Let's open in a word of prayer and we will continue in our study this morning. Father, I thank you for this time that we have together to look at your word, to understand, hopefully better, some of these foundations of our Christian living. that are laid from the moment of salvation forward and are such an important aspect of what our Christian walk should look like. I just pray that your Holy Spirit would be active in our lives, helping us understand your word and apply it in a way that brings glory to you. Pray this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, so I'm a little under the weather, so if you hear me hacking up a lung, I believe I am not contagious by any means. This was all much earlier this week, but I still have the congestion and itchy lungs. So, we are in lesson eight of Living the Exchange. Okay, for this morning, who all brought their book? We have a little more spread. Okay, cool, cool, cool. Thank you for bringing your book. It helps spread the load of volunteers to read from it. So last week, well, actually, yeah, last week we started lesson eight, which is titled The Holy Spirit and My Changing Life. We went through the first two individual study components. We looked at expectations for the internal changes that we can expect. And then we looked at sources. We looked at answering the question, where do we source our energy from? The analogy that was used was like having two cups and we have a straw and I choose which cup I'm gonna draw from. But I can't draw from both. I can't draw from the world, from my flesh, and from the spirit. And so that's a choice that I have daily, moment to moment, where am I drawing my energy from? And then based on that, where I draw my energy from is where I'm gonna be starting to produce fruit from. So if I'm drawing from the world, from my frustrations, from my sin self, the fruit of that will play itself out in my actions, my attitudes, my thoughts. That will be visible. And on the other side, when I draw from the spirit, that will play itself out. That will be visible. either internally or externally to those around us. So that's what we got through last week. So now we're continuing in day three, which is on page 193 of the book, if you have it. Before we jump into that though, any thoughts or anything from last week as you hopefully percolated on what we talked about? Anything that carried over to this week? Good, it was that clear and concise. I love it. All right, so we're jumping into day three. I'm gonna read a little bit from the top, that first paragraph there. When you made your exchange with Jesus, this applies to each of us, you were born again. Your new nature loves what God loves and hates what God hates. but your flesh is still the same as before you were saved. When you get to heaven, you'll get a new body. Yay. But until then, you will continue to feel the pull of your flesh. Okay, so this is the dichotomy that exists. I am both renewed and born again, but still have ties or the pull of my old self. I'm no longer a slave to it, right? Praise God. I'm no longer enslaved to where I can't even choose different, but I am still tethered to it by this life, right? My physical flesh is something I'm tethered to until I leave this life. So Ephesians 4.22 says, Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires. And again, what we looked at was, this is Paul speaking to believers in Ephesus. Right, so this instruction of put off your old self is a believer instruction to do so. To choose, I'm gonna put off my old self today, I'm gonna put on my new, right, the put off and put on principle. I don't wanna be naked, so I'm gonna put on the new, and I'm gonna then live life today dressed in the new, having put off the old, the corrupt and deceitful things. Okay. So, let's see. Can I get a volunteer to read James 1, verses 14 and 15? James 1, 14 and 15. Either from your Bible or it is in the book, if you have it. Over here. Chase, Adam. Good hustle, bud. Adam, right there, yep. Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it is conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death. Perfect. Keep the microphone, actually. I'm going to ask you a question. So based on this verse, what happens when an ungodly thought or desire is inflamed? Brings forth death. It brings forth death. So the paragraph at the end, there was what I found to be a helpful description of this process, this sliding. They call it the LSD principle. Lust, an insulated and inflamed desire, produces sin. So the L, lust, produces sin. This is not something that might happen when you give in to lust, but something that will happen every time. Sorry, this is not something that might happen when you give in to lust, but it's something that will happen every time you give in to lust. It gives way to sin. Sin then always brings death back into my life. This death is not the end of spiritual life, but the separation from its power. When you sin, you've ceased to allow the Holy Spirit to influence you. And you cannot be filled with the Spirit until that sin is dealt with. You must put off the old self before the energizing power of the new self can be renewed. This is the process of how sin, an active sin in our lives, chosen sin, affects us. It's really warm in here. This coat is not needed. So again, this is not talking about a spiritual death any longer. We are saved by faith, we have eternal life. But in the day-to-day, if you're honest with yourself, I think you can probably think of times this week where sin