Thinking that Transforms

Romans chapter 12 for our time of study in, in God's word. This morning we have done a study of Romans 5 through 8. Where we have taken a journey to the heart of the gospel, we've been studying the, all the facets of the glories that belong to us in Christ and in the gospel and having completed our study of those chapters, we're asking the question, what then shall we do? And we're compiling a list, we're making a list of all the answers to that question.

And we're gonna add to that list, this morning. We learned a few weeks ago, what should we do to, in response to the gospel and by way of unleashing the gospel in our lives, verse one, we need to worship God. Last week, we learned that we need to be transformed. And today, we're gonna learn another thing that we should do in response to the gospel and to unleash the gospel in our lives, and that is, think.

Think To allow our minds to be renewed. And so if you want to give a title to the message this morning, it would be Thinking that transforms. Thinking that transforms. Look what Paul says in Romans 12, beginning in verse 1.

He says, 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 or reasonable service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Paul gives us com a command, undergo a metamorphosis, be transformed. How many of you want to be transformed?

Raise your hand. All right, Paul fortunately says, let me tell you how to position yourself to where this will happen. And that is, by the renewing of your mind, we can be very grateful that he gives us that piece of information. Transformation of life is routed through the mind.

If we want to be transformed, we will want to renew our minds. So how many of you want to renew your mind? Raise your hand. All right.

And he says, do this so that you may prove what the will of God is that which is good and acceptable and perfect. So be transformed, you're like, well, how do I do that? Renew your mind. OK, how do I do that?

It would sure be nice if Paul would hold my hand and say, let me actually tell you precisely how to think. And start you off on this journey of renewing your mind. And guys, that's exactly what Paul does in Romans 12:3. In fact, I'm gonna read this verse to you, and it'll be a more literal translation that brings out the fact that there's a root word that shows up 4 times in this verse.

He's just said by the renewing of your mind, and then in the very next verse, look what he says. For through the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you, not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but to think so as to have sane thinking. So Paul is saying, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And then in the very next verse, we have think, think, think, thinking.

Clearly, Paul is unpacking. For us, what it means to have renovated minds that think differently. In this passage and in the verses to follow, Paul essentially is telling us how not to think now that we're Christians and how to think. The way we're gonna try to break this down this morning is 8 instructions that we find in verse 3 through 6 that Paul provides for us to help us to think in a new way that leads to deep seated, godly transformation.

We are a product of how we think. And Paul is going to teach us how to think in verse 3 and following. Let's get underway with this. The first instruction that he explicitly gives us regarding how to think and renew our minds is this, he basically says, don't think more highly of yourself than you ought to think.

So he starts off negatively saying, let me tell you how to stop thinking or how not to think. He says through the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you, not to be thinking more highly of himself than he ought to think. Paul is not saying in this verse that we are not to think about ourselves. That's not what he's saying.

In fact, his language here implies that we are supposed to think about ourselves, but he says there's a way that you ought to think about yourself. And my instruction to you is don't think of yourself more highly than the way that you ought to think about yourself. And so Paul begins on the note of humility. If you're really interested in transformation of life, then humility is required.

Pride is an obstacle to true life transformation. And so we should want to get rid of any evidence of pride whenever it appears and posture ourselves in a humble way. And regarding how to think about ourselves, now that we are saved and in Christ, Paul says, make sure that you don't think more highly of yourself than you ought to think, because if you allow that to happen, you're going to mess up this renewing of your mind, and this transformation process that God is wanting you to undergo.

You say, well, what does it mean to think more highly of oneself than he ought to think?

Let's ponder a few ways. We can make a long list, but I think we could at least say 4 things, just in the context. When you look at the verses that follow, you can go back into this command and understand something of what was probably in Paul's brain when he said, don't think of yourself more highly than you ought to think. He's going after something, and I think at least these 4 Expressions of pride and arrogance is what he's going after.

To think more highly of yourself in part can mean to see yourself as superior to other people. It means to be afflicted with comparisonitis, and to conclude that you're better. than other people. And you're basically thinking I'm better than these people, I'm superior to them, I am above them.

