Appreciate us seeing that instrument playing. It's good to get us prepared for the Word of God. And if y'all didn't realize it, this is why I print my message. Because right when I got ready to open it up, I hadn't saved it. But I got it right here. We're going to sort of be continuing on, I think it was Wednesday, I mean Sunday night, we were talking about some of this. But the message tonight is titled Transformed or Conformed and Romans 12, 1 and 2. This is familiar scripture and there's a reason that it's familiar. If you see that second word there, Baha'u'llah says, I beseech, And when Paul is beseeching the ones that he is writing to, it's something very important that we need to understand. And so that's the reason you hear a lot of preaching on Romans 12, 1 and 2. It says, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. We sometimes put more emphasis on being acceptable to man. But we ought to be more concerned with being acceptable to God. It's easier to be acceptable to man because you only have to do it a little while. But if you're acceptable to God, it's a full-time effort and a full-time desire. You can't do it just because you got to do it. It has to be a desire to be acceptable to the Lord. And it says, which is your reasonable service? So, again, Paul says, I beseech you, therefore, brethren. He's talking to save people, but not only that, he's talking to his countrymen here. So, I sort of feel like in the book of Romans, you hear a little stronger call to righteousness out of Paul because he's talking about his people. If you read the New Testament, you find out in Bible times, in the time of Jesus, you could purchase your Roman citizenship. There are other ways to get Roman citizenship. But Paul was born a Roman. He was born a Roman. He was born a Jew. He was a Jew his whole life, but he was also a Roman his whole life. So the book of Romans is a little extra emphasis I feel like Paul puts on the book of Romans. We have a lot in Romans. It's not in the other letters that he writes. And then he says, By the mercies of God. And again, God doesn't ask us to do something on our own. He doesn't expect us to somehow within ourselves to strengthen ourselves to dig deep down in ourselves and pull this righteousness out and pull out being acceptable to Him but we do it through the mercies of God and through the grace of God and that's the only way you can be acceptable if you're trying to do it under your own power and under your own merit it's not acceptable It says that ye present. Now that word present is an interesting word because it's actually that same spelling is three different English words. And here it is the verb present but there's also an adjective present and a noun present. And we can actually look at all three of those words, and I know the word it's using is the verb, that we present ourselves, that we bring ourselves to the Lord, but we also have to be present for the Lord. And what we're doing, we're presenting ourselves so we are a present to the Lord. So this is an interesting word that he uses there. But we present our bodies a living sacrifice. That means that we should have works. What we do should honor the Lord and it should be acceptable unto God. And we have the word of God to know what acceptable is. So that's what we have as a guideline. Are we being acceptable to the Lord? Again, we don't have to go to a dictionary or a world book encyclopedia. I know young people don't know what that is, but it's this big, you know, 25 books with everything you need to know in it. And now you hold it in your hand. But you don't have to go to that. You don't have to go to school to find out. It's all in the Word of God. What makes a Christian acceptable unto the Lord? We don't have to wonder. We can know by the Word of God. And then he says again, which is your reasonable service. We should search the scriptures and find out what's acceptable unto the Lord and we don't have to wonder when we just watch somebody else we're being acceptable unto man we need to know from the word of God what is acceptable and that's our reasonable service then it says be not conformed to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind That means good in, bad out, right? Take the word of God in, get rid of the world. That you may prove, that means to know what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Now the word transform means to change completely the appearance or character of something or someone. When you transform, you change from one thing to another. So we are to transform. We've been born again. We're saved and we're going to heaven. This body's not, but we are to transform this body into something else. We're not to do the things we used to do. We're not to do the things the world does. We're to do the things that God says to do. We are to transform. Now, conform means to act often unquestionably, unquestioningly, in accordance with traditional customs or prevailing standards of society. In other words, a puppet. I guess you could say more like a monkey. Monkey see, monkey do. That's conforming. If a monkey finds out he does certain things, he gets food, he'll do it over and over and over again. But we're not to do for the worldly reasons. We're to transform ourselves by the Word of God. So we need to be transformed. And we have to work at that. You can't be transformed if you don't know what you're supposed to be transformed into. So it's an ongoing process. Now when we were saved, our soul was saved immediately and we're going to heaven. But we should add our body, our mind