has entered into your life. You've snapped at your kids, whatever it might be. And in that time, there is now something that is influencing you more than the Holy Spirit is influencing you. That you feel, you should feel guilty to some extent, right? So there's a guilt factor involved. But also, it often leads to more sin, right? If I give in to my frustration, it's not a release valve. You know, people talk about that, like, oh, you know, you just gotta like grab a pillow and scream into it and then you'll be fine. If I give into my anger, it's just gonna breed more anger. I'm building patterns and habits of giving into things that will just further that slippery slope, that slide from lust or desire to sin, acting on that desire, to death and what comes from that. Very physical examples of this, where it leads to very physical death. In what we eat, what we drink, how we choose to live physically, when we have desires that leads to action, sin that leads to the degrading of the physical self. That's a model that we see time and time again. So it must be the work of Jesus accessed by genuine confession of sin and demonstrated by forsaking that sin. The remainder of Ephesians four describes the practical application of the change that he, Jesus, can make in your life. Things like ridding you of lying, anger, stealing, corrupt speech, bitterness, slander, and malice. Does that principle make sense so far? Lust leads to sin when we act on that lust, which sin always leads to death and separation. We have to view it seriously as believers. I think it's the wrestling between Paul and James, where Paul emphasizes grace, and then James comes in and says, yes, that is entirely true, that it is all by God's grace, and yet that does not mean that sin should abound. And so we are called by and in God's grace to act. to make choices to honor God with our actions. And that's not works-based salvation, but it is works-based working out my salvation in what God has already done. Any thoughts or questions on that, Chase? Over here, Pastor Nathan. I was looking at that last paragraph on page 193 where he says, you must put off the old man before the energizing power of the new man can be renewed. And just following that pattern is, again, this familiar pattern of justification is the same with sanctification. There needs to be addressing of sin first. And then verse 23, it says, be renewed in the spirit of your mind. There's that picture of repentance, this changing that takes place once confession is made. the works come into play, putting on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. And just seeing that transformation that we, and it reminds me of when we share the gospel, the gospel is incomplete if we don't mention sin, judgment, wrath, and hell. If we just talk about the beauties of heaven and don't you want a better life, don't you want God's blessings on you, then we're not presenting a complete picture of the gospel. And the same thing for the believer in mentioning these things. I think it's also helpful when it comes to counseling, when you approach somebody with an observation, the fact that the scripture says that our desires are corrupt and deceitful should give every believer pause to consider, well, maybe I'm not right because maybe I'm in deception. So I thought it was very helpful. And again, just loving to see the consistency in scripture, the pattern for a new believer who understands he was a sinner, needed to repent, God gives salvation, that the same pattern is in their sanctification. It's a familiar walk for them. Yeah, I think it's a difficult conundrum because we talked about last week, in light of eternity, we're all new believers. Whether we've been saved for 60 years or four months, we're all new believers in light of eternity. So we all, no matter where we're at in that cycle of life, have new believer concepts that we need to get better at, no matter where we're at in that. the reality that we should not trust our desires, meaning our heart is deceitful above all else. That's one reality that we live in. Another one that coexists is that we've been given a new heart and we have new desires that are good. And so now I have these two things to go, well, okay, I have a desire right now. Is it one of these that I'm told, don't ever trust your heart, don't ever follow your heart, that's a terrible idea. Or is it one of these where I'm told, you're given this new heart and God gives you desires that honor him, that drive you to sanctification. And now I have these two things that I have to wrestle with as a new believer. Again, every one of us here is sitting here as a new believer. That I have to determine where is this desire from and how do I reconcile that desire with what God's word tells me. And sometimes that's black and white. If I have a desire for sin, I don't have to go any further, right? I have a desire for sin. I know, okay, God's word is really clear here. I don't have to wonder, is God giving me a desire for sin, right? I know where that's coming from. But desire for good things or neutral things, how do I know how to pursue those things? And I think when you can tie it to where am I drawing from today? Am I drawing from the Holy Spirit? And it takes honest evaluation, right? If we're narcissistic, prideful people, self-evaluation sometimes doesn't help, right? Because we look at ourselves and go, I'm doing pretty good. This is, yeah, okay, cool, I'm good. When in actuality, you might not be. But if God has been rooting that out