If you're thinking that way in the context of the local church, then you're thinking more highly of yourself than you ought to think. By the way, notice what he says in verse 3, he says, through the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you, So he's, he's imagining a group of people and this is obviously the local church context. And he says, I say to everyone who is among you, all of you together, and part of what's implied in that is that anyone who's truly a child of God ought to find himself among other brothers and sisters in the Lord in the context of the local church.

And here are all these Roman Christians in the Roman Church.

who find themselves surrounded by brothers and sisters and pastors and deacons and, and so forth in Christ. And Paul says, I want to talk to each person among you. And my first instruction is don't think more highly of your individual self than you ought to think. In other words, don't look around and say I'm better than these other people, I'm superior to them.

To think more highly of yourself is also to refuse to let yourself be in a lesser place than, than other people. And we can be guilty of this, in Corinthians where Paul talks about some parts of the body who say, because I am this part of the body, I have no need of the rest. Those are people who are filled with pride and because they're so gifted, they They feel like they don't need others, but then there's the other group of people who say, because I'm not the eye or this part of the body, therefore, I'm not a part of the body at all.

And we might think those people are overly humble or suffering from an inferiority complex when actually, those are arrogant people also.

Because their attitude is, because I don't have that greater gift that I would want to have, and I'm stuck with these lesser gifts. I, I'm not gonna do anything. I'm gonna take my gifts and go home. I don't want any part in this.

And it's challenging for such people to look at other people with greater gifts and greater functions and then for them to bring what everyone's gonna see as a lesser giftedness to the table. And rather than bring their giftedness to the table, and it be seen as less than someone else's, they just take their gift and go home. And they don't want any part of serving in the body. If they can't be the greatest, they don't want to do anything.

There are others who functionally speaking, they'll be involved in ministry if they're in charge, if they're the one in authority, but you try to get them to be a team player and to work under someone for any length of time, good luck trying to get them to serve or to continue serving over a long period of time. and someone who's like that is thinking more highly of themselves than they ought to think. They're unable to work underneath other people as a team player. Another way to think more highly of yourself than you ought to think is to see yourself as self-sufficient, having no need.

of other people. And there are people in the church, we have this mentality sometimes I think that probably shows up in all of us, that we think that we got everything that we need and maybe we're really, really strong in particular areas of giftedness and so we conclude that I don't need anybody. Paul, in addressing this, not only here in this command, but in the verses to come, is actually addressing, he's targeting what is potentially a wrong direction to go with all the gospel truth he's revealed.

Up to this point of the book of Romans.

One can read Romans 5 through 8 and say, good night, look at this, Christ has died for me, my sins are forgiven, I'm righteous, God has given me the Holy Spirit, I'm free from sin's power, and on and on the list can go, I must have all provision that I need for life and for godliness, and therefore, I can just go off and begin to live the Christian life and I don't need other people. I have God. I have God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, I've got the Spirit inside of me, I've got his word, and so I don't need other people.

That's a wrong direction to go with the gospel.

And Paul says, if you're thinking this way, and you think you don't need other people in your life and that you're self-sufficient, then you're thinking more highly of yourself than you ought to think. Another way that we can think more highly of ourselves than we ought is to view ourselves as God's all sufficient gift to others., I don't really need the people in this church, but they need me. I am God's gift to, to this church, and, and we all in a sense are God's gift to the church, but there's some who their, their attitude is almost like they're, they've got the savior complex.

This church is lucky to have me.

And I can solve all the things that are wrong with this church in the context of friendship. There are people that are so possessive of friendships that they, they, they basically convey to others, the only friend you need is me. You've got me and, and our friendship can meet your need and they discourage this person from having friendships with others. There are pastors that are dysfunctional in this way and extremely possessive and jealous and And they don't like people in their church, listening to others or being influenced by, by others.

