Latest / Wesley at FSU & TSC / "How To Be A Person :: Living Sacrifice" | Sunday Service | October 4th, 2026

Transcript

"How To Be A Person :: Living Sacrifice" | Sunday Service | October 4th, 2026 · Wesley at FSU & TSC

• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, this morning we're gonna start a new sermon series that I'm calling How to Be a Person.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: You can go ahead and laugh.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: How to be a person.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And what we're going to do is look through the entire chapter of Romans 12 to learn a little bit more about how to be a person.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is church.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: So some of this will apply to your, you know, your secular life.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: But the truth is we're all Christians all the time.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so what we're going to talk about is how to be more of a person that Jesus wants us to be.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul actually talks about this throughout Romans 12.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you have a Bible, you can turn with me in it.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, it'll be on the screen.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I invite you just to hear the first two verses of Romans 12 this morning.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, brothers and sisters, because of God's mercies, I encourage you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice that is holy and pleasing to God.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is your appropriate priestly service.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you can figure out what God's will is, what is good and pleasing and mature.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to start a new tradition here after we read the scriptures that you may have grown up doing in church and you may not have.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it's very easy.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to say the word of God for the people of God, and you will say, Thanks be to God.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: So let's try that again.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: The word of God for the people of God.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks be to God.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray over the preaching of God's word.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh God, your word is a lamp into our feet and a light into our path.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: May it speak to us and speak through us for the establishment of your kingdom on this earth, O God.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And God, I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts will be acceptable to you and you alone, O God.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: You are our rock, you're our redeemer, and we love you because you first loved us.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: We pray this in your holy name.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: On Wednesday nights, we do a Bible study in here, and I want you to hear this as an individual invitation for you to come.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of people there, but I try to make it as jovial as possible.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: I try to make it as accessible as possible.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: And you haven't been yet, I would encourage you to come.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: We are doing Ephesians 6 this week.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's the end of Ephesians.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: We've been working through Ephesians one chapter after the other.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: We're almost at the end.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Can I get an amen?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: So this is gonna be an awesome way.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you and if you haven't been there before, totally fine.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: You're feeling like, oh, I'm behind.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: No, you are not behind because we're gonna catch you up because I'm gonna walk through it like I do every week to get you to where we're gonna start this week, which is Ephesians 6.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: One of the questions I asked last week at Bible study was if you receive grace, can you not be transformed by it?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, if you receive grace, doesn't it have this ability to overwhelm you with transformation?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to ask yourself this question right now.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Are you transformed by the grace that Jesus has given you?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully your answer is somewhat yes.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: But we could all admit that there are times and moments in our lives where that is not true, where we behave in ways that are maybe not transformative or we behave more like the old ways, the old, as Paul puts it, patterns of the world.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: I also showed you something about Ephesians uh over the Bible study.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Ephesians is split into six chapters.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: How many chapters?