and you have some ability to self-evaluate, to honestly evaluate, how have I been living lately? Because that's gonna tell me where I'm drawing from, which is gonna tell me and give me some hints about these desires that I'm having. I want to serve in this way. Well, am I wanting to serve in that way because I'm engrossed in pride and people will see me serving in that way and I like that idea. All of a sudden, a good desire is now something complicated because I'm giving into my sin of pride and self-love. I can relate to that one. You know, I think that was, I shared, I don't know if this was last week, it was probably the week before, shared kind of my testimony a little bit. That was my experience growing up in a Christian home, serving in the church from an early age, and having to realize, oh, this like good Christian life thing that I thought I was doing is all wrapped up in my pride and my desire to be seen. And so even though I'm doing good things and I desire to serve in good ways, I'm absolutely applying that in a way that in my life was sin. That's just one example of how this idea of our desires and how they drive us can get really complex as a believer. Other thoughts? Is this making sense so far? It is a muddy mess to some extent. So I don't think we can clarify it so much because that is the Christian life. It's murky and difficult, this side of eternity, often to understand ourselves and understand why we do what we do and driving towards sanctification. All right. Oh, yep, right here. Chase? Right here in front. In front. Yeah. I think that's why we need to stay with the believers and do I know what I want to say, it's just not coming out. Do life together? Yes. To help us, to build us up and help us to let us know when we might be going the opposite way of where we should, if that makes sense. Absolutely. The church is the hands and feet of Christ, often in our lives. You know, we think of the hands and feet and I think maybe think of like the mission field or things like that. There's a reality to that. And there's a very active hands and feet-ness in our life that we need from outside. We have the Holy Spirit in us, and that's wonderful. That's unique to our religion alone, is that we have the Holy Spirit in our life, renewing us daily. and I need the hands and feet of God around me, helping me in this Christian walk. We were not called to do it alone. All right, can I get a volunteer, this is, we're still on page 194, to read Hebrews chapter 12. And actually, if you wanna turn there, Hebrews chapter 12. We're going to read verses 6 and 7, but then stay there because we'll look at a couple verses. And Ed, you can just keep the mic because I'll ask you a couple questions. No, no, you already signed up. That's why I get the volunteer first, and then I let them know the scope. The Lord disciplines the ones he loves and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? Thank you. So Ed, based on this verse, what should a disobedient Christian expect? Discipline from God. That that should be an expectation You know, I think it's easy to look around and say, why do these evil people get away with what they get away with? Right? You look around and you go, man, the world is run and controlled by evil people, and they just seem to get away with it. But I do one little thing and I just can't get away with it. You know, God is just right there. You know, my wife is just right there. Whoever, my pastors are just right there to say, hey, Jameson, you gotta be aware of this thing and we gotta work on this. And I think we lose sight of that reality, that it's because we are sons and daughters, because we're adopted into the family, that that discipline exists. And a lack of discipline at least strongly implies a lack of family-ship. You're not in the family if you're not getting disciplined. Unless we hold a theology that you can be sinless for more than, I don't even want to give a time frame, that you can possibly be sinless this side of eternity, unless you hold some sort of theology like that, you have to understand that God is lovingly disciplining us in different ways throughout life, like we do with our children. I love my children. I don't expect them to be perfect, and that doesn't mean that I give them an excuse. Hey, that was really bad what you did. We all, you know, whatever, we're all messed up, no big deal. No, I lovingly work with them and hopefully, I'm not perfect in this, hopefully I would as a father lovingly work with them, discipline them and disciple them through that. That's what God does in our life. So if you're looking around your life and saying, man, I'm getting a lot of discipline, that means you are well loved. That should be an encouragement. Often doesn't feel like it in the moment, but it should be an encouragement that you are well, well loved. Okay, so a couple verses down in Hebrews. Ed, do you wanna read verse 10? And we're gonna look at why does God discipline us? They disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good that we may share his holiness. Okay, so based on that verse, why does God discipline us? There may be two reasons. For our good and his glory. Our good and his glory. That we may share his holiness. And if you think about that, I am, there is such a grace in that. I am unholy in that I, I am not great at separating myself from my own flesh and the world and everything around me. And God's desire is to make me, one of his children, holy like he is holy. And one way to do that is through