They want to be the one who is meeting the needs of their people. I, I know of situations where there's senior pastors. who have had a hard time allowing other staff to come on board and they've been pastors of churches for over 20 years and still 80 people and one pastor. And when they've hired an additional staff person, that pastor would not share either the spotlight or the glory or the responsibility without being consumed.

With pride and with jealousy. They want to be the one who's meeting all the needs of the people in that congregation. So these are instincts that show up in all of us, do they not, to one degree or another? Have any of you had any of these instincts ever show up in you at any point in your life?

Just, just raise your hand a little bit. OK, to where no one else can see. Cool. And Paul is saying, if, if you want to embark on this journey of transformation, then you just got to make sure that when you think about yourself in Christ, that you don't think about yourself more highly than you ought to think or that's going to sabotage this transformation that God is wanting to bring about in you.

There's another instruction that he gives, and by the way, we're going to go slower through these first few and then we're gonna fly through the, the second half of these. And I think the best way to word this second instruction is think yourself into gospel sanity. Think yourself into a state of gospel sanity. He says, through the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but to think so as to have literally sane thinking.

Some translations say sober judgment, sober, thinking, but it's literally the word that's the opposite of the way a crazy person thinks. So to do the opposite of this is to think crazy thoughts, to be insane. Paul is saying think so as to have sane thinking. Literally, this reads, think into sane thinking.

So he's calling us by the grace of God to think and to think in a way that orients ourselves towards gospel sanity, that brings us towards that sanity and takes us deep into gospel sanity. Paul is saying, I want you guys to be sane in your thinking. And in the immediate context, part of what that means is if you think too highly of yourself, more highly than you ought to think, you're insane. In fact, one writer says self-conceit is the highest form of insanity.

And Paul is saying, don't, don't be insane in that prideful way. But I think he's doing something even beyond that and he's calling us into a thinking of gospel sanity. Why does he emphasize sanity here? let's ponder this for a moment.

What, what is the definition of insanity? How do you Explain what an insane person is. Insanity is, is it not, the loss of touch with reality. that's basically an insane person is someone who has lost touch with reality.

You got a guy named Bob Smith over here who thinks he's Napoleon. He's insane because the reality is he's not Napoleon. Now, Napoleon himself would tell people that he was Napoleon, and that's OK because that was reality. but someone who sees things, hears things, sees himself in a certain way and others that is detached from reality, that person is insane, or at least he's not altogether sane.

So reality is the operative word when we think about our sanity in Christ. And why does Paul use this word? I think part, part of it is because, before we were saved, we had a reality. we were under God's wrath, under his condemnation, under his judgment, we were bound by the guilt of our sins, and we were citizens in the kingdom of darkness, ruled over by Satan, separated from God, alienated from him.

When God regenerated us, and we believed in Christ, God ushered us into a, an incredibly new, wonderful, glorious reality. And gospel sanity is simply coming to know that reality and learning to think according to that reality. Our reality from the moment that we're saved is an amazing reality in Christ. Let's rattle a few things off.

We're forgiven of every sin, past, present, and future. We're delivered from the power of all sin. We're no longer slaves to sin. We are justified.

So God has looked upon us, declared us righteous. and said, I will forever think of you. Whenever I think of you, I will think of you as forgiven of all of your sins, and righteous with the very righteousness of Jesus. We are in Christ, so all the blessings that the Father lavishes upon Jesus come to us.

We are accepted completely in the beloved, according to Ephesians 1. We are seated with Christ in the heavenly places. We are always being prayed for by Jesus and by the Holy Spirit to the Father. We are destined for future glory, a glory that no one can take away from us.

We are always living Under the rain and the operations of God's grace, we are always under God's gracious favor all day, every day, good days and bad days, waking or sleeping solely based on the performance of Jesus, and it has nothing to do with our performance at all. The power of God, In Ephesians, we're told that the very power of God that God utilized in raising Christ from the dead and ascending him to his own right hand, that very power is constantly streaming toward us and into us.