has to be transformed to what it's supposed to be. And we're supposed to make effort to do that. So we need to be transformed, number one, to manifest Christ. We're to show forth Christ. We are to make sure that other people know about Christ because he is light. John 8 and 12 says, Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. So that is where we get our instructions from, is the Son of God. Again, not from man, not from a religion, not from a set of rules, but from the Son of God. And we need to Then the Bible says, ye are the light of the world. Well, how are we the light of the world? Well, it's sort of like when the sun's out in the daytime, you don't see the moon, do you? I know you can faintly see it sometimes up in the sky, but it's not putting out any light. The moon is the light of the darkness. We are the light in the darkness because we are to reflect the light that is within us. Just like the moon reflects the light of the sun, we're to reflect the light of the sun. And we're in a dark world. And so we should try to shine the light of Christ that's in us out on a lost and dying world. John 12 and 32 says, If I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. So that's the reason we need to be a light. We'll draw people to Christ if we show His light. We need to reflect the light that is in us. We have the Holy Spirit in us. So we need to reflect what God is telling us to say, what God is telling us to do, where God is telling us to go. That's how we reflect God's light. You know, television now is so much more advanced than it was not that many years ago. Now, when I was growing up, we had I guess I just thought about this today. This is probably the only thing that we had the finest of when I was growing up. We had a Curtis Mathis TV stereo. And that was the best you could get then. We had a 25-inch TV stereo phonograph. Parents, please tell your kids what that is when you get home. I don't have time to get into that. But we had that. and we got two stations. We lived in Wilkes County, we got two stations. If you lived around this area, you got two or three and probably wouldn't have the same, might not have been the same two we got. But that, like I said, that was, boy, that was something, man, that was good. 25 inch TV, that was big. Great big TV, black and white, by the way, no color. I didn't see a color TV until I was 13 years old. I'm old, ain't I, Johnny? But then, that's what's called standard TV, right? And then they come out with 720p TV. Standard, I think, is 480, if I'm not mistaken. Then they come out with 720, that was a clear picture, buddy. Color, nice picture. I had a 720p television. Then they come out with 1080. And it's really a big difference between a 720 and a 1080. And I don't know how, somehow, the first thing that we had that was 1080 actually was a DVD player. Again, I'll explain that later. And I thought, well, we've got this 1080 TV player and we've got a 720 TV. So I went to one of the TV places, you know, and they had 720 TVs and they had 1080 TVs, but they weren't beside each other. You look at the other, that's about the same. I said, I need to see one right beside. I wasn't going to buy one if it wasn't making a difference. But it was a lot different. It was a better picture. And then they got 4K. Now they got 8K. A 4K TV now for $238, if you get 8K, it's $2,380. It's 10 times as much. I like to get them right before they come out with the next one. Then they get a little cheaper. But it's putting out light. The more light that it puts out, the more that you can see. If you take, well, they got PlayStation 5s now, that looks more real than any TV I saw growing up. I mean, it looks almost, if you're not really sitting on it, it looks like real people. But what they're doing, they're showing more and more light, and you're getting a better picture of what they want you to see. So we need to show more and more light so people get a better picture of what we want them to see. And the more light that we can reflect from within us from the Holy Spirit, the more people can see God, the more people can see Christ, the more that we can shine His light, the more we can lift Him up, the more He can draw men unto Him. We need to reflect more of Christ's light and project a more receptive picture of Christ. And then we need to do it because the world is lost. As I said, the moon shines at night when the earth is dark. But it's not near as dark as it would be when the moon doesn't shine at all. So we need to shine that light because the world is lost. And they expect to see something different. in us we should look different we should show more like we should be different from the world we shouldn't try to be like the world now we don't have to be verbally offensive but if you live for Christ there's gonna be time that you are offensive because the Word of God is offensive But you don't have to intentionally be offensive. Just present the gospel. And they expect us to be different than they are. I still remember today. I remember exactly where I was. I remember what I was at work. I remember what part of the building I was in. And somebody told me, And at this time, the church I was going to at the time, they named a member of the church. And they said, if so and so is a Christian, the woods is full of them. And I'd heard that expression all my life. And I couldn't say nothing. Because she was absolutely right. I really believe that person that was a church member was as lost as they could be. They were continually... They were an addict. If they were around a Christian, they