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Good, you're still paying attention.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Six chapters.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: The very first three all talk about what God does for us and has done for us.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty incredible.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: He talks, he talks about like all the theology that we we understand about God's grace and how it moves in us and how we can't earn it ourselves.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we go through one, two, and three.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then when we get to four, Paul makes a transition in the book of Ephesians and he says, therefore, and then for the next three chapters, four, five, and yes, and then he starts to talk about what it means to be a Christian, how to live a Christian life, how to be a person.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so too does he do the same thing in Romans.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's the coolest freaking thing in the whole world.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like he has all of this energy in what he says in all of the Romans, and he talks about election, and he talks about grace, and he talks about divine providence, and he talks about all of the different pieces of theology, including baptism and communion.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: He talks about all of the pieces of theology for Romans 1 through 11, and then he gets to 12.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have a better translation than the one we used up this morning, the very first word you see in Romans 12 is there for.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: This one says, So, brothers and sisters, because of God's mercy, I encourage you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice that is holy and pleasing to God.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: I told you for the first 11 chapters, he just theologizes and theologize and theologizes.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's crazy because when he it's at the end of chapter 11, he like kind of runs out of words, he runs out of ideas, and instead he just does what we do when we have no words.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: He just worships.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is not going to be on the screen, but this is 11, and I feel like it's worth pointing out.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: God's riches and wisdom and knowledge are so deep.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: They are mysterious as his judgments, and they are hard to track as his past.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Who has known the Lord's mind, who, or who has been his mentor, or who has given him a gift, and who has been bade back with him?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: All things are from him, and through him and for him, may the glory be to him forever.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's like this end of this worship or this sermon that he's giving.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then he says, therefore, then he says, so, brothers and sisters, because of God's mercies, I encourage you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: I have told you on Wednesdays, and I'll tell you here, if you ever leave a church feeling like you have to do something in order to earn the grace of God, I want you to run from that church quickly.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because he does not say, Hey, I'm gonna show you how to be a person, and then God's gonna do all the miraculous, gracious things.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no, no.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Hey, God has done all the miraculous and gracious things to save you and save me from the depths of our sin multiple times in his writings.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says, I was the worst of the worst, and yet God's grace saved me as well.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Man, if that doesn't warm your heart, I don't know what it is.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then he gets to always get to a point in which he says, Hey, let me tell you what God did for you, and hey, let me show you how you get to participate in it.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Wesley, John Wesley would have called this participation in your salvation.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, like God has done this for you, yay.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Don't pat your back on the, don't pat yourself on the back too long.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Do it for a second, and then let's move forward to live into the salvation we've been granted.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's what he does.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's a response to the salvation we're given.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's not an earning of the salvation.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Turn to the person next to you and say, I can't earn this.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the other person say, Neither can you.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, man, you cannot earn the grace of God.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: God gives it freely to you.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so we respond.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what he says: Because of God's mercies, I encourage you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice that is holy and pleasing to God.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Present your bodies as a living sacrifice.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Living sacrifice.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Put that on your mouth.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Living sacrifice.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, here's the thing: sacrifices in the Old Testament in the practice of the Jewish faith, let's just say that when they got brought to the altar, they didn't have weekend plants, you know?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like when they got brought to the altar, they would not make it past sundown because they would be slaughtered on the altar as a gift, as an act of worship toward God.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Hey, because of what God's done for you, present your bodies as a living sacrifice.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: When they would bring a lamb to be slaughtered, it was a perfect lamb.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: It was the nicest one, the one that was worth the most money.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: It'd be one thing, right?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you were just to bring like the worst of the worst, you were just to bring, like, hey, this is the one that's probably not gonna make it to the market, you know.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Could we just bring this one to God?
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, No, no, no, bring your best to God.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: And here he is saying, Hey, present your bodies as a living sacrifice.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: The good news is living, the good news is living.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: But the other piece of it is that we should probably think about our bodies as a piece of this.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's easy for us to think about Christianity as a mindful thing, right?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: A spiritual thing.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it is, but the truth is Jesus is resurrected in the body, and so the body is important for us as well.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the body is something that we don't often present as a holy and living sacrifice to the Lord, right?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Think about all the things you do with your body, the things that you look at with your eyes, things about the things that you say with your tongue, or the things that you hear with your ears.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: When we bring ourselves to the Lord, because of God's richness and mercy, we bring our whole self and we bring the best of ourself, and we lay it at his feet, and we present it before him as if it was a lamb.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: And we say, A holy and living sacrifice to the Lord that is holy and pleasing to God.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: He says, This is your appropriate priestly service.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is a clear reference to the giving of the lamb because the priest was the one who would present to the lamb.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then he says, What may be perhaps one of the most famous, and this is so hard to say in Romans, but this is one of the most famous verses in Romans.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is 12, 2.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, when I went to school at Duke Divinity, as you leave, it says, Therefore, don't be conformed by the patterns of the world, but by the renewing of your mind right over the like archway as you're leaving.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's clear, like, this is this is important to them.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: So pay attention to this.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you can figure out what God's will is, what is good and pleasing, and don't be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you can figure out what God's will is, what is good and pleasing and mature.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I asked the question on Wednesday.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you receive grace, can you help but be transformed by it?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Don't be conformed to the patterns of this world.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: The patterns of this world.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: In London, if you were to go on the underground, which is the subway, um, particularly at certain uh in at certain stations, there's a curve in the train.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the train is actually straight, but the but the the the pathway is curved.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so you end up with a space in between the platform and the train.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: And at those stations, you probably know even if you've never been there, I've never been there.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Famously, there's a ding, and then a mind the gap.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually it's very interesting the mind the gap thing.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was looking this up.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's actually a guy named Lawrence Olivier, who Olivier, Olivier, some of the other, he he uh he did the first recording of it.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: And uh when he passed away, they were renovating and they changed it.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And his, but before they had like fully changed it, his wife would come every day to the stop to listen to his voice.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that the sweetest thing?
