in your spirit to God. I mean a yes to this Romans 8 29 to be conformed to the image of his son. Now we lose sight of that but we get it back. We lose sight of it. We realign. We lose sight. We get it back. But that's called a yes in your spirit to be conformed to the image of Christ. We realign our life goal is that then we lose sight of it. Paul says you can be confident. He's talking to saints like us weak and broken people. He goes you can be confident that the God that begun this work in you who began this work in you he will complete it. His evaluation is so merciful. Your life is going to be successful. Just keep realigning to the will of God. The primary will of God being conformed to the image of Christ and keep saying yes to it and keep finding ways to do little works in the spirit of conformity to Christ. Showing your humility love and purity and the little exchanges in life. The little conversations. I mean driving to work, doing the paperwork, doing the taxes, doing the dishes, cleaning the house. The coming and the going of the routine mundane-ness of life but done in the spirit of being conformed to the image of Christ. That stuff is remembered forever. Paragraph D. Paul said it's by the mercy of God we present ourselves. We have confidence. We have confidence that this offering our little because the offering your body is a living sacrifice that sounds so big and heroic but the doing of it is thousands of very small little weak responses to God and people the offering of your body as a living sacrifice sounds so dramatic it is actually but we get the wrong idea it comes down to thousands and thousands over decades of small responses to God and to people in our conversations and you know the way we use money the way we use time the way we use words though the way we respond when we're frustrated all those things are part of the offering of ourself as a living sacrifice we die to our fleshly goals and ambitions and we realign ourself to the will of God that's the living sacrifice now the reason we give ourself we present ourself by the mercy of God that gives us confidence that the offering though it's weak and flawed is is uh meaningful to God because through the lens of mercy though my response isn't so good I can repent respond again the Lord says good that's good you did it you got it right through the mercy lens that offering of myself that those thousands of little interchanges with God and people done in the spirit of Romans 8 29 they make our life powerful they make our life successful because it's through the mercy that we offer ourself now a lot of folks lose sight of the mercy they think of mercy is God forgiving us of scandalous sin mercy does forgive us a scandalous sin but mercy forgives us of all all the flawed uh presenting of ourself in our obedience our flawed obedience our flawed diligence our flawed faith our weak presentation mercy covers all of that not just big scandalous areas like I got mercy like six years ago and I did that one bad thing and what two years ago that was a sort of a big one not that big no yeah we're getting mercy every day because our the presenting of ourself is flawed our obedience is flawed it's weak our our our love is weak but weak love is not false it's still real but through the lens of mercy look at this he delights in mercy we looked at that last week he remembers that we're dust he remembers that we're flesh my all is very small my all is flawed but it moves him when I offer it to him nobody else wants it like he does let's go to top of page two he says present your body as a living sacrifice again this looks like what this looks like just thousands of little small weak exchanges of our heart with God and of our heart and our resources with people resources time energy money words thousands and thousands of them through the course of decades of these small exchanges of our heart with God in our heart with people and our resources again time energy words those are all about our resources not just money money's involved we present ourself as a living sacrifice as somebody committed to die to the fleshly way of a life purpose just that fleshly will that fleshly purpose that fleshly vision to re-acclimate and realign to that conform to the image of his son vision for our life now this living sacrifice again this is the language of costly abandonment but that abandonment that the the offering of ourself in this abandonment strong language but again the doing of it is such little incremental things little small little things phrases words attitudes that's what it comes down to now what's remarkable is the God who has everything still wants something and he wants us to give our body to him like really the God that has everything wants this i mean got all the angels worship you why do you want the service of my body it's so weak and broken and frail i mean the services you want that is yeah i have everything but because i'm a God of love that's what i really really want is that more than anything else okay this i i'm just can't get over that God wants this because our offering is not very impressive at all but he likes it he likes it when i'm in a difficult situation again family friends work frustration and you choose to respond in humility even though humility isn't fully mature it's and you respond wrong but then you re-respond and you own it and you confess it he goes i love that that's what i mean present yourself as a living sacrifice that's what it means right there right there David said i won't offer to God that which costs me nothing this is costly obedience all you got to do is go back to your spouse and say what i said was wrong and it doesn't matter what the situation is i want to respond in kindness and tenderness that's costly some to our flesh we give that which is costly because it expresses our love to God now our body as we mentioned last week it speaks of our whole person but i believe the reason Paul used the word body instead of just give your heart to God well again body means the whole of your person your time your money everything buddy Paul wanted to anchor this offering of ourself to God in the earthy mundaneness of our life so if he said give your heart to God you could you know what we do throughout the day we think well that doesn't really count it's my heart only it's only when i get my heart like in a worship service or something now he's saying i want the earthly the earthy physical mundane things of your life that your body the whole of your person is associated with not just the few intensely spiritual