God's grace is abounding to us in all things, including abounding to us through our trials as God is molding and shaping our character, because we're justified ones, God subjugates all of our trials and hardships and forces every one of them to pay tribute to us and to do good to us. We have a God who works all things together for our ultimate and eternal good and for His glory.

God is for us. He is never against us. He loves us with a love that is not only with us today, but will be with us tomorrow, and nothing can ever separate us from this love. And on and on the list can go.

Guys, this is welcome to your new reality in Christ. What is gospel sanity? It's learning to think according to this new reality. What is your gospel IQ?

How much of the gospel reality that you live inside of, do you understand? And What is your gospel sanity score? How would you score if God were to just look at all the ways you thought this past week? How would he score your gospel sanity?

How consistently did you think? With the reality that is now yours in Christ. Whenever, you, you're walking through your day just under a spirit of condemnation, if you're a child of God, oh God is wrathful against me and, and I'm condemned, that's insane thinking. That's not your reality in Christ.

Oh, God doesn't love me. He doesn't love me. That's insane thinking for a believer, it's disconnected from their reality. You may say, Pastor Milton, I, I'm, I'm a child of God, but I'm, I'm bound by these sins and I'm enslaved to them and I just can't break free from them.

That's insane thinking for a Christian. I, I just have a hard time believing that God could forgive me for what I did this past week. God can't forgive me for that. God wouldn't want a close relationship with me ever again because of what I did.

That's insane thinking for a Christian, or in our moments of sin, we know God has prohibited something, but we willfully say, I'm going to do this anyway. We may not think this consciously, but we're underneath that, what we're really saying is I can love myself better than God can. That's insanity. Basically, guys, every willful sin on our part as a Christian is a moment of temporary insanity.

Paul is saying that one of the things that God wants, he's given you this incredible reality. But now you got to use your mind, you've got to study this reality, and then by the grace of God, begin to think accordingly and think yourself into this state of gospel sanity. Ray Steadman says regarding this very instruction of Paul, he says, what has God said about you? Look back over all the tremendous truth given in the 1st 8 chapters of Romans.

That is the way to think about yourself. And that is sanity for the Christian. Well, moving on, if you're interested guys in transformation, then you'll want to renew your minds, you'll want to change the way you think. And regarding how you think, you're therefore going to want to make sure that you don't think more highly of yourself than you ought to think.

And you're going to need by the grace of God to think yourself into gospel sanity. By the way, didn't we just sing a song this morning? Think what spirit dwells within the. Think what Father smiles are thine.

Think that Jesus died to win thee. Child of heaven, canst thou repine? You all were giving that exhortation. To one another just a few moments ago.

Yes, we have these realities, but the songwriter is saying, think these things. He's not even saying think on these things like ponder them, he's saying think them. Make this the way you think. Because though these realities belong to us in Christ, if we don't think this way, then they don't yield up the good that God wants them to yield up in our lives, we must become gospel saying.

And we just need to assume right off when we first get saved, there's certain things about the gospel we understand, but there's a lot of worldly thinking, wrong thinking that we bring into our Christian life. Every person truly saved. At the moment of their conversion, there's still a lot of insanity inside their heads. They're, they're insane in a number of ways, and our Christian life is a journey of becoming more and more sane in understanding the gospel and learning to think accordingly.

Well, again, if you're interested in transformation, and in renewing your mind, you're gonna want to think these ways. And a third instruction. that Paul gives to teach us how to think. Let's word it this way, he tells us to think consistently with the fact that God has apportioned to each person a measure of faith.

God has apportioned to each person a measure of the faith. Look what he says in verse 3. I say Through the grace that was given to me. To every one of you or who is among you, not to think above what is necessary to think, but to think so as to think sanely as God has apportioned to each a measure of the faith.