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and then um there's also the guy, the guy who actually has it now, like if you go listen to it now, the recording now is actually a man who was just setting up the microphones, and there was an actor, like a voice talent, that was gonna come in and give his voice.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: And uh evidently there was like a contractual problem, like the day of the recording.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so as he was testing the microphones, they had him do it, and they were like, That guy's good, let's just use that.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so his he was like a recording like engineer, but his he had never done voice work before.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Mind the gap.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: It plays every time the train pulls up to the station.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Mind the gap.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: In New York, they tried to say watch the gap.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Not as cool.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Mind the gap.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: But over time, as you hear it, it became this thing that you just don't even pay attention to.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's really cool.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: The first time you visit, you're like, wow, I've heard about this, right?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then on the 40th time, you just have heard it and heard it and heard it and heard it.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's, I think, a little bit of how the patterns of the world work.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: None of us choose bad habits.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: None of us choose bad patterns.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: None of us are like, yes, I want to be the worst person that I can be.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: None of us do that.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: What happens is that the patterns of the world just start to integrate into our lives and repeat over and over and over and over and over again.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the thing that first caught our eye at first, it first caught our ear at first, that one comment or that one joke or that one word that was used at that point, and like, oh, okay, okay, yeah, I got, oh, that's that's shocking.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then slowly but surely it starts to creep in more, you know what I mean?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: I was talking to somebody this week.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: We we had some interesting conversation about Ephesians 5 on Wednesday because it's about sex, every college student's favorite topic at church.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I was had a couple of interesting conversations that came from it.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was very fruitful, actually.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: But one of them was that we were talking about the progress of the media over the course of the last 60 years.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: I remember watching uh television shows of I Love Lucy when I was growing up, and there was this big to-do about how Lucy and Ricky had to sleep in separate beds.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: You could not put them in the same bed on a television show.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: And if they were only to see HBO now, you know what I mean?
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like crazy how much progress there has been in meeting worldly patterns.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's a lot of things that just kind of happen and we hear them, and we don't even sometimes recognize them, and then they just start to become part of our lingo.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: They start to become part of what we do.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, do not be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be what okay.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's try it again.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you can figure out what God's will is, what is good and pleasing and mature.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be conform to the old patterns of the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Christians are called to be different.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Period.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: The world is going to tell the world a lot of things, it's going to teach a lot of things.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Christians, ones who present their bodies as living sacrifices, must be different than the ways of the world.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Transformed by the grace that God gave us for the first eleven chapters of Romans.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Transformed.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: Changed.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Changed.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's not enough just to come to the Lord and say, I got it.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for that key that'll happen in 70 years, and then move on.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: He says, present your bodies and be transformed.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: Changed.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Be different.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: An internal question you might ask yourself.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: What is it about my daily life that reflects the fact that I'm a Christian?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: You can't count Sunday at 11:03, okay?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: What is it about my daily life that reflects that I'm a Christian?
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: Is it the way I interact with people?
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: Is it the way that I respond to my professors?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: Is it when I get hurt, you know, like in a situation like how I respond there?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Is it when like I feel like I got ripped off at the store the way that I respond to the poor, you know,$15 an hour cashier who's just like, I'm sorry, that's our policy, right?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: What is it about your daily life that reflects that you're a Christian?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: And if not, may I encourage you that this might be a calling from God to say, hey, I want to be transformed by your grace, not just receive your grace, but actually act like I believe it.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Actually be changed from the inside and transformed.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: So you might ask that yourself.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: I love what he says at the end of this, too, though.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Be transformed by the renewing of your minds.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: He talked about the body, and now he's connecting the mind.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Be transformed by the renewing of your minds.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: You might ask yourself in that same way, what am I consuming?