activities some folks think well if i go to that one prayer meeting and really get captured and i mean really caught up into the focus of the holy spirit i'll offer that to him he'll say i'll take that or i'm used by the power of God to witness to somebody i mean it broke the bonds of deception in that unbeliever's life they gave their heart to the Lord or that person got healed i prayed for them the demon came out the person got set free or the healing was released wow there are spiritually intense activities but that's about one percent of your life 99 of our life is driving to work interacting with people the work around the house family life coming going exercising or purposing to exercise boy i hit a nerve there i'm just kidding of course most of our life activities done in our body i'm talking about housework raising children dirty diapers taxes the lawn the friends the neighbors repairing relationships fixing things that keep breaking the house refrigerator the air conditioner the car the computer all these like i just fixed it and it broke again it's but in a spirit of lord i would have be conforming to the image of your son that's the spirit of which we do these small acts the Lord says i'm moved by the whole thing all of it it's all spiritual to me not just the intensely spiritual subjects activities like you know a dramatic healing or something most of our life is not outstanding activities every now and then we have one of those most of our life is just those mundane routine things but it's called the offering of your body to God and as a living sacrifice in a way that we're dying to our fleshly goal and vision and comfort to do the will of God oh i love those high intense activities where i feel the power of God it just doesn't happen that high of a percentage of time of my 168 hours a week that's what we all have that's 24 7 168 hours let's look at these five truths just spend uh 60 seconds on each one of them Paul said uh middle page two truth number one now the devil attacks these five truths he does not want these truths clear he doesn't want you speaking these over your heart you speak these over your heart your heart will get liberated and empowered i speak these truths over my heart i speak these truths in prayer over people i love and i pray for speak these truths this is the will of God these five things the holy spirit will back it up number one the offering the weak small the i mean the offering of yourself in weak and small deeds weak and small obedience the offering of yourself God calls it holy that's truth number one God says that's holy now there's different applications of the word holy in the bible Paul isn't saying to this Christians at Rome that offering of yourself all those thousands of small little activities they're all perfect in purity and love and humility he's not saying that their love uh was undefiled immature and their faith had no mixture in it that's not what he's saying the word holy here he's not using it as uh perfect in purity and maturity that's not what he's saying holy the word means set apart it's sacred to God it's sanctified so we offer the cup of cold water but it's in his name and it's because we're doing it in his sight and we're wanting to be pleasing to him that little offering of a cup of cold water to somebody in need is actually holy to God it's sacred to him which means he remembers it forever which remains he rewards it rewards again is him showing the way he feels about the way you loved him in this life that's what rewards are our smallest acts of obedience look at paragraph f he sees them he remembers them he's moved by them look at hebrews 6 God's not unjust to forget any of these works but these are small works done in the spirit of Romans 8 29 in the spirit of being conformed to the image of Christ he won't forget any of those works that's what you're aiming to do it in that spirit and even then it's flawed and imperfect but that's the reach of our heart and that's what moves him God loves love even when our love is weak he loves it he loves it when we set our heart to love in the most difficult times and again a family conflict or conflict at the marketplace or in the ministry whatever if we assume because our labor of love is so small we assume God forgot it he doesn't forget it it's holy the devil comes along and tells you that those thousands of little exchanges with people are irrelevant they're not important to God they don't matter Paul says they're holy the devil says they don't mean anything you're a failure anyway God says they're holy they're sacred to God beloved when I can see the value of my small thousands of these little exchanges of my heart with God and people when I see them as holy meaningful remembered by God my life is crowned with meaning now it's not about having a big conference or a big impact and there's nothing wrong with having a big conference at a big impact but that's not mostly what anyone's life is about before God I stand before God he's not going to ask me about my book sales or how big my church was or my ministry he's going to ask me about my response to the image of Christ in the small works that's what he's going to talk to me about so we're going to talk to you about truth number two Paul says is acceptable but again many translations use the word pleasing the this offering of yourself in a weak way is pleasing God's moved by it the devil calls you a hypocrite Paul said God's pleased by it yeah but that conversation I was trying to be helpful I got a little offend you know I got a little defensive but then I backed off the defensive spirit decided to listen to them and not prove why they were wrong and I was right and why they're bad and why I'm good I decided to listen to them and love them and hear them Paul says that's good that's pleasing I didn't do that good of a job the Lord says yeah but you've offered yourself that's part of being a living sacrifice those kind of exchanges oh what a joy and I find that God's pleased I mean he doesn't agree with all the areas of my life there's areas he's still saying this needs to change that needs to change but he enjoys the relationship he he delights in my life though not every area of my life but my life as a whole he delights in the relationship and he does with you as well he knew what he was getting into when he called your name he knew that he knew who you are and what you would do he wants you people live with such despair thinking that the offering of themselves is not or pleasing to God and the enemy pounds on them you're a hopeless