You're like, what in the world does that mean to, to think as God has apportioned to each a measure of the faith? I don't understand that. Well, you ought to want to understand it because your transformation is dependent upon it. Whatever it means, we all should be agreed that God is telling us that when you think as a Christian, think consistently with this abiding fact that God has apportioned to each a measure of the faith.

this is a difficult expression. one commentator who studied all the stuff that's been said on this particular expression, the measure of faith, says there's 7 different possible meanings of measure. There's 2 possible meanings of the word of, and there are 5 possible meanings of the word faith. You multiply that out, you got 70 possibilities here.

but we're not gonna get caught up in the nuances here. It seems like whatever gymnastics most commentators do to really understand this, and it's a worthy pursuit, they all end up in virtually the same place. And we're gonna try to just land where everyone else seems to land in what we can know for sure. To understand what it means that God has apportioned to each a measure of faith, first of all, we would look at the word faith, what is being spoken about.

In the New Testament, there are 3 different ways that the word faith is used. Sometimes it's used to speak of the subjective faith that's in our hearts, the trust that we place in Christ for salvation. We place our faith in Christ. there's another meaning of the word faith in the New Testament, and that is for it to speak of, objectively speaking, the Christ that we put our trust in, and the body of truth or doctrine that we have put our trust in.

In English, we tend to speak of that as the faith, the faith. it's, it's the Christ and the truth that we put our trust in. And along with that is attached, usually, another idea, and that is that faith or the faith also speaks objectively of the fullness of provision which we have trusted in Christ for. it's all the provision that is in Christ, and in the truth, and in the promise, and in the realities that have come to us by virtue of our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

You use the word faith in this way, when you sit down with someone and say, let me tell you about my faith. You're probably not saying, I, I'm gonna tell you about this subjective faith that I have inside my heart. No, you're about to tell them about the Christ that you have believed in, and the truths that you have believed in, and the blessings and the provision, and the fullness and the realities that now belong to those who put their trust in Christ. That is your faith.

And it's in the 2nd and the 3rd sense that Paul is using the word faith here. And so for our purposes this morning, we can kinda explain it this way that when you see Paul referring to faith here at the end of verse 3, he's speaking of the, the full package. The full provision of all that is needed for life and for godliness. You can take all the truth, all the promise, all the comforts, consolations, ramifications, all the realities, relationship that belong to us in the gospel, and in Christ, you can draw a circle around all of that full package, and label it the faith.

So when Paul says God has apportioned to each a measure of faith or the faith, that's what he's talking about. OK? Now, the word apportioned means very simply to divide up and then distribute, to divide up and then distribute. And then measure speaks of the fact that God does not give to any single person the full package.

He measures it out, and he gives to each person only a measure. Now let's put all that together. We all come into this room this morning, theoretically because we have heard that God is going to be here. And we've heard that he's going to give to us the full package of everything that is needed for life and godliness.

And we are excited about that. So we all show up because we want this full package of all that we need for life and godliness. And God is up here, and we see behind him this full provision, and we're like, oh, I want that, I want that. I'm so excited he's going to be giving that to me today.

But before he does so, you notice God dividing up that package. And all that's in that package, he divides it up and you're like, what's he doing? And then he takes one portion that he's divided up, and he walks over to somebody and hands that to a person, and gives them a measure of that. And then he takes another portion or measure and goes over to another person over here and gives them a measure.

of what was in that package. And then another and another, he divides it up, and he disperses or distributes a measure of that full package to everybody. And then by the time he's done, all of us in this room have received from God a measure. Of the faith.

And when we're done, we realize we all got something, but I'm noticing no one got everything. We're like, wait a minute, I thought, I thought God was going to give me everything I need for life and godliness and we asked him, I thought you were going to give us everything we need for life and godliness. And God's answer is, that's exactly what I've just done. And here's what I've done.

I've given you a portion, and I've taken deposits of everything else that you need, and I've deposited them inside of your brothers and sisters, and now I give them to you. If you want the fullness of all that you need for life and godliness, go to them and get it. And when you're at it, give to them the measure of the faith that I have given to you. Does that make sense?

God does this so that we live in community with one another. John MacArthur says in this context, a measure of faith seems to refer to the correct measure of the resources best suited to fulfill one's role in the body of Christ. Every person has his own special but limited Set of capabilities. What's implied in that and what's implied in Paul's language here is that God intentionally gave you some and very intentionally withheld.