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: What is my mind consuming?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Is it consuming gossip?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Is it consuming negativity?
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: What is my mind consuming?
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: Be transformed by the renewing of your minds, and then the key, so you can figure out what God's will is, what is good and pleasing and mature.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: He says, if you would be transformed by the renewing of your mind, you would then discern the will of God in your life.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of big, bro.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: You would could discern the will of God in your life.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: We have all kinds of ways that people uh discern whether money is real or not.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: And counterfeit money is a real problem.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's why when you get the hundred dollar bills, they get the little blue line on them or whatever, right?
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: And they're they're constantly fighting this.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, it was interesting to read back to this because a lot of times when counterfeit coins were a problem and money was a problem, one of the things that they would say is the people who are fighting that they have such an intimate knowledge with the cash, with the bill itself, that they would be able to tell if it was real just by feeling it and holding it.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: They understand the weight, they understand the fabric, they understand the fibers, they know it so intimately.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't it be so cool that if we were so transformed by the God by God's grace that we would be like of the renewing mind, that we would then understand with like such intimacy the will of God in our life?
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't that be so much there?
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: I talk to a lot of people who are like, hey, I just want to know what God's will is for my life.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Me too, bro.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: But have you ever attempted to talk to him about it?
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever brought it to him?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever said, hey, God, I all these things that I I have been doing, I just want to let them go.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to be transformed by him and come and say, God, I I want to know you so intimately that I know your will for my life.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: Might that be the first step to discerning the will of God in your life?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: This next several weeks, and you're gonna get a chance to hear from more than just me, which is very exciting on Sunday mornings.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about all the things that he goes through in Romans 12.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about things like joy.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: When the world tells you to not be joyful, when the world tells you to see the negative side of things, God encourages you to see and meet everything with joy.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: When people are hurting in our world, it's really, really, really, really, really easy for us to turn the other way, look the other way.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: Not my problem, their problem.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: Man, get a job, just do the thing and stop.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: What Paul tells us is weep with those who weep.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hurt, mourn with those who mourn.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, the prophets told us that too.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about those types of things.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about crazy things.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: I told you Christians are supposed to be different, right?
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about crazy things like loving your enemies.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: Something that like we always say because it sounds good.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then when it comes time for us to actually love the person who is our enemy.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: No, thank you, my friend.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's really hard.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Loving our enemies.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about the different patterns of the world.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: My encouragement for you as we go through this series is one to come back weekly.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: And next week, bring a friend.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Make us set up some more chairs.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Come on.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: But the other thing I tell you is that uh I would like you to get a Bible, okay?
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have it on your phone, that's totally fine.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: You all know that I prefer a physical copy.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: I prefer to know what translation it is, I prefer to like be intimately involved with this thing.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't own one of these, let me make myself available to you.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: We own a whole bunch, and it is my joy to give one to you.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you don't have a Bible, like you don't physically own a Bible, and that's fine if you have it on your phone, but I really want you to own a physical one.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you have, if you don't have a physical Bible, I want you to meet me right up here at the end of the service.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: I will give you one for free, and it'll be, I'll try to make it as aesthetic looking as possible.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but we have alums who literally donate these every summer, and I just ask for more, and they just buy more Bibles.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm always impressed, and we give them out.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so I really, really, really want you to have a Bible.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing is, and this is the key, because sometimes this is hard.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: We own textbooks, but do we always read them?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: I would love for you to read Romans 12 in its entirety every week.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: Not every day, although that would be awesome, but every week it is 21 verses.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: You can do it before you brush your teeth in the morning.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: It is so easy, but it will uh, I think, begin the process of renewing your mind, transforming you by the grace and the mercy of Jesus Christ.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: Can we all agree to that?
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Say yes.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Can we all thank you, Rylan?
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: Can we all agree to that?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: Say yes.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.