discipline, is through working these loves of the world and loves of the flesh and these things that you wanna do, working them out of your life is an act of grace to bring about that holiness. God's over here. He's set apart. If I want to be near God, I also need to be set apart. Right? And set apart being the definition of holy. I also need to pursue holiness because that is where God is. That's why I pursue it. Not because I want to be, you know, holier than thou. That phrase doesn't really make sense. Doesn't really make sense to me, but, you know, it's one that we use, society uses. That's not my desire is to say, well, I want to be more set apart than Nathan here. That's irrelevant. I want to be where God is. And God wants me to be where he is as well. And so it's a lifetime journey of pursuing holiness until in eternity I get to be with him. That's what we do. Any other thoughts or questions on that idea of God disciplining those he loves? Verses 10 and 11 are such an encouragement because I remember being told as a child when I would leave the house and go to a ball game or go to a friend's house, remember who you represent. And it was representing my dad or my family's name, and I could do damage to that name. And I could grieve my father, and I could grieve my heavenly father too, but the reality is nothing I do can add to or take away from God. So when he disciplines us, 1 Tim is so helpful to see that it's only for our benefit. It's not that it adds to him or he's concerned about preserving his name or his glory. And having that description, because when I sin and I am under conviction, I feel like a loser. I feel like I can't rise. I can't rise above this issue or feel like I'm done and over with. And if I experienced the discipline of God without God's revelation and explaining why, I wouldn't have any hope. And so verse 11, I appreciate too, I've had this conversations with my kids before where it says, now no chastening or discipline for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous. So grateful God puts that in there to say, by the way, I get you when you're feeling this way and you don't like being corrected, I get it. I put it in here so you can know that I'm identifying with you. But at the same time, verse 11 ends with the hope that there's the peaceable fruit of righteousness that is the result of this chastening. But yeah, I just love those two verses, just so filled with hope for a believer. Yeah. Nathan, do you want to actually keep the mic and read, because I think it continues this thought, that second to last paragraph on that page, 194, starts with, it's easy to get… It's easy to get stuck in a pattern of spiritual battle against God, Repentance is the key to reestablishing the flow of God's grace through your life. Rid yourself of rebellion by seeing your sin as God sees it, by confessing it as sin, and by looking to His grace to help you overcome sin. I think we so often look at a disconnect from God, what on our side feels like a disconnect from God, and look for the actions I must take, the good things I must do to restore what feels broken. I feel disconnected, so I'm gonna make sure to wake up earlier and be in God's word. I might be gritting my teeth doing it, but I'm gonna do the things, I'm gonna make sure, I haven't been going to church, I'm gonna get back to church, I'm gonna do these things. And those are the right things to do, but in my experience, often for the wrong reason. A disconnect, what feels like a disconnect, and I say feels like because, Once saved, always saved. We're never actually disconnected from God, but from our side, we can put up walls and go, hey God, thanks for this salvation thing, but I don't need you right now. That the key to that, as it says here, repentance is the key to reestablishing the flow of God's grace through your life. So it's not about, you know, In this case, it's not about the put on first. I have to put off before I can put on in a way that's meaningful. It's like we talked about the winter coats last week. I'm in my filthy rags, and I'm trying to put on this nice brand new coat on top of it. I'm trying to get to church. I'm trying to read my Bible. I'm trying to do these things, and all that's going to do is it's not going to do is help me get any cleaner than I was before. I'm gonna smell the same that I smelled, I'm gonna look the same that I looked, but I first have to put off, take off those filthy rags, the sin that has caused that separation, repent of that thing, so that I can put on, and when you do that, Again, I would think we have maybe a thousand years in this room of salvation represented here, right? That we would all have those experiences of, oh, it's not in my strength. All of a sudden, what I was doing that felt like I was rowing uphill. possibility, but rowing uphill, that all of a sudden it's like, oh, fellowship feels sweeter all of a sudden. God's word speaks in a way that I haven't experienced in a long time. Prayer has something sweet to it again, and it's not because I'm now doing it the right way, it's because I first put off. I put off my sin, I put off, I repented of those things, and now, in God's grace, those things come naturally. Make sense? Cool. All right, let's move on to day four as we continue in this journey of looking at the Holy Spirit and how the Holy Spirit is changing our life and how we're supposed to react to that. All right, I'll read the first paragraph in day four. Our old self is gone. but its patterns still reside in our