Other parts from you, to where you have provision from Him, but you're also left with divinely intended deficiencies. God gives you the gift of provision. He also gives you the gift of deficiencies. So that those deficiencies will drive you into community with your brothers and sisters in the church, and you will go to them in relationship with them and get that deficiency satisfied in community with them.

You possess spiritual graces and provisions. You also possess divinely intended deficits. That make you need your brothers and sisters in Christ. When we begin to understand this and think accordingly, then it frees us up to where we don't have to hide our deficits.

we can confess those deficits and we move towards one another to get those divinely intended deficits satisfied. And it's in community with one another that we do experience the full package of all that we need for life and godliness. Now, a quick question, why did God orchestrate it this way? Why didn't he just give to each of us the full package, we get it from him and then we all go along our merry way living in isolation from one another.

Why did God measure it out, disperse it, to where no one's left with everything, and we have to get that from one another. I believe the reason is, is because God Himself is a communal being. As Mike was saying earlier in the service, God is community, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The gospel is essentially God reaching out from that community and doing what needed to be done in order to clear the way to bring us into that community and then he invites us and brings us into that community with Himself, Father, Son, and.

Holy Spirit. And he wants to shape us to the image of Christ. He wants to shape us as a community after his image. And therefore, we must have community and relationships if we are going to display the image of this communal God.

Tim Chester and Steve Timmas say this, God Himself is a social rather than solitary being and so his image cannot be borne by an individual. If he gave the full package to each of us, and we all went off and lived autonomously in isolation from one another, we would never be able to fully display the image of this communal God. And so he just divides and disperses, and then he gives us to one another, and we learn to relate to one another and do community with one another. And it's in the context of that community that we experience the fullness of provision in Christ.

And so if that's true, I don't want to think of myself more highly than I ought to think. I want to think myself into the gospel sanity. And a part of that sanity involves me understanding that God has taken his full provision, divided it up, and dispersed it to my brothers and sisters in Christ in the church, and we will experience that in community with one another. If all of that is true, Then it makes sense what Paul then instructs us to do next.

And let's word it this way, the 4th instruction is therefore, in light of all of these realities, when you think as a Christian, if you're interested in transformation and renewing your mind, think we. Stop thinking I and me exclusively and start thinking we. Paul says in verse 4, for just as we have many members in one body, and all the members do not have the same function. So we who are many are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

You are not an island unto yourself. You are not. An autonomous being, you are a person in community with others. And our culture today.

In our American culture, the, the values of individualism and self-sufficiency are prized values. whereas in the church, community, and interdependency are prized values that God has intentionally structured things so as to facilitate the growth of those values. In America, we love individualism. We love self-sufficiency and I, I got where I got because of my own hard work and my own initiative.

And if the president or anyone else dares to say I got where I got because there were other people who may have helped me. I will be offended by that. I got where I got because of me. That's the values of our culture today.

And in the church, if we're thinking the way that we ought, we're, we're subversive to that. We're countercultural. We value community and interdependency. We recognize our deficits and confess them, and it's those deficits that drive us to Others.

the, the Greek word for I. Is Ego. From which we get our English word. Ego.

We tend to think that someone who's really into themselves and self-absorbed that they have a large ego, right? I think Paul would say that actually it's the other way. Someone who's really into themselves, they don't have a large ego. They have a small ego that is so small that only they can fit inside of it.

But someone being transformed by the gospel has a large ego that is so large that others fit inside of that. And they think we. Not just I and, and me. I have, I have insanity still in me to this day.

There are evidences and so many deep traces of individualism and self-sufficiency that, that I see in me and, and I have to unlearn that. I'm still in the process of, of unlearning that. We are communal beings. We are who we are in community with other people.

I'll never forget years ago before seatbelts, wearing seatbelts were the law. I was talking to someone, who they wore a seatbelt all the time and, and I, I just said, I, I don't normally wear one, and, and then I just said in a cavalier way, hey, when it's my time, it's my time. If I die, I die. I'm, I'm not worried about that.