failure give up give in what's the point I've heard it thousands of times as a pastor what is the point of going on because those little small incremental exchanges with God are holy and pleasing that's the point yeah but I don't feel like it will get your signals from the word and not from the culture where in our culture does anybody value obeying God in secret the culture doesn't God does they value big meetings lots of money lots of pizzazzo impact so we're aiming only at that and we live in despair and angry at God angry at the body of Christ disappointed life spinning out as a failure and God says why you're actually doing stuff that's going to turn into gold in the age to come why don't you enjoy the journey paragraph h truth number three the will of God is good the leadership of God is good we mentioned a little bit of this last week that God leads you in a way that not just for his own glory it is for his glory it builds up his kingdom and in a small way but it builds his kingdom up it's for his glory but beloved it's he does he has a plan the will of God the master plan it actually enriches you it actually bears fruit though you can't measure the fruit he does and we stand before him some of you will get the shock of your life that your kind exchanges and your giving of yourself that nobody appreciated actually he will remember and he will tell you about that on the last day you'll go you're kidding man my life was good I thought my life was a wreck because my circumstances were tough nobody paid attention to me my ministry was nearly non-existent but I was trying to obey you some of you will get the shock of your life when you find out that the will of God the plan was good and you'll rejoice when you see the whole story beloved you have a good future not just in the age to come in this age you're on the pathway of something that God calls good you're on that path number four truth it's pleasing or acceptable now this pleasing means it's pleasing to you the earlier phrase of acceptable and pleasing earlier was it was pleasing to God this one means the leadership of God when you align right and aim at the right target and you're not focused on just getting more influence and being more popular and being more beautiful and getting more wow from people but you're more focused on this other thing you'll actually find an experience and enjoyment of the Holy Spirit of the process and the way God designed you and the master plan for your life will work in a way that's tailor-made for you you'll actually find sweetness in the exchange with God when you're aiming at the right target beloved my target was this ministry getting just bigger and better and more this and more that and I want those things for sure but those that's not my main goal in life it would wear me out and completely bruise me and burn me out I want that but that's second or third down the list I'll put some effort in on that but I want to exchange with God that a whole nother level where I can feel the pleasure of my assignment and calling regardless what's happening in the circumstances of it paragraph j the fifth truth it's perfect his leadership is perfect he thought through everything didn't leave out any details he's thinking from eternity a big picture plan his leadership can't be improved the plan for your life can't be improved so the circumstances can well they will in time you just wait and see you're going to be living in a mansion with streets of gold you're going to have a real good time for billions of years your circumstances may be hard for a while but I tell you the leadership is perfect because it's going to bring your life into the glory of God in your life he commits to intervene at the right time well Lord you look like you're late the devil says God you missed it and God's late and God doesn't care I say it is written his leadership is perfect the will of God is perfect I confess that the will of God I could do all things in Christ Jesus the difficult hour I can enjoy him now not just a breakthrough of joy a couple years from now I can enjoy him today when I realign right it could be pleasing today circumstance is tough but inward I can feel the joy and the pleasure of it today worship team go ahead and come on up let's look at Roman numeral two the last phrase it's it's all there it's pretty self-evident Romans chapter 2 verse 2 don't be conformed to this world what Paul is actually talking about right here not just avoid the lusts he doesn't mean that here avoid the lusts of this world he also means don't accept the evaluation of your life that the culture gives you accept the biblical evaluation and another time we'll talk about don't be conformed throw away resist the loss but here we're throwing away the wrong value system the way to evaluate your life because the world says if you're not beautiful super gifted real smart winsome lots of open doors lots of money you're a loser that's a lie beloved don't conform to that do you mean that you live in despair all the time you live in despair all the time and there's a couple million churches in the earth most of them are about 30 to 50 people in the earth we got these pastors trying to build mega churches so they can finally be important throughout all of history most of them are 50 members god says that's good that's a good job i tell pastors just chill out and enjoy jesus in the journey and the same in the marketplace and all kinds of spheres of life be transformed by the renewing of your mind amen let's stand lord here we come before you lord we speak the word over our own hearts we want to line up to the word of god lord we want to line up to the word i want to renew our minds i want to invite anybody to come down saying boy i'm being attacked by the enemy and i feel discouraged i believe this stuff but the enemy still hit me hard and i want some people to pray with me or your body is sick and you want somebody to pray with you for that or you or you got a personal need or a family need you would like prayer i would invite you to come forward i want to speak these words just as you're coming forward over the congregation the lord says that the offering of your body is holy it's not irrelevant it's holy it's sacred to god the offering of your body is pleasing to god the will of god in your life is good the leadership of god for your life is good it's good for you it's pleasing you aim at the right target it's perfect beloved that's my confession that's where i take my stand amen i invite a bunch of you to come down and pray for folks if you would