flesh. God commands us to put off that former way of life and draw instead from the resources of our regenerated spirit. The fact that we are required to choose between the flesh's resources and the spirit's indicates that another internal aspect exists, one that gives us the ability to make choices. Your soul can be described as your mind, your emotions, and your will. This is how we work. We consider what we should or shouldn't do. That's our mind. Then we set our affections one way or the other. That's our emotions. We usually choose to follow the direction that our affections have cast. So if you think of that model, we think something, we come to a conclusion, Our affections, our desires, our emotions, then are drawn towards that which we've set our mind to. And then our actions almost always just kind of naturally follow that. Because I desire to do that, because I was thinking about that, I now do that. That's a normal model of how we come to decisions and act. I'm not just describing sin, so don't even think sin in that. That's just a natural way that we, that our minds work. Make sense? Was there any confusion? Okay. So, that brings us to how do we make sure that that model is being applied in the right direction, right? This is the problem that we just laid out. My heart is deceitful. still is today, meaning my will and my emotions and what I want is gonna be complicated. I'm gonna have deceitful desires, desires that want to lead me to destruction, and by God's grace, I'm gonna have a whole slew of God-honoring desires that lead to sanctification. And so I'm one person, I have to make a choice. Am I gonna do this or am I gonna do this? How do I go through that process of of making sure that the thoughts that I have lead to the desires that honor God, which leads to the actions that bring sanctification in my life. That's what I want, but how do I do that? So Ephesians 4.23 says to be renewed in the spirit of your minds. So God recognizes this is, again, instruction to believers, I need renewal in my mind for the purpose of this sanctification. There's a reason that this is in Ephesians 4. Ephesians 4 is all about the what must I do now that I know who I am. If you haven't heard that before, the beginning of Ephesians is all about indicatives, the things that I am by God's grace, what God has made me, who God is, and how I relate to that. Then you get to the second half of Ephesians that's based on all that, here's a bunch of stuff that you get to do, that you have to do, that you need to pursue, that this is how to live based on that reality of who you are in Christ. There's a reason this comes in the second half of Ephesians. It's saying, based on who you are, based on who I made you to be, be renewed in the spirit of your minds. Be continually in a state of renewing your mind. Let's talk a little bit about how to do that, how to be renewed, because that's a good instruction. I don't know what that means. Be renewed. I don't know. I don't know how to do that. So can I get a volunteer? I'm not going to tell you what you're volunteering for yet. Just going to wait for a hand to raise. You're going to be reading a verse and answering a question. Can I get a volunteer? Is that Francine? Right here. All right, can you read James 121? It's there at the bottom of page 197. James 121. Put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls. Perfect. So the question is, and it's also there, what does the phrase, Receive with meekness the implanted word mean. What do you think that that phrase means? Then we'll open it up to others for thoughts as well. But what do you think that means? I think the word has to be in your heart, not just in your mind. You may read, but people read the word and never get anything out of it. Or they don't read the word at all, and they think the Holy Spirit's just going to be leading them, and that's impossible. The two are just intertwined incredibly. And that's something I've had to learn over the years. I can read and not even know what I'm reading. I mean, I can read and go away and didn't even penetrate. Or I can actually stop and say, I need to pay attention, Lord. I need this in my heart. And you can memorize. You can read it every day. But get it from here to here. And then, as Jesus said, be a doer of the word. Hear and do. So that's what it means to me. I really appreciate those thoughts and I agree. Any other thoughts on what comes to mind for you? Do you want to pass the mic? You're good. Thank you. I think when it says receive with meekness indicates the humility we need to approach the word with. Humility to be corrected, to put off what we previously thought and put on what we are seeing in the scripture as the Holy Spirit's enlightening it to us. Yeah. Yeah, I think we should not take lightly the instruction here of not just receive it, but how we should receive it with meekness. And again, I think if you replace that word with maybe pride, you could see how, I think I have a ring every time I speak. Do you guys hear that? No? Okay. Maybe if I lean back. How if this said, don't receive with pride the implanted word, You can start thinking about how God's Word has been twisted by people since we've had God's Word. It's been taken out of context and twisted and used for evil purposes throughout generations. It's not difficult to read God's Word. and choose to misinterpret it. It's not a difficult thing to do. People do it all the time. What is difficult is to let God's word speak for itself in your life in a way that