What a stupid thing to say. and this person said something to me, and I don't remember the exact words, but here's basically what they said. They said, yeah, you will die. And your wife will lose a husband.

And your children will lose a father. And your church will lose a pastor. And your parents will lose a son. And I will lose a friend.

And that hit me like a ton of bricks. It's such a small thing, seatbelts, but in that moment, what came crushing in was the reality that, what, it's not just about me. I'm not some autonomous being. I am a being in community whether I think about it or not.

And ever since then, I wear my seatbelt, not just so as not to get a ticket, but I wear a seatbelt for my wife and for my children, and for my parents, and for you. Because I am a being in community, and I, I'm having to learn just to think more than just I and me and to think we. I said we were going to rush through these, but now we really will. 1/5 instruction that, that we find here is in, in terms of thinking, we think we are many by God's design.

So I'm no longer looking at myself, I'm now thinking communally, and I'm, I, I'm thinking we, and as I look at myself and my brothers and sisters in Christ and the church, I think this, that we are many. By God's design. Just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function. So we who are many are one body in Christ and individually members, one of another, we are many.

And when Paul says many, he's not just saying we are many in number. Indeed, we are many in number. Here at Cornerstone, we have 420-30 people in the Cornerstone family. We are many in number, but we're not just many in number.

Paul would want our thinking to go beyond that, we are manifold or many in age. Also, we have young and We have old and we have really old and we have middle aged and in addition to that, we are many are manifold in ethnicity. By God's design, bringing us into the church, we are manifold in socioeconomic status. By God's design, we are many are manifold in gender.

Not that there's a lot of genders, there's two, but But amongst the 420 or 30 of us, there's, there's male and there's female by God's design. Aren't you glad Cornerstone is not 430 men? Aren't you glad Cornerstone is not 430 women? But God has saved by his design, male and female, and brought them both into the church, with all the differences between the genders, and that's by design.

We are also manifold in maturity. They're, they're spiritually young, spiritually old, there are those who have known the Lord for, for a week, and those who have known the Lord for 40 years, that's by divine design. I'm really glad that like all, imagine all of us got saved 1 year ago. Everyone got saved 1 year ago.

And we're all on the same journey and basically the same place, and we're just pulling our ignorance together. No, we're manifold in, in levels of spiritual maturity and that's by divine design. So that younger women can, older women can teach the younger and, and even so that you young people can be an example. of godliness, to be a blessing to those who are older, and the generations come together and the different levels of spiritual maturity come together and they bless one another.

We are many, we're manifold in levels of maturity, we're also manifold in giftedness and in function. There's so many gifts in this church body, and I, we're all broken and we're fallen, we're all deeply scarred by sin, but, but then you see brothers and sisters in their area of giftedness and they just shine in the beauty of Christ is seen in them. And I'm glad we don't all do the same thing. We're manifold in giftedness and in function, we're manifold in backgrounds that we have come from and in our personal histories by divine design.

There's some in our church that have been raised in a Christian home, they've been sheltered to some degree and kept from stumbling into many sins and experiences that others have, have experienced and then there are those who are in our church body who were not raised in Christian homes. And they have fallen deeply into sin throughout their life. There are many in our church that that have experienced enormous brokenness, who have been sinned against and who are victims of horrible, unspeakable and heart-wrenching evils, and God has saved them, and he brought them into the church.

Because they have something to contribute.

As a result of their unique background and personal history, the sensitivities and the burdens and the passions, the giftedness that they bring to the table, all of us with all these manifold differences. Paul is saying, I say to each one among you, look at yourself and look at other people and realize we're many in all of these ways and it's by divine design. But then move from that. To think this, we are one body in Christ.

Yes, we're many and manifold, in so many ways, but we are one body in Christ. We are one. And what, we are one because of this diversity. As one writer says, the human body is not a unity despite its diversity, it is a unity because of that diversity.