were a Christian. If they were around a non-Christian, they were a non-Christian. They didn't show any light. They weren't different. And in a lot of cases, they didn't act as godly as most lost people. That's not good. But how do we reflect that light? You know, when you're watching TV, whether it's streaming or DVD or USB, however you're watching it, That picture is coming from something. It's drawing from something. So where is the light coming from? It's coming from the Holy Spirit. We have to have the Holy Spirit. We need to make sure that we are close to God, that our relationship is right with God, or we're going to present a fuzzy picture. People are not going to be able to understand. They're not going to be able to make out what's going on. They can't tell what's going on. If they can't tell what's going on inside of us, They can't see what's going on out here. Another time, in the end it's not this church, I try not to use, I hope I don't use bad examples of anybody I go to church with. Another church, and they come up to me and said, I really need somebody to visit my relative. So I did, I met another guy, I went to visit him. And you know what the relative said? I wish I could see somebody live for Christ. Oh, wow. You know, your relative, I didn't say this, I said, your relative is the one that asked me to come and see you. Now I thought, also, now I know why they didn't go see him. Because they didn't show him anything. We need to reflect the light of Christ. And then we need to be transformed to tell others about Christ. You realize when you're not showing a good light, it might be better for you not to tell people about Christ? I've seen people I wish wouldn't tell about Christ. Because I've seen people that when they're around other Christians, well, they'll go out of the way to tell somebody about Christ. They want you to see them tell somebody about Christ. And you're just hoping, I hope they don't know them. But we do need to tell others about Christ because someone told us. Someone, if you're saved tonight, someone told you about Christ. Now, maybe it was a track and you never saw the person. Maybe it was a Bible that you got somehow. Maybe it was some way You heard the gospel. Somebody display Christ to you. And that's what we need to do. We need to display Christ. And then because we are commanded to. Acts 1 and 8. You shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the uttermost part of the earth. That's a commandment. It's not an option. That's what we are to do. It's to spread the gospel. To witness for Christ. It can be discouraging. There are people that witness and witness and witness and never have a convert. There's others that witness and have many converts. But how many converts you have has nothing to do with how much you witness or how much you're supposed to witness. You witness to those that you can witness to. I remember I was preaching at a rest home for another preacher. He was older. Johnny, he was even older than I am now. He was old. So, his health was declining. He asked me to fill in for him. And so, I ended up preaching there about a year. and I went there every week for a year and he had been there several years I don't know how many but he never got anybody saved now not because I was the one doing the preaching but during that year eight people got saved there but it wasn't because I preached better or I said something different than he did, that's just when God was ready for them. That's when they got saved. If for no other reason, it helped me as a young preacher. I was young one time, John. As a young preacher, it helped me. And that 8 was probably in the first 12 that I was able to lead to the Lord. But it was just going out and witnessing. And you say, well, you're a preacher, and you can, yeah, I can do that. But we can all witness. We can all tell people about Christ. Because you might tell somebody and somebody else, and ten people might tell them, and the eleventh person leads them to the Lord. I tell you what can thrill your soul is being the eleventh person. Nothing makes you want to Win souls like winning souls. It's the second best feeling in the world. Being saved and then leading somebody else to Christ. And then we need to be transformed to be faithful. You know, if you don't work on this body, if you don't work on this flesh, it's almost impossible to be faithful. It's almost impossible to be faithful. We need to be faithful with the time God has given us. There's always something to do in the world. And from the time that I was young till now, that's multiplied by the thousands of times what there is to do in the world. We don't need to fill our time up with the world. We need to make sure. I'm not saying you can't do anything in the world. But we need to make sure we don't fill all our time up with worldly stuff and forget the godly stuff. We need to be faithful with the talent that God has given us. Now I can't play a musical instrument, but if I could, I should. Right? I can only sing a very little bit, so I'll sing a little bit. But we should, whatever talent we have, we need to use it for the Lord. And if we know we have that talent, then we need to make sure that we use it for the Lord. And I know this is Wednesday night and we need to be faithful to church. That's the preaching to the choir time when you tell Wednesday night church members to be faithful to church. But we need to be faithful to God's Word. And I thought about this today. We set a certain time aside to come to God's house We ought to set aside a certain time to