says, whatever God's word says about me, I accept as true. With meekness, I receive God's word. Instead of with pride, I use God's word. With meekness, I receive God's word for what it is. It is sufficient, and I'm gonna let it speak into my life. Whatever it says, whether I agree with it or not, is irrelevant, because in meekness, I receive God's word implanted in my life. So here's a broad question. What then motivates us to implant God's word into our minds? That's the calling, to implant or receive the word that has been implanted into our minds. What are some of the motivations that come to mind? Why would we want to do that? And then Chase, you're gonna have to run that mic around quite a bit, because we're gonna get lots of answers on this. Starting over here with Francine. I think when you get saved, if it's true salvation, there's a relationship that starts and you want to learn. about that person you have a relationship with. Not person, but God. And I think that's a desire he puts in our heart. I do believe it's there. And if you're saved, or you think you're saved, and you don't have any of that desire, then I would question where you're at with God. Because that should be one of the initial desires we have. So a new natural desire that God's given us is one of the things that motivates us. She stole my thunder. To know God. All the way in the back. Good hustle. I would say out of a love for the Lord, kind of like what the first thought was there, how once you're saved, it starts to become more like a natural attraction to the Lord. Instead of forcing yourself to do it, it just starts to become more of a natural thing. So I think the thing that we should try to be striving for is just doing it out of a genuine love for the Lord and not for benefit for us, but purely for Him and His glory. What I appreciate in all three of these answers is all three of them imply that we don't come with our own agenda. Right, it's like out of a love for God, out of a desire that God has given us, out of the relationship that we want with God naturally, we go to God's word. And I think there's something insightful about that, that if we go to God's word, like Google, I'm gonna, what? job should I take versus about jobs? And I go as if I'm trying to answer my question, and so I go to God's word to answer this question that I have about what I want to be doing. We're missing something, because we're not just letting God's word speak. I don't know what I need to hear. God knows what I need to hear, so I'm gonna let God's word speak in that way. Jake. Yeah, I agree with everything that everybody else said. I think also, just to know, reality as it really is, because the world has so many lies about everything, creation, who we are as people, what man is, who God is, and you go to the Word when you believe that it's the authoritative Word of God, you go to the Word expecting to learn about reality as it actually is, correcting all those lies. And I think that is something that was maybe most transformative in my life and continues to be transformative. Oscar, go ahead. Oh man, I love these answers. These are so good. As far as what motivates us, oh man, it's so... When God's word talks about being renewed, God says, you are a new creation. I took you where you were, but that's not where I'm going to keep you. I'm going to make you closer to the image of my son. So be renewed. That is so motivating. we're clay, right, and he's the clay maker, and we're trying to, or the potter, and we're trying to like twist ourselves, like, oh, well, I should be this way, and God says, no, let me do that. I will do that for you. That is, it's just, the submission and just, that's so reassuring that we don't have to do that. God can do that for us, and it's so, so, so, that's motivating for me. Amen, I love that, the use of the analogy of the potter and the clay. Because one thing that you pulled out in it, is I think maybe one of the most important things, The clay just kinda is, and the potter does the manipulation. If we think in terms of boss employee, if that was the analogy that got used there, it'd be like, an employee has to chew, the boss is gonna say, do this, and here's your job description, but then you gotta figure out how to do that. The clay doesn't have to figure out how to do anything. It just is as the potter manipulates it and becomes what the potter intended. You know, that's what the clay's purpose is, is to be moldable. Right? So if you were going to have a purpose, it goes, here's what I'm trying to do today. I'm just trying to be soft. That's it. Just trying to be moldable and let the potter do what the potter intends to do in my life. I like that a lot. I hadn't thought about that in this context. To go to God's word with that in mind is what should both motivate us, but also is what refreshes us. Because again, to go to God's word for the answers to the questions that you decided you needed to know can often be exhausting. And that's just personal testimony. I don't know that I have a scripture anywhere that says to go to God's word for your agenda is exhausting, but my experience is it is exhausting. It's work, it's strain to go. I'm looking for what I think I need. How do I find that in God's word versus I don't know what I need. But I need God's word to speak into my life. And I trust that it is sufficient. I trust that God's word has something to say in my life and to my life today. And when you go with that in mind, all of a sudden, it starts speaking into your life