Because our bodies feature different organs functioning in so drastically different ways, it creates this incredibly harmonious unity. And in the church, it's all of this diversity. This manifold diversity that we can come together and in community with one another. Experience oneness in Christ and live inside of this communal context or matrix for transformation.

And renewal of our minds. The 7th thing that Paul wants us to think is that we're members of each other. We're members of each other. He says we are individually members of one another.

what he's saying by that? He's saying we belong to each other. We belong to each other. We so belong to each other.

we are gifts. God brings us as gifts to one another, and, and we are possessions of the other, quite literally is the idea of what Paul is conveying. You belong to me and I belong to you. Imagine if we all thought this way.

and we don't come into the church and establish friendships, and it's like, what, just so, I'm just checking you out. I'm not even sure about this friendship thing. I may, I may actually send you on your way and lose interest in any relationship with you, but let's see how things go. Some people come into the church and their attitude is, I'm here, I think, for a little while.

Let's see how things go. But imagine that we're actually thinking this way and we hurl ourselves in the community with one another, for the long haul, knowing we belong to each other. I am your possession, you are mine in Christ, and inside of you is stuff that I need. In order to get the full package of all that God wants for me to experience in Christ, the 8th and final instruction, which is merely the setup for what we'll pick up next time is think this way, each of us has different God-given gifts, which we should exercise and seek to benefit from in community with one another, and Paul's gonna unpack the different categories of that giftedness.

We'll try to make sense of that in the weeks to come. But it's interesting how we stumble upon community here. We think Paul's teaching us how to renew our minds, it's like I want to be transformed. So I got to renew my mind.

All right, tell me how to think, Paul, and he starts telling you how to think. And suddenly he's talking about community. And we begin to realize that if we're going to be transformed as God wants us to be transformed, We must be living in community, and we're never going to live in community with one another until we first think communally. And so Paul's going into the mines and doing surgery here.

Here's how to think about yourself and about others. I guarantee you if we're all thinking this way, seeing ourselves and one another in this way, no one needs to tell us, hey, live in community with each other. We will be driven by a holy greed into relationship with each other. Much more to learn.

Let's pray and ask God to help us to live this out. Let's pray together. Lord, you're a great God. Your word is, is rich, and it's helpful, it's practical, it's real.

We have so much to learn. We wanna, we want to live in the good of the gospel, Lord, and we wanna We want to be changed. And so we want to have our minds renewed. We want you to change the way we think, and you're telling us, you're doing the surgery right now saying, here's how I want you to begin to think.

If you think this way, you will experience transformation. Teach us to think consistently with the gospel reality that we live inside of Lord, cure us of our insanities. Help us to see ourselves and our brothers and sisters as we ought to see. To celebrate our relationships and the power of them.

That we might Experience the good of this matrix of community within which true lasting transformation can happen. Lord, we thank you for the opportunity to Give of our offerings to you. Right now, we ask that you would receive these offerings and do much with them for the glory of Jesus. We give ourselves to you in His name.

And all God's people said, Amen. The cross of Jesus. Jesus as a That which Jesus. Jesus.

Beneath the cross of Jesus. Jesus, his family is my own. One strangers chasing selfish dreams, now one through grace alone. How come?

But I now dishonor. The ones that you have loved beneath the cross of Jesus, see the children called by God. Beneath the cross of Jesus, the path before the crown, we follow in his foot. Footsteps where promised hope is found, how great the joy be for us to be his perfect bride.

Beneath the cross of Jesus, we will glad. Sadly live our lives. Amen. the Lord has been just so good to us.

Praise the Lord for His word. And as Milton was preaching, one of the thoughts that did come to my mind is just how, how we can, we can never overstate the absolute importance of intergenerational communal worship of God, and we praise the Lord because He has helped us to gain ground on this front. And, many of you, have served as a great encouragement to us as a staff, as we hear about and as we firsthand see ways in which you are reflecting the image of God in the context of community.

On behalf of the staff and the elders, thank you, we appreciate you and we, we glorify God.

We thank God because of you. Let's, run through a few of the announcements.