read God's Word. That could be any time. But we need to make sure there is a time. And then we need to be faithful to seek God's will. Now if you're not faithful in those other things, you don't have to worry about this one. Because you're not going to find it. If you're not faithful with your time, with your talent, faithful to church, faithful to God's word, you're not going to find God's will. But when you have faith with other things, then you can be faithful to find God's will for your life. And then we need to be transformed because there is a hell. Now if we're saved, we know there's a hell. If you're saved, there's no more questions in your mind as to whether there's a hell, as to whether there's a heaven. Both are equally, you know there's a hell, you know there's a heaven, and you know that's the two places to spend eternity. There's no doubt in your mind if you're saved. Revelation 20, 14, and death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. That is a reason to be transformed. That is a reason to manifest Christ. That is a reason to shine, to reflect the light of Christ in your life. The Bible talks about stumbling blocks. Don't be a stumbling block. And so I'm not doing anything to hinder anybody from going to heaven. But you're not doing anything to keep people out of hell either. So you're a stumbling block. You know, there's a term in football called a chop block. It's against the rules. Now, if you don't know what football terms are, that's when somebody gets down low below the thigh and hits somebody and somebody else hits them atop. Well, you can break their legs. So they're not supposed to do that. And they get called for that if they do it. Probably don't intentionally do that now. They used to. They used to do it on purpose. But they don't do that now. But think about this. Satan is pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing people to hell. All that he can push. And when you're a stumbling block, you're throwing a chop block on them. See, it's hard to push somebody down when you're just pushing against them. But if you've got somebody down here, you just flip them right over. That's what a stumbling block is. Satan's already pushing them toward hell. And we're not doing anything to push them toward heaven. We're a chop block. You need to be peculiar, like we said the other night. Be different. Stand out. People should know that you're a Christian. People should see something different in your life. Matthew 5, 15, 16, Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. When you light, if you have a lamp and you hold it down here, don't put out a whole lot of light. The higher you bring it up, the more that it lights. So we need to lift Christ up. We need to lift His light up that others will see Him. And then we need to be transformed. We need to manifest Christ because there is a heaven. Everybody that's not saved is on their way to hell. everybody at one point in their life was on their way to hell or is on their way to hell you know there's people in the world which are some people that don't know anything about Christ but there's some people that do know about Christ but they think they cannot go to heaven because people have told them you can't go to heaven you're not good enough there's no way you can go to heaven I spoke with a lady one time. She told me, she raised her hand, she wanted me to pray with her. I prayed with her. She said, you're talking about going to heaven, but I can't go to heaven. I said, what do you mean? Who told you you couldn't go to heaven? Well, they said this birthmark on me said I had the mark of Satan and I couldn't go to heaven. Could you imagine living with that? hearing preaching, hearing the gospel, reading the word of God, hearing it, and somebody's put it in your mind that you can't go, but she's going now. I showed her the word of God, but that was not the mark of Satan. False religion. Hey, there's people that think they're going, but they're not because somebody has told them the wrong way to get there. That's the reason our light needs to shine bright. That's the reason we need to make sure people know that we are living for Christ because there's so many false religions. There are more people attending a church assembly under false religion than are attending church assembly under the word of God. So that's the reason we have to be that much brighter so people can see what is the right way to heaven. It's the only place besides hell that you go after death. There's no purgatory. There's no place of nothingness. It's heaven or hell. And then there's rewards in heaven. Again, that's hard for me to understand that we're going to get rewards. The fact that we are joint heirs with Christ is incomprehensible on earth. That's how good God is. Eternal security is better than social security. And honestly, you know, when you get my age and Johnny's age, you hear more people talking about social security than you do about eternal security. You don't see anything in the news about eternal security. You see plenty in the news about social security. Trump's going to do away with it, right? That's what the news is saying anyway. But are we shining God's light? Are we being transformed? Are we allowing God to transform us that we can manifest Christ? We stand on our feet. Well, now we're going to do prayer. We'll pray, close out the message, and then we'll come up and pray. Lord, thank you for this message, Lord, that we've tried to deliver. Lord, I pray, Lord, that we would do that. Be transformed to show your light. In Jesus' name, amen.