in a way that you're like, whoa, like that, I had never thought about that psalm in that way, or that proverb as it relates. I'm not saying, how do I deal with my employee, or my employer? I have a problem, I'm fighting with someone at work, I'm gonna go do a Google search on verses that speak to that, but I just happen to be in God's word today, and this proverb talks about what's happening in my heart related to that, and I didn't even think of that. But all of a sudden, because I'm clay, the potter then is doing his work in our lives. Any other thoughts on that? Chase? Francine? Good. I think that's what it means by being meek when you come to get the engrafted word in your heart. If you start with prayer and praise before you ever start reading, you're coming as a child and asking a father. And a lot of it is, what is our image of God? If we don't see him as a loving father, or as a, that he has all the answers and all the truth, like Jake said. You know, he has, our world is going 100% one way, and his ways are usually opposite to our ways. So we tend to excuse ourselves a lot based on what's going on around us, instead of looking into his word for where we should be. I'm going off script at this point, but I think that's a principle that applies to much more than just how we approach God's word. I mean, I think, I'm gonna give two other examples in my life where God has used that principle to bring some transformation. I think in prayer is one of those that comes to mind. To transition from, God, here is my pre-written agenda. I have my list of the things I care about, and God, that is all that I bring to you. God, please do that. Thanks for this time. Please do this, please do this, please do this, please do this. Love you, talk to you tomorrow. signing off, to transition from that to one of, God, I'm not sure what you would have me pray for today. Removing the agenda and allowing the Holy Spirit, allowing God's word to be a part of that prayer time, to have things come to mind as you are praying, as you're speaking God's word. and allow that to be something brings a refreshment to prayer that I hadn't experienced before. This was maybe coming up on two years ago now that this journey started on the prayer topic. And the next lesson, actually, in this book is the Holy Spirit and my prayer life. So I'm excited to get into that. I think Robert will be unpacking that. because I think prayer life is next, you know, as you think about the Christian walk. So I guess there's a little teaser. But that same idea of if I bring my agenda to God's word, or if I bring my agenda to prayer, or if I bring my agenda to how I think life should be going, there is this exhaustion that comes with that. I'm exhausted when I try to plan out my life and, make things happen because I think that it's what's best, and just striving, striving, striving. I'm having these conversations with Rachel this week. I'm like, what are we supposed to be doing in life? And wrote my to-do list, and it's like my brain is full of stuff. And I think it's good stuff, but it's just so full. And how do you kind of take a step back and say, you know what, I'm just gonna, in faith, walk according to God's word to the best of my ability, be in prayer, be in God's word, and just see what God brings about. There's such freedom that can come from that. To say, I'm not called to divine my perfect magical path, you know, like I'm a movie star. That's not the Christian walk. The Christian walk is God tells us how to walk, and then we just walk. God decides the path, God decides where it's going, and I can just trust that. I can be the clay, I can trust that. And so that principle of what motivates us to implant God's word in our mind should also motivate us towards prayer, should also motivate us towards how we actually walk the Christian walk. All right, any thoughts on that? So there's a bit of a tangent, but one that will apply even as we get into next week. All right. So I'm gonna keep reading that first paragraph there on page 198. In lesson two, we learned about this picture of grafting a new branch into a grapevine or fruit tree. The new branch allows the old plant to bear the good fruit of the engrafted branch. God wants us to implant his word into the fabric of how we think. If you try to draw from the resources of your flesh and the spirit at the same time, conflicting messages will flood your soul. This ultimately leads to defeat. God's word is able to save you from this double-mindedness. There are times when we have to preach the truth of God's word to ourselves. The psalmist says it this way. Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. So you have King David speaking to his own soul, encouraging it. He is obviously feeling cast down. Right, he's feeling depressed, he's feeling this turmoil within him and he's instructing himself and rebuking his own soul to do what God's word calls him to do, to hope in God, to rise and praise him for his salvation. And so this is that conflict that we talked about a little bit ago. I have my desires, they're deceitful, they're dangerous, they lead me astray. God is giving me desires. How do I reconcile that? How do I actually trust a desire? How do I take a step and how do I not get so paralyzed in analysis that I don't do anything? And the answer is here. God's word is able to save us from this double-mindedness. And you've either interacted with yourself or likely interacted with people around you who are trying to make a decision and maybe use phrases like, I'm choosing to quit my job because I really just need to find myself. Or I just feel like God would not want me to have to deal with this boss who's telling me what to do. God wouldn't want that for me. Things like that, that's just one that comes to mind more recently, a conversation I had. Conversations like that, you almost go like, why don't you open your Bible and we could like, just start reading your Bible and I think God's word does have something to say about that. And you're putting words in God's mouth that, you know, go to Philemon and tell me that God doesn't want you to submit where you are. You're gonna have a hard time doing it. But people attribute, and we can absolutely do this too, attribute our desires to God's even when it conflicts with God's word. And so the answer is get as much of God's word in your mind and your heart as you can because you'll naturally start applying that in the decisions you make. And that's a lifelong journey that we're on to be striving to implant God's word in our lives so that that double-mindedness lessens and lessens and lessens through life. Make sense? Perfect. Okay. I'm off script. But hopefully this is helpful. All right. Let's read the next paragraph. We've got about six minutes. We'll definitely get through day four. So this is kind of a middling paragraph on page 198. I'll start with Hebrews chapter 12 verse 3 there. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary and faint-hearted. The end of this verse could be translated, lest you get sick and let go in your souls. When life's troubles and heartaches wear us down, we are vulnerable to sin's attack. It can become hard to tell ourselves the truth about sin and victory. It may be that our soul is sick. We don't feel good when we're sick. But when a good doctor diagnoses the problem and prescribes the right medicine, feeling good never felt so good. The word of God is the right medicine for a sick soul. Allow the Holy Spirit to use God's word to center your mind on Christ. So that's what we're talking about as we think about this double-mindedness. It is a sickness of our soul, and we so often strive for anything but the medicine. We try everything we can to not have to go to the doctor. And yet, there is only the medicine of God's word for what we're going through, for that discouragement, for what David describes as this cast down soul that is in turmoil within him. He knew there was one answer, hope in God. Turn to God's word, turn to God as the only physician for that sickness. Can I get a volunteer, maybe we'll end here, to read 2 Corinthians 10 verses 3 through 5. It's at the bottom of 198. 2 Corinthians 10 verses 3 through 5. All the way in the back. Oh, Dan, perfect. Now you're good. Thanks, Jake. That we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments in every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ. Thank you. So there's something really unique here in this passage that's talking about these weapons of warfare. That last sentence there, excuse me, describes the effect that these weapons will have. We have weapons, but the actual description of the effect of those weapons is unique. It says, we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God. That's effect one. The second one, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ. So hopefully you can see in this, you know, you often think about the war happening outward, and there is a lot of truth to this. This is a very evangelistic passage here, where it's saying, you know, essentially these weapons of warfare that we've been provided will have this effect outward, but it also has this effect inward. When we are arguing with ourselves and have lofty opinions, God's word is the thing that destroys that. When my thoughts are running rampant, God's word is the thing that takes those captive, right? That's the weapons of warfare that we have for the war that's happening in ourselves as we're trying to work through this. Make sense? Okay. I'll end with Philippians 2, verses 12 through 13, and then we'll finish up next week. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. We're called to just work this thing out. It's not a one and done. It's not this thing that just happens. It's a journey that we're on. And we're called to do it because God has prepared these works. He has put them in us. He has given us the will to work for his good pleasure. This is not a journey that we are on our own. We don't need to muscle through it. We don't need to white knuckle through it. God, by his grace, is there with us as we walk this path of the changing life and what the Holy Spirit is doing in our life. Any thoughts or questions before we close? All right, let's pray. Father, I thank you for these truths from your word that you are Your scripture is active and alive in our life today, and that you call us to that. I thank you that you've given us weapons to combat the inward war that we wage against our flesh and against our minds, that you have a tool that reconciles the struggle in making decisions and understanding our desires. that your word is the ruler that we can measure those things and determine what will bring you glory. Father, I pray that we would not just be hearers of this word, but that we would be doers, that by your Holy Spirit, we would act out of love for you and out of what you've done for us, but that we would act and that we would take active steps on this path of sanctification. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Thank you.